{"id":264779,"date":"2026-04-24T19:32:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T19:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/264779\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T19:32:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T19:32:13","slug":"nm-supreme-court-rejects-el-paso-electric-loss-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/264779\/","title":{"rendered":"NM Supreme Court rejects El Paso Electric loss claim"},"content":{"rendered":"

EL PASO, Texas (KTSM<\/a>) \u2014 In a unanimous decision, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that El Paso Electric cannot recover losses incurred under rates that were later invalidated on appeal, according to a news release from the Administrative Office of the Courts on Friday, April 24.<\/p>\n

EPE serves customers in southern New Mexico, including Las Cruces.<\/p>\n

The Court reaffirmed a long-standing legal precedent against retroactive ratemaking, stating that the utility company did not provide sufficiently compelling reasons to overturn the Court\u2019s established precedent.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the Court upheld the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission\u2019s (PRC) rejection of a proposal by EPE to recover losses incurred over two years before the rates were invalidated by a Supreme Court decision in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe agree with the Commission that the rule against retroactive ratemaking prohibits EPE\u2019s request to book a regulatory asset in its January 2024 rates for the losses incurred between June 2021 and June 2023,\u201d the Court concluded in an opinion written by Chief Justice Julie J. Vargas.<\/p>\n

The Court explained that a \u201cparty that seeks to avoid incurring potentially unrecoverable losses during the pendency of an appeal should request a stay of the Commission\u2019s ratemaking order\u201d as permitted by state law or request the regulatory agency to establish interim rates that are subject to refund or a surcharge while awaiting the appeal\u2019s outcome.<\/p>\n

The 2021 order was reversed by the Court in a 2023 opinion, in which the justices concluded that the Public Regulation Commission violated EPE\u2019s due process rights by excluding certain costs and assets from the utility\u2019s rate base, according to the Court.<\/p>\n

When the PRC took up the rate case again after the Court\u2019s ruling, EPE proposed \u201ca way for it to recover losses from the rates in effect during its initial appeal,\u201d the Court said.<\/p>\n

EPE then filed a second appeal after the PRC established new rates, which did not allow for recovery between the time the rates were first orded in 2021 and when the rates were vacated by the Court in 2023.<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s opinion, the Court wrote that if state regulators \u201cwere to allow EPE to recover these amounts in rates with a January 2024 effective date, then the Commission would retroactively change the price of transactions occurring between June 2021 and June 2023. This is precisely what the rule against retroactive ratemaking was designed to prevent.\u201d<\/p>\n

As well, the Court stated that the prohibition on retroactive ratemaking \u201cpromotes principles of fairness and protects parties\u2019 due process rights by ensuring that rates paid for past transactions cannot be changed without prior notice to the parties.\u201d<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTSM 9 News. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) \u2014 In a unanimous decision, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that El Paso…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139,9243,5759,99141],"class_list":{"0":"post-264779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-el-paso","8":"tag-el-paso","9":"tag-el-paso-headlines","10":"tag-el-paso-news","11":"tag-southern-new-mexico","12":"tag-supreme-court","13":"tag-the-court"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}