Customers of Southwest Gas can expect reduced monthly bills after a newly approved rate change takes effect.
The Public Utilities Commission of Nevada has approved a statewide rate decrease for Southwest Gas customers as part of an order issued in Docket No. 25-05009.
The decision, approved June 23, follows a settlement agreement between the commission’s Regulatory Operations Staff, Southwest Gas, and the Nevada Bureau of Consumer Protection.
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The approved change lowers the company’s Deferred Energy Accounting Adjustment, or DEAA, rate, which affects how customers are charged for the cost of natural gas.
In Southern Nevada, the DEAA rate will drop from $0.16528 per therm to ($0.20000) per therm.
In Northern Nevada, the rate will go from $0.15000 per therm to ($0.25000) per therm.
The lower rates are scheduled to take effect July 1.
Based on average usage, Southwest Gas estimates the reduction will lower monthly bills by more than $13 for customers in Southern Nevada and by more than $22 for customers in Northern Nevada.
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The company stated, “See Exhibit 1 to the accepted Stipulation for an average bill comparison.”
The DEAA is a pass-through rate, which means Southwest Gas does not earn a profit from the natural gas it purchases on behalf of its customers.
State law allows the company to earn returns on infrastructure investments, but not on fuel purchases.
Southwest Gas recovers natural gas costs through two charges: the Base Tariff Energy Rate, or BTER, and the DEAA.
The BTER is based on estimated fuel costs and updated quarterly using the previous 12 months of recorded prices.
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The DEAA adjusts for any difference between the BTER revenues and the actual cost of gas, ensuring customers pay only what the utility paid.
Overcharges result in a credit, while undercharges result in a collection adjustment.
Officials said the rate reduction reflects shifts in market conditions.
The Bureau of Consumer Protection, part of the Nevada Attorney General’s Office, represents residential and small business customers in matters before the commission.
The Department of Justice filed a federal lawsuit against Nevada on Friday, alleging that the state failed to provide statewide voter registration lists when requested, according to a news release.
Colorado, Hawaii, and Massachusetts were also sued, bringing the total to 18 states now facing lawsuits from the Justice Department. The department’s Civil Rights Division filed the complaints.
Francisco Aguilar, Nevada secretary of state, was charged with violating the Civil Rights Act after he responded on Aug. 21 to a letter from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, saying there was no basis for her request for certain voter information, asserting privacy concerns, according to the lawsuit.
According to the complaint, Aguilar provided a link to the state’s computerized voter registration list. However, the version shared contained incomplete fields, including registrants’ full names, dates of birth, addresses, driver’s license numbers, and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers.
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Aguilar’s Aug. 21 letter said his office would follow up, but the attorney general never received the list containing all the requested fields, the lawsuit said.
According to the news release, Congress assigns the attorney general primary responsibility for enforcing the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act, both enacted to ensure that states maintain accurate and effective voter registration systems.
The attorney general also has authority under the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to request, review, and analyze statewide voter registration lists, according to the release.
“States have the statutory duty to preserve and protect their constituents from vote dilution,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said in the release. “At this Department of Justice, we will not permit states to jeopardize the integrity and effectiveness of elections by refusing to abide by our federal elections laws. If states will not fulfill their duty to protect the integrity of the ballot, we will.”
Contact Akiya Dillon at adillon@reviewjournal.com.
Karen Budd-Falen, a top official at the Department of Interior, has financial ties to the controversial Thacker Pass lithium mine in northern Nevada — a project that the Trump administration worked to fast-track during its first term. In recent months, the administration took an equity stake in the mine and the mine’s parent company.
After an unexplained delay, Public Domain and High Country News obtained Budd-Falen’s financial disclosure earlier this month, which details her family’s extensive land holdings. Among them is Home Ranch LLC, a Nevada ranching operation valued at over $1 million. Nevada’s business search database shows a Home Ranch LLC that listed Frank Falen as the manager in February 2022. Frank Falen is also the name of Karen Budd Falen’s husband.
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Karen Budd-Falen, senior partner at Budd-Falen Law Offices LLC, speaks at the 2024 Western Ag and Environmental Law Conference. Budd-Falen is a top official at the Interior Department. Credit: uacescomm / CC via Flickr
In November 2018, not long after Karen Budd-Falen joined the first Trump administration as a top legal official at the Interior Department, Home Ranch LLC agreed to sell water rights to Lithium Nevada Corporation, the company developing the Thacker Pass mine, for an undisclosed amount of money, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Frank Falen is listed on the document.
A Home Ranch also appears in planning documents that Lithium Nevada submitted to federal regulators during Trump’s first term. A monitoring plan for Thacker Pass, dated July 2021, notes that the company intended to use existing stock water wells owned by Home Ranch LLC to “monitor potential drawdown impacts” from its mining operations.
The water purchase agreement and other records raise questions about potential conflicts of interest. Budd-Falen was appointed in March as associate deputy secretary to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum — a position that does not require Senate confirmation. She also served as a high-ranking legal official at the Interior Department during President Trump’s first term.
It was during that earlier government stint that her official calendar lists a November 6, 2019 meeting in which Budd-Falen was scheduled to have “lunch with Lithium Nevada.”
In 2019, Lithium Nevada, a subsidiary of the Canadian mining firm Lithium Americas, was seeking speedy approval for its Thacker Pass mine in northern Nevada. In the waning days of the first Trump administration it received just that. In January 2021, the Bureau of Land Management approved the mine project, which includes some 5,700 acres of public land.
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The $2.2 billion, open-pit mine project has drawn fierce opposition from area tribes and environmentalists, who argue it threatens water resources, endangered species and sacred cultural sites. Thacker Pass, known as Peehee Mu’huh to the Paiute Shoshone people, was the site of an 1865 massacre of at least 31 Paiute people.
Budd-Falen was being considered to lead the BLM during Trump’s first term, but turned down the director job when she learned that she and her husband would have to sell their interests in their family ranches to avoid conflicts of interest, she told The Fence Post in 2018.
Since returning to power, Trump and his team have again worked to move the project forward, as part of a broader push to boost critical mineral mining in the U.S. In September, the Trump administration struck a deal with Lithium Americas to take a 5% equity stake in both the Thacker Pass mine and the company, in exchange for the release of loan money from the Department of Energy.
Budd-Falen has largely worked behind the scenes at the Interior Department. Little is known about what issues she has focused on since returning to the sprawling agency. Notably, Interior officials have yet to release her ethics agreement, which would detail any companies or projects that are off limits.
“Did she have any oversight of the environmental review process regarding Thacker Pass? It is a big question,” said Kyle Roerink, executive director of the Great Basin Water Network, a water conservation group in Nevada. “If she didn’t recuse herself, it would fly in the face of the impartial decisionmaking that Americans expect from government officials.”
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