UPDATE: Early this morning, the Illinois Senate passed comprehensive clean energy legislation (Senate Bill 18) and sent it to the state House of Representatives. (The vote was 39-16-2.) That came after days of negotiations and two hearings by the Senate Committee on Energy and Public Utilities. While there is broad agreement…...
CUB’s Capitol Report: Fighting rubber-stamped rate hikes, water privatization, and unfair gas charges in Springfield
With Illinois’ new General Assembly taking up business in Springfield amid a pandemic, CUB’s Bryan McDaniel will be busy fighting for consumers on a number of important bills. Help CUB fight for lower utility bills “Fighting for consumer legislation in Springfield is always a challenge because energy, water, and internet…...
The bad water bill is now law. So now what?
Earlier this month Gov. Bruce Rauner signed House Bill 4508 — which means any publicly owned water system in Illinois could now be targeted by profit-driven private water utilities. The bill doubles down on previous legislation that allowed Aqua Illinois and Illinois American Water to impose automatic rate hikes to…...
No net neutrality? Not so fast!
CUB’s Bryan McDaniel speaks at an April 8, 2018 press conference on House Bill 4819 to protect net neutrality in Illinois. “Once we pay Internet providers, we should be able to access all content equally,” he said. As Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai pushes to kill net neutrality…...
Spring report from CUB General Counsel Julie Soderna
By Julie Soderna, CUB General Counsel Just wanted to give you an update. The CUB staff and I are swamped with these battles in 2018: Fighting plans pushed by giant power generators to change electricity pricing rules in Washington and potentially raise ComEd bills by hundreds of millions of dollars.…...
UPDATE: BAD water bill HB 4508 moves to Senate
House Bill 4508 has passed the Illinois House of Representatives and moves to the state Senate. We need your help to defeat this legislation, which allows big water companies to expand while customers foot the bill. CUB opposes this bill: When the nation’s biggest private water companies get their hands…...
Fight HB 4508 (BAD water bill)
We need your help to defeat House Bill 4508—legislation in Springfield that could raise water rates for a lot of Illinois consumers. Back in 2013, the General Assembly passed legislation that allowed the state’s biggest private water companies (Illinois American Water and Aqua Illinois) to automatically raise their existing customers’…...
Support HB 4819: The fight for net neutrality moves to Illinois
We’ve all read the grim headlines: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has ordered “net neutrality” rules to end on April 23. That’s bad news because those consumer protections help keep the Internet affordable and uncensored. But the good news is we have a chance to save net neutrality in Illinois—if…...
