Albuquerque, NM (KKOB) –In a ruling today the NM State Supreme Court decided that an electric utility cannot recover losses it experienced under rates that were later invalidated on appeal. The justices concluded that El Paso Electric Company “has not shown sufficient compelling reasons for overruling this Court’s retroactive ratemaking precedent.” The Court affirmed the PRC’s denial of a proposal by El Paso Electric to recoup losses it incurred for two years before rates were vacated by a 2023 Supreme Court decision. El Paso Electric serves customers in southern NM including Las Cruces. The Court stated that the prohibition on retroactive ratemaking “promotes principles of fairness and protects parties’ due process rights by ensuring that rates paid for past transactions cannot be changed without prior notice to the parties.”
