NevadaNV
- Cooperative poles
- No. Nevada declares a cooperative serving its own members only to be a public utility, but NRS 704.675 subjects it to the Commission only for the purposes of a closed list of provisions, which is the certificate of public convenience and necessity machinery plus the renewable portfolio standard, and expressly not to any other jurisdiction. No rate provision is in that list and NRS 704.250, the Commission's pole standards power, is not in it either. Cooperatives are also excluded from the federal regime by 47 U.S.C. 224(a)(1), so attachment terms are a matter of contract. A cooperative serving the public as well as its members would fall under full chapter 704 jurisdiction under NRS 704.673, but which side of that line each Nevada cooperative sits on has never been adjudicated in Nevada. A Nevada certificate of public convenience and necessity proves nothing either way, because the certificate section is one of the provisions that binds a members only cooperative.
- Municipal poles
- No. Nevada has no pole attachment regime, and the Commission's only pole power, NRS 704.250, is a safety standards grant that says nothing about third party access, rates or attachments. Municipal electric utilities and power districts are also outside the federal regime under 47 U.S.C. 224(a)(1) and (a)(3) as political subdivisions, so a municipal or district pole is a contract pole. As a matter of Commission practice and the agency's own published position these owners are not rate regulated; as a matter of statutory text the question is not cleanly resolved, because none of the subsections of NRS 704.021 excludes a political subdivision furnishing electricity at retail, NRS 704.020(2)(a) is broad, the one express carve out at NRS 704.340 is about certificates, and a Nevada Supreme Court decision holds that a power district is not a municipality for that section. That tension is recorded as an open question and it does not change the pole attachment answer, because the Commission has no pole attachment jurisdiction over any owner.
- Rate standard
- There is no Nevada rate standard. Nevada has no pole attachment statute, regulation, filed tariff or presumptive rate, so for a pole owner that is a Section 224 utility the FCC cable and telecommunications formulas at 47 U.S.C. 224(d) and (e) apply unqualified. The FCC has applied that formula to a Nevada carrier in a decided case and held that on a jointly owned pole a joint owner may collect only its ownership percentage of the computed maximum and may not add a further fee said to be collected on the other owner's behalf. The dollar maxima set in that decision are carrier specific, computed on that carrier's own cost data decades ago, and are not a Nevada rate, a benchmark or a current ceiling for anyone. For cooperative, municipal, district, federal and tribal poles there is no rate standard at all and the rate is whatever the attachment agreement provides.
- Where a dispute goes
- The FCC, for pole owners that are Section 224 utilities, under 47 U.S.C. 224(b) and the pole attachment complaint rules at 47 CFR 1.1401 to 1.1418, and the FCC has adjudicated a Nevada pole attachment complaint on the merits. For every other Nevada pole there is no administrative forum of any kind, state or federal, and the remedy is the attachment agreement in a court of general jurisdiction. Non certification is only the first half of the test: it means nothing displaces the FCC, but the FCC still reaches only an owner that is a Section 224 utility, which excludes cooperative, municipal, district and federally owned poles. No Nevada limitation period, filing deadline or notice period for a pole attachment dispute is established, and no federal period may be presented as a Nevada one.
- Confidence
- High confidence on non certification, on the closed jurisdictional list in NRS 704.675 and the safety only character of NRS 704.250, on the federal formulas and the FCC forum following from non certification, and on the joint ownership proration rule from the FCC's Nevada decision. Provisional on the pole owner inventory and on which entities sit in each class, on the finding that no Nevada pole attachment instrument exists anywhere in the statutes or the administrative code, on the municipal and power district treatment including NRS 704.340 and the 1960 decision, and on attacher eligibility. No Nevada deadline, limitation period or rate figure is established at any tier.
Authorities47 U.S.C. 224(a)(1)47 U.S.C. 224(a)(3)47 U.S.C. 224(b)47 U.S.C. 224(c)47 U.S.C. 224(d) and (e)47 CFR 1.1401 to 1.1418FCC Public Notice DA 22-630, WC Docket No. 10-101, released 2022-06-13Nevada State Cable Television Association v. Nevada Bell, File No. PA 96-001, DA 02-1930 (2002), affirming DA 98-1175, 13 FCC Rcd 16774 (CSB 1998)NRS 704.020NRS 704.021NRS 704.250NRS 704.340NRS 704.673NRS 704.675White Pine Power District No. 9 v. Public Service Commission, 76 Nev. 497, 358 P.2d 118 (1960)