* Illinois PIRG…

For the second time in a month, utility regulators at the Illinois Commerce Commission on Thursday handed down decisions that portend the beginning of a new era of consumer- and climate-focused utility oversight in Illinois.

“We applaud Chairman Doug Scott and other members of the Illinois Commerce Commission for making a decisive pivot away from the more utility-friendly approach of the past,” said Illinois PIRG Director Abe Scarr.

The five-person commission, recently overhauled by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, set new rates for the electric utilities ComEd and Ameren. Notably, the Commission rejected ComEd and Ameren’s grid plans, finding that the utilities failed to meet the standards set by law, and ordered them to re-submit compliant plans next year. The Commission rejected significant planned utility spending based on the lack of compliant grid plans.

The commission set Comed’s authorized profit rate, known as the return on equity (ROE), at 8.9% over the next four years. ComEd initially proposed a 10.5% ROE in 2024, which would escalate over four years to 10.65% in 2027. Illinois PIRG submitted expert testimony recommending a 6.5% ROE, arguing that state policies virtually guarantee ComEd’s profits, so it does not need a high ROE for financial health. Miniscule differences in profit rates can translate into hundreds of millions of dollars on customer bills.

“As it did with the gas rate cases, the Commission took important steps to rightsize ComEd and Ameren’s spending levels and limit their impact on customer bills. It also set a much lower profit rate than proposed by ComEd, saving customers hundreds of millions of dollars,” said Scarr. “We are pleased the Commission invited further consideration of profits rates under multi-year rate plans and will continue to make our case to the Commission that Illinois utilities can remain financially healthy with significantly lower profit rates.”

The Commission also denied Peoples Gas’ motion to “clarify” and reverse portions of the Commission’s November decision regarding the failing Peoples Gas pipe replacement program and authorize an additional $134 million in 2024 spending, which would raise its already record-breaking rate hike by an additional $8.1 million.

“We hope Peoples Gas now has the clarity it needs: while it maintains its fundamental service obligation to maintain public safety, it can no longer operate accountability-free and waste billions of dollars on a pipe replacement program that fails to achieve its public safety objective,” said Scarr. “We look forward to working with the commission and other parties to enact meaningful reforms to the program next year.”

Since the November decision, Peoples Gas and its allies had mounted a pressure campaign targeting the Commission. It included suggesting the legislature intervene, threatening the pending confirmation of three commissioners and sending more than 20 letters in support of the motion from unions, contractors, and others, each requiring an ethics report from the Commission in compliance with its “ex-parte” communications rules. Commissioner Scott directly addressed these ex-parte communications, asking members of the public to use more appropriate means of communicating with the Commission.

That last paragraph is quite something, but the two linked examples are an op-ed by two high-level labor leaders and a tweet by Local 150.

…Adding… CUB…

In an unprecedented ruling in favor of electric customers, the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) today reined in reckless spending by ComEd and Ameren, said no to excessive profit rates and lowered the electric utilities’ rate-hike requests by hundreds of millions of dollars. After a decade in which electric utilities exploited lax oversight, scandal, and rampant rate hikes to reap excessive profits, the ICC made it clear that ComEd and Ameren must be held accountable to their customers and provide more affordable electric service. Today’s ICC ruling delivered an important message: Utilities need to prove that their grid plans will actually benefit consumers. Clean energy is about lowering costs for electric customers in the long run, not giving a blank check to Ameren and ComEd.

Also CUB…

Less than three weeks after receiving a record rate hike, Peoples Gas tried to bully the ICC into raising costs, yet again, for the utility’s beleaguered customers by manufacturing a fictitious emergency. We’re grateful that regulators saw through these blatant theatrics and protected Chicago consumers, who have been buffeted by spiraling heating bills, from another money grab by the utility.

Peoples Gas has reaped record profits for six straight years – and that was before it obtained its record rate hike last month. No company that has amassed such a staggering fortune should ever threaten to neglect public safety and lay off workers. If Peoples continues to put jobs in jeopardy as a form of political extortion, the unions that represent the utility’s employees should put the blame where it belongs – on Peoples Gas, not on the state regulators entrusted with holding the company accountable.

For the past decade, Chicago families have been suffering through a heating affordability crisis, as People Gas bills skyrocketed to pay for the company’s bloated pipe-replacement program. Peoples Gas customers pay an average of $50 in fixed monthly costs before they ever turn on the heat or the stove. Nearly 200,000 households have been assessed a late fee, and 160,000 families have fallen behind on payments by more than 30 days.

Given all this financial woe, the ICC did the right thing when it put a moratorium on discretionary, non-emergency pipe-replacement, pending further investigation. Nonetheless, Peoples Gas responded by trying to hold its workers and public safety hostage as a ploy to coerce another rate hike out of financially burdened customers. We urge regulators, lawmakers, and the public at large to continue to stand strong and resist cynical attempts to pit the utility’s workers against its customers when it is obvious that both are being made victims of the company’s greed.