New Mexico utility regulators on Thursday advanced an investigation into complaints that the state’s largest electric provider excessively overcharged some residents this summer.
Staffers for the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission in early October recommended the commission open an investigation after residents reported that PNM was estimating residential bills in the Alamogordo and Ruidoso areas rather than obtaining readings from meters, largely due to a worker shortage. When the commission held a town hall meeting in Alamogordo in September, some residents complained that their monthly bills had skyrocketed from the usual $150 or $200 to as much as $1,700, according to the PRC staffers’ filing.
At a Thursday meeting in Las Cruces, the PRC’s three members voted on a draft order authorizing an investigation into the matter. However, rather than voting to approve or deny an investigation, commissioners unanimously voted to edit the order’s language to give investigators clearer guidance on the scope of their probe…