The Chicago City Council has passed a resolution urging Illinois leaders to protect the City’s residents from rapidly increasing heating bills caused by a “troubled” Peoples Gas pipeline-replacement program. The resolution, passed on Friday, calls on Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the Illinois General Assembly “to restore necessary oversight of this…...
CUB’s weekly e-newsletter: What’s up with your gas utility?
In this week’s e-newsletter, CUB’s policy and legal teams update you on how Illinois’ major gas utilities are trying to make you pay more. Read the summaries below and sign CUB’s petition against the utilities’ profit grabs. Ameren Illinois filed a $102 million natural gas rate hike with the Illinois Commerce…...
We like headlines like this: “Regulators order Peoples Gas to repay $7.2 million to customers”
The Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) has announced that Peoples Gas has agreed to give about $7.2 million back to its customers in connection with a review of the 2015 costs of the utility’s troubled pipeline-replacement program. This is the result of a settlement involving the utility and the staff of…...
The HEAT Act: One of the nation’s toughest consumer protection laws against gas and electric rip-offs
In a victory for consumers, the Illinois General Assembly has unanimously passed and the governor has signed one of the nation’s toughest consumer-protection laws to fight rip-offs peddled by alternative electric and gas suppliers. At the end of May, the Illinois General Assembly unanimously passed the Home Energy Affordability and…...
Live in Chicago? Last winter you paid 67% more to heat your home than your friends in the burbs
There’s more evidence of an impending heating-affordability crisis for Chicago residents: This week, Crain’s Chicago Business reported that for the second consecutive year, city residents paid hundreds of dollars more for gas than suburbanites–about $324 more. In the winter of 2017-2018, Peoples Gas customers paid about 80 percent more on…...
Peoples Gas sets lowest rate in almost 3 years (plus, see your March gas prices)
Amid a pipeline-replacement program that could lead to a Chicago heating-affordability crisis, Peoples Gas customers have a little relief: Its March rate dropped to its lowest in three years, at 26.53 cents per therm. That’s the lowest price Peoples Gas customers have seen since June of 2016, when the price…...
It could be an expensive winter
Midwestern homes that heat with natural gas on average could see a 14.5 percent increase in bills this winter, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). But gas customers in Central and Southern Illinois are seeing their costs go down. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) says consumers will see higher heating bills due…...
Why Chicago (and my brother) may face a heating-affordability crisis
By Jennifer Jones, CUB communications assistant When CUB Executive Director David Kolata recently described the Peoples Gas pipeline-replacement program as “a looming disaster” for Chicago gas bills it hit close to home, because my brother Milton has been a Chicagoan for the past decade. Last winter, he and other customers…...
