As the Citizens Utility Board (CUB) prepares to argue Tuesday that state regulators should cut Commonwealth Edison’s $678 million rate-hike request, the consumer group has identified hundreds of millions of dollars in excessive spending proposed by Illinois’ largest electric utility.
“We urge the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) to remove wasteful and improper spending by ComEd in its multi-year rate plan,” CUB Executive Director Sarah Moskowitz said. “Illinois’ largest electric utility is required by law to prove that its grid plan is affordable—they don’t get a blank check.”
Oral arguments in the ComEd rate case (Docket 24-0181) are scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday, and the ICC’s final order in the case is expected Dec. 5. (Watch the oral arguments live from the ICC website.)
It’s the latest in what has been a sometimes-dramatic series of developments for ComEd in recent years before the ICC. In 2022, after an investigation sparked by the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA), the ICC ordered ComEd to pay a $38 million fine in connection with its corruption scandal. (ComEd was fined $200 million by federal authorities in 2020, after admitting to a bribery scheme to pass legislation that implemented a “formula rate” system and hundreds of millions of dollars in rate hikes over a decade.)
CEJA, the groundbreaking clean energy legislation passed in 2021, scrapped the old formula rates, and implemented a new system in which ComEd proposed a four-year plan for investing in the grid. The utility has to prove that the plan would be affordable and beneficial to customers.
Last December, the ICC rejected the utility’s first proposed grid plan for, among other things, failing to prove affordability, and slashed its proposed four-year rate hike. Earlier this year, ComEd refiled its grid plan and proposed a less enormous, but still significant, series of rate hikes through 2027.
Over the course of the case (Docket 24-0181), the proposed rate hike has been adjusted, and it now stands at about $678.1 million, according to a recent ComEd filing. State regulatory judges in October issued a Proposed Order recommending a total rate hike of about $648.6 million. This is on top of $308.4 million in higher rates the ICC approved earlier, regarding issues regulators considered separately. Put together, ComEd’s annual rates would increase by nearly $1 billion.
In expert testimony filed this past summer, CUB recommended the ICC reduce ComEd’s rate hike by at least $89 million and reject hundreds of millions of dollars more in wasteful or improper spending ComEd planned to recover in decades to come
“Under CEJA, the days of spending customers’ money first and answering questions later are over,” CUB General Counsel Eric DeBellis said. “ComEd must prove that each investment of ratepayers’ money is strictly necessary or yields real, tangible ratepayer benefits that exceed costs, or both. Our job is to challenge ComEd and keep them from playing fast and loose with everyone’s money.”
ComEd is Illinois’ largest electric utility, serving about 3.8 million customers across Illinois.
For more and a summary of key parts of CUB’s testimony – visit thetimesweekly.com
