• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Statement From CUB Executive Director David Kolata on the Proposed Peoples/North Shore Gas Rate Hike

Posted on: Friday, 13 February 2009, 15:34 CST

CHICAGO, Feb. 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is a statement from CUB Executive Director David Kolata on the rate hikes proposed by Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas:

Almost a year to the day after the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) granted Peoples Gas a $71 million rate hike, Chicago's gas company is back for more, asking for another massive increase.

In requesting this rate hike so soon after being granted a large increase, Peoples Gas shows horrible timing as the economy continues to falter. While state and federal lawmakers wrestle with ways to stimulate the economy and put more money back in consumers' pockets, Peoples Gas just wants to take more out. There is no better way to make a sick economy even more ill than to add to consumers' fixed monthly costs. The more money they pour into their gas bills, the less they have to use for discretionary spending that could spark the economy.

CUB's legal and policy teams will examine every letter and every number of the Peoples/North Shore proposals and we will fight tooth and nail against every penny that isn't justified.

The proposed increase was filed on Friday. The last increase for Peoples Gas, $71 million, was granted on Feb. 5, 2008. CUB is currently appealing that increase. Last year's rate hike and the one proposed on Friday affect "delivery charges," which covers the company's costs of delivering natural gas to homes -- plus a profit.

CUB is Illinois' leading nonprofit utility watchdog organization. Created by the Illinois Legislature in 1983, CUB opened its doors a year later to represent the interests of residential and small-business utility customers. Now celebrating its 25th anniversary, CUB has saved consumers more than $10 billion by helping to block rate hikes and secure consumer refunds. In 2007, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch called CUB the "gold standard" of consumer groups nationwide. For more information, call CUB's Consumer Hotline, at 1-800-669-5556.

SOURCE Citizens Utility Board

Source: PR Newswire

More News in this Category