{"id":12242,"date":"2010-01-29T14:09:45","date_gmt":"2010-01-29T21:09:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=12242"},"modified":"2010-01-29T14:09:48","modified_gmt":"2010-01-29T21:09:48","slug":"prc-orders-utility-company-to-refund-millions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/01\/prc-orders-utility-company-to-refund-millions\/","title":{"rendered":"PRC orders utility company to refund millions"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_6757\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 120px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-6757\" title=\"Jones, Sandy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/Jones-Sandy1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"120\" height=\"160\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sandy Jones<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The Texas-based company contends the counties, like municipalities, have the authority to collect franchise fees \u2013 amounts paid by a franchisee as consideration for the right to use the public streets and highways of the local government granting the franchise fees. But commissioners ruled the fees were never approved.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is illegal for El Paso Electric to be passing these costs on to consumers,\u201d PRC District 5 Commissioner <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmprc.state.nm.us\/commissioner5.htm\">Sandy Jones<\/a> said during Tuesday&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmprc.state.nm.us\/meetings\/pdf\/regularopen\/tuesagenda.pdf\">hearing<\/a>.  \u201cIf it was up to me, I\u2019d make El Paso Electric refund all of the fees collected since 1999.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But customers may not see the money returned in a reduction of their bills right away, because the\u00a0the company filed a notice of appeal with the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmsupremecourt.nmcourts.gov\/\">New Mexico Supreme Court<\/a> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are working together with the counties to resolve this issue through the courts and the Legislature,&#8221; \u00a0Teresa Souza , a El Paso Electric spokesperson, wrote in response to NMPolitics.net inquiry.<\/p>\n<p>The PRC order was spearheaded by Jones, who represents both counties on the PRC. It demands that the company refund, over a three-year period, more than $5.3 million in fees to customers in Do\u00f1a Ana County and more than $280,000 to customers in Otero County, plus interest.<\/p>\n<p>Although the franchise fees have been collected since 1999, the refund period \u2013 June 1, 2004 through the present \u2013 reflects the time that the fees were charged as a separate line item on customer bills without PRC review or approval.<\/p>\n<p>The refunds, if the PRC order is upheld, would be made through credits that will appear on customer utility bills. Consumers will also see a 2-percent reduction on their utility bills within the next few months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New Mexico Public Regulation Commission has ordered El Paso Electric to stop charging franchise fees and refund over $5 million collected from its customers in Do\u00f1a Ana and Otero counties since 1999.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[115,107],"class_list":["post-12242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-dona-ana-county","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}