* WBEZ…

In a new Illinois House speaker, scandal-tainted Commonwealth Edison may have a powerful new friend in its pursuit of locking in a controversial and profitable method of setting electricity rates that has cost consumers billions of dollars in the past decade.

As recently as 2019, Democratic House Speaker Emanuel Chris Welch favored a long-term extension of ComEd’s soon-to-expire and highly lucrative ratemaking template. Federal prosecutors connected passage of the 2011 bill that originally authorized those rates to the company’s long-running Springfield bribery scheme.

ComEd’s so-called formula ratemaking expires in 2022 and figures to be part of talks surrounding a big utility omnibus that could surface this spring in Springfield, with Welch potentially playing a prominent role in its development.

The rate-making system put in place a decade ago weakened state regulators’ oversight of utility rates and essentially guaranteed ComEd would always turn a profit. […]

In 2019, allies of the company introduced two similar bills in the House and Senate that initially would have extended formula ratemaking into perpetuity, but later amended that extension to 10 years. Both Welch and newly installed Senate Minority Leader Dan McConchie, R-Hawthorne Woods, were co-sponsors of the measure.

ComEd’s past behavior is not defensible. Going forward, however, the company is bound by a deferred prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors. That means the G is monitoring the company pretty closely. ComEd’s entire fate depends on it successfully emerging from that DPA. Everyone around the Statehouse ought to know that. So, Speaker Welch and Leader McConchie would have to be outstandingly stupid to engage in any hanky panky.

Understandably, the consumer groups are raising a stink, partly because it helps them kill any attempt to pass that costly formula rate extension. It’s the smart move. But the reality is that the legislature could finally be in a position where ComEd’s Statehouse operation is at least somewhat more about the merits of an issue than the company’s political clout.

At least, I hope so. As we’ve seen time and time again, people can be truly dumb. But if this DPA doesn’t stop them, I’m not sure what could, short of putting all the execs in prison and breaking up the company.

* Speaking of which, here’s another press release from our two US Senators…

Following an announcement by the Biden Justice Department that Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorneys appointed under the previous Administration were to submit their resignations by February 28, U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) renewed their request that John Lausch, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, be permitted to remain in his position until the confirmation of his successor. In a letter to President Joe Biden, Durbin and Duckworth noted that there is precedent for U.S. Attorneys in the Northern District of Illinois to remain in office across administrations in order to conclude sensitive investigations. Durbin and Duckworth first voiced their desire to retain Mr. Lausch until his successor is confirmed back in November 2020.

“We have made our position clear on Mr. Lausch’s retention both publicly and privately, including in direct conversations with the White House Counsel as recently as last week,” the Senators wrote. “We reiterate today that John Lausch should be permitted to remain in place until the confirmation of his successor.”

In August 2017, the non-partisan screening committee set up by Durbin and Duckworth to assist them in evaluating candidates for vacant U.S. Attorney, U.S. Marshal, and federal judgeship positions in Illinois recommended Mr. Lausch to serve as the next United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. He was unanimously confirmed by voice vote in the Senate on November 9, 2017.