* Steve Daniels at Crain’s…

Just how good has Springfield been to local utilities since Commonwealth Edison first won the right in 2011 to set its delivery rates each year via a formula? It’s a good question as state lawmakers embark on their third crack at comprehensive energy legislation in the last decade.

Since the beginning of the “formula-rate era,” yearly earnings growth at ComEd, suburban natural gas utility Nicor and Chicago’s Peoples Gas have topped all but a handful of Chicago’s 20 largest publicly traded companies, according to a Crain’s analysis. […]

ComEd has watched its earnings grow to $638 million in 2020—adding back the $200 million fine for the company’s admissions of bribery in a federal probe of former House Speaker Michael Madigan—from $379 million in 2012, the year it first was allowed to set its delivery rates annually via a formula. ComEd’s profits grew 6.7 percent on average annually over those nine years. […]

As he seeks legislation to put Illinois on a path to a 100 percent carbon-free power industry, Gov. J.B. Pritzker has called for an end to formula rates, the annual rate-setting process that took away most of the ICC’s authority to push back on ComEd’s requests. But that hasn’t stopped utilities—and particularly their union allies whose members benefit from the unprecedented levels of capital spending—from continuing to propose provisions that would continue elements of the formula-rate era such as guaranteed returns for utilities.

* Related…

* Exelon, ComEd execs can’t convince judge to cancel investor fraud lawsuit over alleged Madigan bribery scheme