![]() ![]() ![]() Advocates hope these changes will make the board more "consumer friendly."Īnd while Pritzker hasn't weighed in on the electric cases, he wrote a March op-ed in the Chicago Sun-Times calling for increased accountability for gas companies. The other two members took their posts earlier this year, replacing members who had either retired or saw their terms expire. The governor tapped former ICC Chair Doug Scott to rejoin the board as a replacement for ICC Chair Carrie Zalewski, who left her role last week. In March, Pritzker announced replacements for three of the five ICC commissioners. JB Pritzker has recently shaken up the board that will have the ultimate say on the rate hikes. "We want to be sure we do everything we can to make our bills affordable." You can't do anything without it," Kolata told Capitol News Illinois prior to his recent departure from the CUB for a climate tech company. The rate changes, if approved by the ICC, would take effect in January.ĬUB and other consumer advocacy groups are pushing for the ICC to lower the electric utilities' requests by at least $1.4 billion and the gas utilities' requests by at least $231.8 million. But third parties like business groups and consumer advocates, in addition to ICC staff, also have a chance to weigh in before an administrative judge and eventually the five-member ICC board. The utilities are making their case for rate increases in an 11-month regulatory process that is set to conclude around the end of the year. For gas companies, that means more scrutiny of infrastructure costs. For electric utilities, that means a more complicated, multiyear rate-setting process and a more thorough review of profit margins. The number of cases in front of the ICC is due, in part, to a pair of major policy changes affecting the way utilities request rate increases and the commission's authority to amend those requests. It's an "unprecedented" number of proposed rate increases for one year, according to David Kolata, the former longtime head of the Citizens Utility Board, or CUB, a nonprofit organization created by the General Assembly in 1983 to represent consumers in cases like these. Electric utilities have asked to raise rates by a combined $2.8 billion over four years, while gas utilities have requested $890 million in increases next year. ![]()
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