Wanda’s power
A Republican candidate for a seat in the Nevada Senate isn’t afraid of taking on the utility company
She’s says she’s seen Nevada “go to hell in a hand basket” during the 18 years that she’s lived here. Among the things that irritate Wanda Wright, Republican candidate for state Senate District 2: the loss of open range land, more development than the water table can support, career politicians, kids in public schools using antiquated technology and the victimization of senior citizens and people with disabilities.
But if you really want to get this feisty 50-year-old on a soapbox, ask her about Sierra Pacific Power Company. She bitterly refers to the power company as “Sorry and Pathetic” and can go on at length about utility rates, delivery charges, service failures and power surges so strong they “smoke” her surge protectors.
She’s lost lamps, televisions and at least one $1,500 high-end video recorder and splicing machine.
In fact, the most recent testament to power surge damage, a 40-inch television, is parked in the middle of Wright’s living room floor, near hanging rows of horse tack, trophies and ribbons at the W.W. Ranch, a few miles north of Whiskey Springs Road on the Pyramid Highway. On Saturday, after a power outage that lasted more than seven hours, the power came back on—with a vengeance.
“They have smoked everything in my house,” she says. “I’m on a first-name basis with the people in claims.”
While the power was out, the Wrights had no way to run the pump to water their 28 horses. The Wrights raise quarter horses, and the signs along their driveway are thick with attitude: “If you’re not invited, stay out. Warning to county officials: Don’t come further without a warrant.”
Wright’s campaign materials, printed on bright pink and yellow paper, declare that she is “unafraid to take on big businesses and big government.” Billing herself as a “rancher who understands and supports ranchers,” Wright notes that she “spearheaded [a] drive to halt Sierra Pacific rate hikes.”
In fact, during Sierra Pacific’s most recent bids for more dough from ratepayers—the company had sought $205 million in northern Nevada and $922 million in the south—Wright helped to gather thousands of signatures on a petition to Nevada’s Public Utilities Commission, asking that a request for yet another rate increase not be granted.
“I’ve been impressed by her diligence and her attention to detail,” says Tim Hay, a consumer advocate with the Nevada Attorney General’s Office—who has himself gained a reputation for being a fly in Sierra Pacific’s ointment. “The more than 30,000 signatures she helped to obtain was certainly helpful in the PUC’s evaluation of Sierra Pacific’s case.”
Sierra Pacific applied to recover $205 million in northern Nevada using a deferred energy accounting adjustment rate. Of that, it was allowed to recover $139.2 million over the next three years, starting this month.
“We were frankly disappointed in the decision,” Hay says. The consumer advocate is filing a petition for a rehearing on the deferred energy accounting adjustment. He’ll also be taking a close look at this week’s deal between Sierra Pacific and Duke Energy North America to provide up to 1,000 megawatts of electricity per hour to Nevadans this summer. Officials have been concerned over the utility’s ability to purchase needed power for the upcoming summer months, which require more electricity than any other time of the year.
“We’re going to look at these contracts in some detail to see if it’s a good deal for Nevada consumers,” Hay says.
The make-up of next year’s state legislative body could prove pivotal for the future of utilities in Nevada.
Wright would like to see more utility cooperatives, where citizens pay money into a common fund and band together to buy energy for themselves. This system is used by some of Wright’s clients at W.W. Ranch Supply who get their power from California’s Plumas-Sierra Rural Electric Cooperative.
“Everybody comes in and says the service is great,” she says. “It’s a fraction of what Sorry and Pathetic costs, and every year in December [consumers] get a rebate check! Sometimes the Plumas cooperative even throws a party for them in June with raffles and neat prizes, like those new super-efficient water heaters. Here, we’re on the other end, getting the shaft.”
To create smaller cooperatives—or even larger municipal utility districts—would require new state legislation. Given the current make-up of the state’s lawmaking body, change wouldn’t seem likely, Wright says.
But Hay seems somewhat hopeful.
“I think we’ve got a better chance in the upcoming session than we did in the last,” he says. The track record of municipal utility districts has been stronger than that of investor-owned utilities in the past few years, Hay says.
“Basically, in the way they have coped with the volatile energy market and in the prices passed on to ratepayers, the municipal group has fared much better,” Hay says.
Without the details for a specific plan for a cooperative or municipal utility district, Sierra Pacific officials didn’t have much to say. The concept of forming a utility cooperative may sound easier than it would be.
“Providing reliable gas and electric service to Northern Nevada is an extremely complicated undertaking,” says Sierra Pacific Power Co. spokesman Karl Walquist. “Sierra Pacific has done an excellent job of this for over 100 years.”
Besides possibly lower rates and rebates, one of the biggest advantages of a utility cooperative for ranchers in Wright’s neck of the woods would be the incentive to use more alternative power sources. She calls the state Legislature’s move in 2001 to require Sierra Pacific to use more wind, solar and geothermal sources “too late.”
“If [Sierra Pacific were] really for the people, they would have had their fingers in alternative power already, and it would not have had to be mandated.”
Wright’s views are pretty moderate for a Republican. She believes that the government should be regulating industries like the pharmaceutical companies that charge outrageous prices for medications.
“Look at Canada,” she says. “They don’t want for prescription medications.”
She believes more should be done for underrepresented segments of the community, like seniors and the disabled. But she also believes that, unlike Canada, all this can be done without raising taxes.
“There’s so much waste in government,” she says. “If they looked into it, they’d find a lot of money.”
Wright meets with senior citizens frequently these days, and she’s become a touch point—someone to call with troubles.
She tells the story of an older woman on a fixed income who called to tell Wright that she and her husband had decided not to fill their prescriptions in order to pay their power bill. The couple didn’t not qualify for assistance.
“Their prescriptions were $425; their power bill was $410,” Wright says, her voice starting to tremble. “They decided to go without their prescriptions to pay goddamn Sierra Pacific. … Six weeks later she called to say her husband had passed away.”
Wright begins to cry openly and angrily as she continues.
“If that’s not wrong—for a company to be so greedy … We’re not a Third World country; seniors are not disposable."