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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

CUB: Proposed Law on Smart Grid Not so Smart for Illinois Customers

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Friday, February 11, 2011   

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - What's good for the power grid, some say, may not be good for the pocketbooks of Illinois residents. A new legislative proposal aimed at funding a smart grid for Illinois has some consumer groups on edge. That's because instead of going through the usual process of applying for each rate increase with the Illinois Commerce Commission, the bill allows for automatic rate increases.

David Kolata, executive director of the consumer watchdog group Citizens Utility Board (CUB), is concerned.

"You're looking at automatic rate increases year after year for about 10 years. That would be at least a two percent increase on consumers' bills every year."

Kolata warns that the legislation would change a 100-year-old process that holds hearings and examines the books to make sure that utilities really need rate increases.

"There really wouldn't be the ability to say, 'You know what, we don't think you really need a rate increase, based on the numbers we've seen.'"

CUB is willing to look at changes in the regulatory process, Kolata says, but adds that automatic rate hikes for virtually everyone in the state should be taken off the table.

"We certainly don't want to see a situation where, year after year, we have automatic rate increases - especially if the economy continues to struggle."

This is a major change, Kolata points out, because even though Commonwealth Edison is the main proponent of the bill, all major utilities could opt in.

"It's really the whole state that would be impacted by this. We don't oppose modernizing the grid, but by the same token, we don't want to gut our regulatory process."

Commonwealth Edison officials say they need the money to upgrade substations and cable and replace poles, and that upgrading the power grid would create jobs.

CUB is willing to work to improve the bill, called the "Infrastructure Modernization Act" (HB 14), according to Kolata. AARP of Illinois has also come out against the legislation, as it is written.




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