LETTERS: NV Energy’s proposed rate structure unfair to rooftop solar customers

The article on the National Clean Energy Summit quotes all the President Barack Obama catchphrases that seem to support residential rooftop solar systems for Nevada homeowners ("Obama talks clean energy at summit," Aug. 25 Review-Journal). The article states in part that Sen. Harry Reid said he wasn't satisfied with the current rooftop solar energy model used by NV Energy.

According to NV Energy, these systems have reached the 235-megawatt statewide cap for net metering. Net metering gives rooftop solar customers a credit for excess electricity generated and delivered to the utility.

The article also stated, "NV Energy has proposed a new rate structure that the Alliance for Solar Choice says would devastate the industry." Sen. Reid was quoted as saying, "They're using a model that was developed by Westinghouse and Edison in 1888. We have a new model. The world has changed, and they should change with it."

What was not so clear is Sen. Reid's position, for or against, NV Energy's carte blanche fiat proposal to the Public Utilities Commission for a new rate structure. This new structure is decidedly not in favor of current or future rooftop solar customers.

NV Energy lobbied the state Legislature for net metering rate changes. The politicians have given NV Energy a conflict-of-interest advantage of proposing these new rates, which will no doubt be rubber-stamped by the PUC, whose members are often appointed by the same politicians and utilities industries.

Warren Buffett's occasional statements calling for economic justice in the United States apparently do not apply to his ownership of NV Energy and his bid for a continued electricity services monopoly in Nevada.

John Edward Jordan

Henderson

ESAs benefit wealthy

Stan Cohen's letter provided good statistics on why Education Savings Accounts would not enable any poor families to send their children to first-rate private schools (Aug. 31 Review-Journal). I would like to shed additional light on this.

Mr. Cohen points out that the $5,700 maximum subsidy allowed would not be anywhere near adequate for such an enrollment, pointing to private schools with tuitions of $25,000, $13,000 and $12,000 per year. This should not surprise anyone. After all, the 2013 expenditure per pupil for Nevada's public school exceeded $12,000.

Of course, the Review-Journal erroneously told its readership in a June editorial that private education would be available to any student holding that $5,700 voucher ("ESAs can cover private school tuition," June 15). The paper is simply wrong. Also, in an Aug. 10 editorial ("Opportunities for ESA input"), the R-J noted a total of 700 applications had been submitted for the vouchers. This small application turnout alone should have indicated that something was amiss.

For the sake of transparency, the newspaper should discover from the state and report on just how many of those 700 applications came from poor families looking for a private school education, as opposed to wealthy families taking advantage of free tax money in transitioning their children from public to private education.

Richard L. Strickland

North Las Vegas

Health co-op failure

How difficult is it to recognize that the Affordable Care Act isn't all it was designed to be? Dean Tomsa's letter states that President Barack Obama's advisers provided him with the data that prompted him to promise Americans they could keep their doctors and their health plans. Did Mr. Tomsa also notice last week yet another casualty of the ACA? Some 14,000 Nevadans who had coverage through the Nevada Health CO-OP are losing it (Aug. 27 Review-Journal).

Nationwide, 22 of the 23 co-ops have lost money, with Maine the lone exception. Did Mr. Tomsa notice that these friends of the president who ran the co-ops and who like to use the term "nonprofit" are seriously overpaid individuals who helped create the downfall?

The ACA used grant money to fund navigators to enroll individuals. In Nevada, navigators were the No. 1 enrollers of individuals into the co-op. So we have two taxpayer-funded government entities that essentially have failed. These funds instead could have been spent for education or any of America's other important needs.

The real truth in Washington, D.C., is that the government has once again proved it has no idea how to be fiscally responsible. It cannot understand the basics of economics and shouldn't be allowed to control American prosperity.

Patrick A. Casale

Las Vegas