Not ‘one more cent’: Chicago-area elected officials rally against
Peoples Gas rate hike
[September 30, 2026]
By Maggie Dougherty
CHICAGO — Dozens of elected officials penned a letter Tuesday urging
state regulators to reject Peoples Gas’ $144 million rate hike request
and reform the company’s pipeline retirement program.
Several officials joined utility watchdogs at a news conference at
Chicago City Hall announcing the letter.
“If a company is delivering a service to us, we should pay for it,” Ald.
Maria Hadden said. “But when is enough enough? … This will be the eighth
year in a row that they’re making record profits.”
The lawmakers and consumer advocates decried the 10.1% shareholder
profit Peoples Gas sought in its latest rate request as “outrageous” and
“greedy,” particularly at a time when residents are already struggling
to keep up with rising costs.
State data shows nearly one in five residential Peoples Gas customers
were more than 30 days behind on their bills to the utility as of
August, the latest data available. Those roughly 162,000 customers owed
over $92 million, or about $570 on average, to the company.
“This is how bad it is in the summer, … before we even hit the extreme
pain of winter gas bills,” Citizens Utility Board spokesperson Jim
Chilsen said. “Chicagoans face a heating affordability crisis sparked by
Peoples Gas.”
If approved in full, the $144 million request would increase average
monthly bills for residential customers by $7-8 beginning in January.
Consumer advocates say that would result in a 71% increase in the
company’s gas rates over the last four years. The utility received the
largest rate hike in state history only three years ago, when regulators
approved a $303 million increase in spending.
The company shaved nearly 30% off its original $202 million request
earlier this year, but utility watchdogs say it did not go far enough.
Five state senators, 15 state representatives and 18 Chicago City
Council members signed the letter.
Peoples Gas spokesperson David Schwartz told Capitol News Illinois that
the company understands the concerns about affordability but defended
the requested profit rate.
“The requested return on equity is lower than similar requests recently
made by other natural gas companies in Illinois, as Peoples Gas tries to
balance market conditions and affordability,” Schwartz said. “Postponing
essential infrastructure work, though, is not a solution. That would
greatly increase safety risks and costs.”
Sen. Graciela Guzmán, D-Chicago, said safety could not be a blank check
for a program that has “repeatedly failed to deliver the results that
Chicagoans were promised.”
“Spend smarter,” Guzmán told Peoples Gas. “Prioritize the pipes that
actually pose the greatest risk. Consider less-expensive alternatives
where they can do the job safely. And stop asking working families to
finance decades of unnecessary fossil fuel infrastructure.”
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Sen. Graciela Guzmán, D-Chicago, speaks at a Sept. 29, 2026, news
conference at Chicago City Hall. (Capitol News Illinois photo by
Maggie Dougherty)
Rescinding the mandate?
Peoples Gas said the requested spending was necessary to meet a
directive from the Illinois Commerce Commission, which oversees the
utility, to retire over 1,000 miles of old iron pipes that carry natural
gas under Chicago’s streets by 2035.
Now, advocates want to see the ICC rescind its own mandate on pipe
retirement.
Traditional pipe retirement often means digging up streets and sidewalks
to replace old cast-iron pipes with new plastic ones. Consumer advocates
argue pipes can be repaired more cheaply using alternative technologies
like sealants that coat them from the inside, though Peoples Gas has
said it needs regulatory clarity from the ICC on whether relining would
be in compliance as a method to retire pipes.
Early last year, the commission ordered the pause of a previous version
of the pipe modernization work, effectively throwing out the approach
and sending Peoples Gas back to the drawing board following a yearlong
investigation.
The system modernization plan, as it was then called, was widely
criticized for mismanagement and failure to prioritize the most at-risk
pipes, leading to delays and budget shortfalls.
Peoples Gas initially estimated it would retire 35 miles of old pipes
this year and 53 next year, but by July, the target for this year had
dropped to 14 miles. That means the company would need to retire over
135 miles of pipes per year to meet the 2035 target, up from a fraction
of that in recent years.
Consumer advocates say they agree the system needs to be maintained, but
say the company needs to do a better job of balancing affordability and
safety. They urged residents to submit comments to the ICC and to reach
out to their representatives.
“Peoples Gas has not been a good actor,” Hadden said. “They do not
deserve one more cent from Chicagoans.”
Capitol News Illinois is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government
coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily
by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick
Foundation.
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