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Monday, February 26, 2007 10:17 PM CST
House starts study of electric rates
By the ASSOCIATED PRESS
SPRINGFIELD (AP) -- With angry voters demanding action, the entire Illinois House will discuss huge jumps in electricity costs that have blindsided some downstate consumers.
The House will meet as a single “committee of the whole” today to hear stories about bills doubling and tripling and to grill executives of power companies.
State Rep. George Scully, a Flossmoor Democrat who pushed for the special hearing, said it would last for several hours. He predicted it would lead to legislative action this spring, although he was vague about exactly what action.
Scully and some House Democrats want a three-year rate freeze, while some Senate Democrats have backed a phase-in of higher rates.
“Consumers should be confident that their legislators are taking up this task,” Scully said. “Consumers should not drop their vigilance.”
Residents were warned for months that their electric rates would go up in 2007, as a 10-year rate freeze expired. Lawmakers froze rates in 1997 to encourage competition that hasn’t developed, then couldn’t agree last fall on how to prevent the rate increases from going into effect this year.
Outrage over paying more for electric service -- in some cases much, much more -- has spiked as residents receive the first electric bills under the new rates.
Rates were expected to rise an average of about 22 percent for ComEd customers and about 55 percent for Ameren customers. Some downstate customers, however, are complaining to lawmakers and consumer advocacy groups that their first bills went up 200 percent to 300 percent or more.
Ameren spokesman Leigh Morris said Monday he can’t discuss individual customers’ bills or provide details about how many customers are paying larger-than-expected increases.
He stressed that the increase isn’t the only thing determining how much customers pay for service. A cold January and the end of a discount for customers whose homes are serviced only by electricity contributed to the larger bills, Morris said.
“You have a lot of factors that went into play,” Morris said.
Consumer advocates predict this is only the start of public upheaval over rates.
David Kolata, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board, says some lawmakers he’s talked to feel misled about the increases.
He expects they will be more sympathetic to rolling back the rate increases -- even though past attempts have ended in a stalemate -- as consumer outrage grows heading into the spring and summer, when electric use is generally higher.
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Fxiccxypxc wrote on May 10, 2007 11:31 AM: