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

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Feb 15, 2011, 05:31 ET

CHICAGO, Feb. 15, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Peoples Gas today asked for a $120 million per year rate hike—its third request for an increase since 2007. It was only 13 months ago that the company was granted an increase of about $70 million. Now, as its customers struggle to pay higher heating bills, Peoples Gas is back asking for more, despite receiving about $140 million in rate hikes the last few years.

This proposed increase appears to be twice as punishing on consumers as the company's last increase, slamming them with $108 a year in extra costs. North Shore Gas, which is asking for a $9 million increase, would hit its customers with $36 a year in extra costs.

CUB will analyze every detail of Peoples' rate-hike request and we will fight every unjustified penny.

The Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) will rule on the Peoples/North Shore request after an 11-month case.

These "delivery" rate hikes would increase what the companies charge to deliver gas to homes. Those charges take up about a third of a gas bill. The other two-thirds, roughly, is taken up by the price of the actual gas.

CUB is Illinois' leading nonprofit utility watchdog organization. Created by the Illinois

Legislature, CUB opened its doors in 1984 to represent the interests of residential and small-business utility customers. Since then, CUB has saved consumers more than $10 billion by helping to block rate hikes and secure refunds over the years. For more information, call CUB's Consumer Hotline at 1-800-669-5556 or visit CUB's award-winning website, www.CitizensUtilityBoard.org.

SOURCE Citizens Utility Board