Assembly considers felony penalties and scrap rules to curb copper and utility-wire theft

The Assembly Judiciary Committee heard Assembly Bill 503, carried by Assemblymember Selena Torres Fawcett, a bill that would tighten criminal penalties and scrap-metal transaction rules to address theft and intentional tampering of utility wire and other critical infrastructure.

Assemblymember Selena Torres Fawcett told the committee the bill grew from an interim working group of local governments, law enforcement, utilities and scrap processors after repeated incidents in Southern Nevada. "With the wrong set of circumstances, the consequences of copper wire theft can cause more than a disturbance to electricity in our household or disruption in access to Internet. It can also have life threatening consequences," she said, citing a February 2024 outage at Harry Reid International Airport and an earlier traffic-fatality case where stolen wiring left streetlights dark.

AB 503 would create a set of offenses for willfully moving, damaging, destroying or possessing used utility wire without proper authorization; require that scrap metal processors keep electronic records and limit methods of payment; and prohibit purchases of used utility wire except from specified authorized sellers or with lawful documentation. The sponsor described tiered penalties tied to the value of property affected and to whether the act caused an interruption of service: misdemeanors for losses under $500, a category D felony for losses of $500 or more, and a category 2 felony when the act causes interruption of services (with fines cited in testimony up to $5,000 and $10,000 depending on the offense tier).

Witnesses representing utilities, telecommunications companies, law enforcement and local government strongly supported the bill. Chloe Chisholm of NV Energy said, "Copper wire theft is not a victimless crime," and offered outage statistics: NV Energy reported 19 outages in 2023 caused by copper theft and described the airport incident as disruptive to "thousands of travelers." Joe Harrington of the Nevada Department of Transportation told the committee NDOT spends about $5,000,000 per biennium addressing copper theft on state rights-of-way.

Industry witnesses and scrap processors described ordinances already adopted in Clark County and several cities and said the bill builds on the catalytic-converter statute passed in the previous session. Warren Hardy, representing recycling industry groups, said the catalytic-converter law's approach to possession helped reduce that theft and that a similar possession-based offense for narrowly defined 7-strand utility wire would help enforcement. He described a practical enforcement model in which processors collect identification, record transactions, notify law enforcement of suspicious transactions, and refuse cash payments over statutory limits.

An amendment discussed at the hearing would expand the bill's definition to cover "critical infrastructure property" and to add telecommunication and broadband services, fiber and wireless service components. Shelley Caparo, representing Charter Communications / Spectrum, asked that the definition expressly include video service, broadband, telecommunications services, fiber, wireless telephone service and utility services such as natural gas, water and sewer; Caparo also asked the bill be explicit that tampering with infrastructure (not only outright theft) be covered because some incidents are destructive rather than value-driven.

Prosecutors, sheriffs and municipal governments supported the measure. Testimony included detailed local damage figures: Clark County reported more than 650,000 linear feet of copper wire stolen from county streetlights across 850 locations from January 2022 to January 2025, with repair costs the county estimated at roughly $1.8 million to $2.1 million for remaining sites; other witnesses described city- and county-level ordinances requiring affidavits, identification, and recordkeeping for scrap sales.

Public defenders asked the sponsor and stakeholders to continue working on the draft. Paloma Guerrero of the Clark County Public Defender's Office and Angela Knott of the Washoe County Public Defender's Office said felony charges already can be applied in some cases under existing statutes and expressed concern about mens rea and possession-based offenses; they requested further drafting to avoid unintended consequences and questioned provisions that would mandate community service in addition to incarceration.

The committee heard substantial support and some requested clarifications. The sponsor and stakeholders said they will continue to work with public defenders and other stakeholders on exemptions for legitimate possession (for example, contractor employees who have employer authorization) and on aligning statutory recordkeeping with existing scrap-metal requirements. The hearing concluded with no committee vote; the sponsor indicated plans to refine the bill language and amendments for future committee action.