LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — The harsh reality of high power bills is about to hit home again for all of us as Las Vegas braces for summer. We already had a taste of the heat to come last week.
At the same time, Las Vegas locals were asking state lawmakers to support a bill that would make NV Energy bear more of the burden for higher fuel costs, and pay up when the utility makes mistakes on customers' bills.
In the first "Darcy, What's the deal?" segment of 2025, we brought you the story of a local couple who found out they'd been overcharged by NV Energy for years but would only get a partial refund because that's all the Public Utilities Commission required NV Energy to do.
WATCH: State law would ensure full refund for customers overcharged on energy bills
Now, a bill to change that is one step closer to becoming law.
Pastor Marlon Anderson, an NV Energy customer and the clean energy community organizer for Faith Organizing Alliance was one of many to testify in support of Assembly Bill 452 before the Nevada Assembly Committee on Growth and Infrastructure on April 8.
"On behalf of the community, I speak for everybody when I say, come on man! I mean, come on man," Anderson said. "People are stretching every dollar that they earn to survive but sometimes it's just not enough. We need solutions that bring some sense of accountability and fairness to the energy system."
Carlin Dinola knows firsthand how unfair the energy system can be.
"I was robbed. That's what it feels like," she told 13 Investigates in January, when she asked "Darcy, what's the deal?" after learning she'd been overcharged by NV Energy for six years but would only be reimbursed for a fraction of what she and her husband had overpaid due to the utility's mistake, which was charging them the wrong rate for their property type.
"They were gonna reimburse me for six months worth of overcharging — approximately $96."
Not the more than $1,100 that would make up a full refund.
At the time, NV Energy sent me the following statement.
"In a recent review, we discovered certain customers had been charged the wrong rate for their property type. In some cases, customers were overcharged and in some cases, customers were undercharged. NV Energy refunded the overcharged customers in accordance with the applicable rules and is not seeking repayment by those customers who were undercharged."
AB 452 adds new provisions requiring that if the PUC finds a utility has overcharged a customer, the utility must refund the full overcharged amount plus interest — a policy priority being pushed by the Nevada Conservation League on behalf of customers like Carlin and others who testified in last Tuesday's hearing.
"If I get to overcharge you, and I'm only on the hook to pay you back for six months of those overages, then I think that's communicating to the customer that if we can take advantage of you, maybe we will," said NCL Executive Director Kristee Watson.
"What do you even make of the fact that that was allowed," I asked.
"Yeah. It's just not fair. Right?" replied Watson. "I mean, if I go to a store and they overcharge me—people make mistakes. Mistakes happen. We can get through that but we have to make our customers whole."
Assemblymember Jill Dickman wondered why that hasn't been the case all along.
"So, how did it come to be that if someone was overcharged, that they were only refunded that small portion of what they were overcharged?" Dickman asked NV Energy Vice President Janet Wells during the hearing.
"NV Energy implemented a rule that has actually been in existence for quite some time in the state, and that was what the rule had dictated," Wells responded.
As we reported in January, a document that dates back to 1980 says the utility only has to recalculate bills from the six months prior to the date the error was discovered.
That's what this bill seeks to change.
"How big of an effect would this have if you actually refunded people what they were overcharged," Assemblymember Dickman said.
"I do not have those numbers in front of me today," Wells said.
NV Energy told me the same thing when I asked that question back in January. They said, at the time, that the data was not fully collected or tabulated so they couldn't tell me how many people were affected or how much money is involved.
We kept asking and they kept not answering.
Now, three months later, they still didn't have the information when lawmakers asked. However, they tell me they are now working on the questions posed by lawmakers.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: NV Energy overcharges customers but only gives a partial refund
The refund issue isn't the only consumer concern AB 452 seeks to tackle.
As Watson explains...
"If they (NV Energy) make a plan of how they're going to bring energy to our homes and our businesses, but something happens that's out of our control — a war, an extreme weather event, anything that's going to cause a fuel spike — they get to pass 100% of those fuel spike costs on to customers. They have no skin in the game."
The bill seeks to make NV Energy share the burden by shouldering some of the cost.
"NV Energy does not mark up fuel or power that it purchases on behalf of its customers," Wells told lawmakers. She was among several utility executives who testified against the bill, saying the current system works and the bill is trying to solve a non-existent problem.
However, consumers say high power bills are a big problem that's all too real.
"And I believe that AB 452 will help," Anderson said. "It starts to shift some of the burden off struggling families and puts it back where it belongs — with the utility that has been allowed to profit off the backs of hardworking Nevadans."
AB 452 passed out of the committee with bipartisan support. It goes to the Assembly floor now for a full vote, which has to happen by Tuesday in order for it to stay alive in this legislative session.