Energy costs should be no secret

The Nevada state Legislature has enacted regulations requiring your electric company to buy an ever-increasing portion of its power from less reliable, more expensive, politically favored sources, including solar farmers who know how to buy American political juice.

That added cost gets passed on to every Nevadan — including businesses who could hire more people or pay higher salaries if they weren’t paying artificially jacked-up power bills.

And this in a decade when newly discovered fossil fuel resources, right on this continent, promise a 200-year supply of domestic energy, not held hostage by any foreign potentate.

Not only does that mean prices should actually be falling, it also means alternative energy sources can’t be made the better buy in just a few years, simply by government subsidizing their efforts “just for a while,” to give them “that little push” they need.

Are you ready to pay tax subsidies on one end, and higher electric bills on the other ... for 200 years?

And how do lawmakers plan to respond when consumers start to squawk about this unnecessary burden?

Why, they want the numbers kept secret, of course, so you can’t even complain.

For the second straight legislative session, lawmakers in Carson City have proposed a bill that would keep secret from voters and ratepayers the terms of utility sales agreements entered into by the providers of so-called “renewable” energy, including price per kilowatt hour.

Senate Bill 123, which revises regulations designed to encourage use of these “renewables,” has a section that would prohibit the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada from disclosing “any information” concerning a contract, lease or agreement between a utility and the provider of “green” power.

The law would make power-purchase deals “proprietary” and classify their information as “a trade secret” unless both the utility and provider agree to publicize the terms.

It’s not clear who requested the rule’s inclusion in SB 123, but similar language in an ill-fated 2011 bill came from solar, geothermal and wind companies in Northern Nevada, then-Sen. Mike Schneider, D-Las Vegas, said at the time.

Eric Witkoski, the state consumer advocate who represents ratepayers in utility rate cases, has concerns about the language. Keeping green-energy prices secret only raises added questions and encourages wild conjecture about the cost of “clean” power, he said.

(In fact, manufacturing windmills and solar panels causes plenty of pollution, and both have to be backed up by fossil generators, anyway, since they work far less than 24 hours a day.)

When the Review-Journal asked to see pricing details on power buys from seven clean-energy projects back in 2010, arguing consumers had a right to know the costs, NV Energy officials said disclosing the price per kilowatt hour could affect competition and future green-energy costs

The Public Utilities Commission told NV Energy to release the prices. The contracts revealed that the seven green-power contracts cost NV Energy 8.6 cents to 13.5 cents per kilowatt hour, compared with roughly 4 cents per kilowatt hour for wholesale power from natural gas.

Less than a year later, in the next legislative session, the confidentiality clause appeared in AB416.

If the state Legislature has any role in setting energy rates, it should be limited to making sure energy providers compete on a level playing field, where those who can offer the most reliable power at the lowest price have a fair chance to advertise those advantages, and prosper.

When the Legislature plays favorites, requiring power companies to buy a certain percentage of their power from alternative producers — regardless of cost — they’re already way out of bounds. In addition to inviting graft and corruption (for who’s to decide who’s favored?) this artificially drives up rates, crippling any economic recovery, while also sending false signals that indicate alternatives to fossil fuels are a good investment. (If they really were, why would anyone need to keep the numbers a secret?)

But to do all that, and then slap on a blanket of secrecy so consumers can’t even calculate for themselves what it’s really costing to allow lawmakers to use our electric-bills-on-steroids to reward lobbyists, campaign donors, and tree-huggers singing Kumbaya?

That’s priceless.