Safer Cleaner Energy Campaign Petitions Against $202 Million Peoples Gas Rate Hike

Illinois Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) is fighting against the approval of Peoples Gas’ latest rate hike request of $202 million. The rate hike would raise monthly prices by about $10 to $11 dollars per month, according to Peoples Gas, who said the increased price would be used to retire and replace more than 1,000 miles of pipes and to reflect the impact of inflation.

PIRG’s campaign, called the Safer Cleaner Energy Campaign, is vying for the Illinois Commerce Commission, which regulates utilities in the state, to slash the rate hike and prevent Peoples Gas from overspending on infrastructure and pushing the costs onto consumers for years to come.

“We don’t want to lock ourselves into a fossil fuel infrastructure,” said third-year environmental science student and PIRG intern, Clare Morrissey. “We don’t want to lock ourselves into that future of infrastructure because we would be paying for that. $200 million would be coming out of consumers’ pockets for decades.”

The hike was filed in early January, and a final decision from the Illinois Commerce Commission will likely be made by November, according to Illinois PIRG Director Abe Scarr. Until then, the Illinois Commerce Commission will host meetings to hear oral public comments.

Morrissey said while Peoples Gas is right to modernize their system under the mandate of the Illinois Commerce Commission, their current plan to completely retire and replace pipes is unreasonable and inefficient, especially as Illinois continues to pass legislation in support of renewable energy, like the Clean and Equitable Job Act and the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act.

If Illinois and Chicago continue to move toward renewable energy in the coming years, Scarr explained less people would be using gas, meaning the burden of the rate hike would fall on fewer customers. Like Scarr, Morrissey said the costly rate hike is inconsistent with the city’s simultaneous climate goals.

The $202 million request will be the second time Peoples Gas has filed since 2023 when they were awarded over $300 million dollars by the ICC, who cut their initial request of $404 million down by 25%, according to the Illinois Commerce Commission.

Advocates of the Safer Cleaner Energy Campaign are proposing Peoples Gas use alternative, more cost-effective strategies to mitigate risk in pipelines rather than defaulting to replacement. One of these ideas is pipe relining, which Scarr said would rehabilitate old cast iron pipes and extend their lifespan by about 100 years. Advanced repairs or electrification could also be an option.

“We think that Peoples should be considering all these options and using risk analysis and cost-benefit analysis to make investments that maximize risk reduction per dollar spent,” Scarr said.

One of PIRG’s major critiques is how Peoples Gas has been spending hundreds of millions of dollars for years, but outside reviews conducted by PIRG haven’t shown leak rates or pipeline failure rates to be decreasing, according to Scarr.

Scarr further explained utility companies have an incentive to spend wastefully on infrastructure to increase their profits without actual regard for who bears the cost or how well their plan will work to mitigate risk. He said Peoples Gas’ proposed rate hike is irresponsible from both an affordability standpoint and an environmental perspective as the renewable energy transition looms. 

“Utility shouldn’t be wasting our money,” Scarr said. “This was a bad program, mismanaged, cost overruns — all that stuff is like, if we weren’t in the middle of an energy transition, it would be a bad program that needs reform. Since we’re in the middle of an energy transition, it’s even worse, and we just need to reduce the overall cost of the system rather than expanding it.”

At Loyola, PIRG interns like Morrissey and second-year environmental policy student Lily Cashman have been working to collect signatures to show the Illinois Commerce Commission how many people care about their gas bill. With a goal of 1,000 signees, Cashman said Loyola volunteers have already collected over 500 signatures.

Despite a significant portion of students living in dorms and subsequently not directly paying their gas bill, Cashman said students have been very receptive to the campaign from an environmentalist perspective.

“They want to get involved because sustainability is something that we kind of just drill in everybody’s brain here as an important pillar of our school,” Cashman said.

PIRG college campus organizer Matthew Docalovich said college campuses, like Loyola, are the “best source of energy” for campaigns. Scarr agreed, calling colleges the “organizational DNA” of PIRG.

“College students and campuses are historically such an important place for social change movements and for environmental movements,” Docalovich said.

He hopes the campaign will not only result in the lowest possible rate hike, but he also wants it to ignite a long-term resistance to aggressive rate hikes by utility companies, so Peoples Gas will be forced to use Chicagoan’s money more responsibly.

The student coordinators of the campaign have also met with aldermanic offices and activist groups, like the Edgewater Environmental Coalition, to create a broad group of people who are against the rate hike.

“Change can often be slow and incremental, but if there are people that are inherently motivated to work on these and other issues that they care about for years to come, I think that’s kind of the only way we can sustainably work towards the world we want to see,” Cypress Toomey, the PIRG campus organizer who primarily works with Loyola coordinators, said.

Alderwoman Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth (48th), who met with PIRG organizers at her Brynn Mawr office, said she feels strongly about working with students and supporting the campaign to promote affordability, especially since much of the off-campus student housing is located in Edgewater.

Manaa-Hoppenworth said she thinks Peoples Gas needs to prioritize people over their profit, especially since one in five of Peoples Gas’ 898,000 customers are consistently in debt to the company, according to PIRG.

She said she worries the rate hike will hit students and seniors with fixed incomes particularly hard.

“There needs to be more transparency,” Manaa-Hoppenworth said. “There needs to be better education of utility users of how we can try to keep costs down, and also advocacy, so we can pass guardrails against companies who have no accountability to people.”

Maggie Bowman, a volunteer with the Edgewater Environmental Coalition and representative of the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition, has also been working with students to spread awareness about the rate hike.

Bowman said it’s important to her that people in the neighborhood realize they have the opportunity to weigh in with the Illinois Commerce Commission about their utility bills rising by signing petitions, sending letters and attending hearings. As an environmental advocate, Bowman is also concerned about investing in outdated infrastructure inconsistent with Chicago’s decarbonization goals.

“I think we have to be very careful about every dollar we are spending that is propping up this infrastructure of yesterday’s energy economy,” Bowman said.

Like Bowman, Docalovich said Chicago’s clean energy goals are heavily complicated by the reliance on natural gas. He hopes in the long term the body of resistance the campaign has grown will continue to expand because he doesn’t believe the current rate hike request will be the last time Peoples Gas tries to increase prices.

“Where they’re making record profits, it’s not what the people want,” Docalovich said. “It’s an affordability issue, and it’s kind of like the last gasp of the fossil fuel industry trying to make money.”

Editor’s Note: Clare Morrissey is a cartoonist for The Phoenix.