Illinois Commerce Commission

The Appellate Court of Illinois (First District) has ruled that the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) failed to properly consider the effect on consumers when it approved a rate restructuring plan for Central Telephone Co. of Illinois, a telecommunications local exchange carrier (LEC). An ICC order from a base-rate proceeding had permitted the LEC to eliminate most of its flat-rate calling plans and replace them with usage-sensitive service offerings. The order also permitted a general shift of costs away from business users and onto the residential customer class.

An Illinois Appellate Court has reversed a ruling by the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) that had allowed Commonwealth Edison Co. to enter negotiated rate contracts with up to 25 large general-service customers to retain existing load. The ICC had ruled that the antibypass tariff would not conflict with state laws requiring filing and publication of utility rates, because it must contain a description of the pricing and service parameters used in negotiating the individual contracts.

Question: What is your relationship with the state legislature? Do lawmakers in your state show interest in utility regulation? Should PUCs work more closely with state legislatures?Response by Boyce Griffith, Chairman, West Virginia Public Service Commission:

The West Virginia PSC's relationship with the legislature is good. The West Virginia legislature has been active in utility regulation. I believe West Virginia utilities already work closely with the legislature and will continue to do so.

Twenty-five centuries ago, 300 steadfast Spartans, defending their sacred Greek turf, held up Xerxes's Persian army at the pass at Thermopylae just long enough for the Persians to lose the opportunity to conquer Greece. The world would have been quite different if the Spartans had just "given way."Contemporary state public utility regulators number just about that of those plucky Spartans.

Citing a need to prepare for the emerging competitive marketplace, Central Illinois Light Co. has volunteered to experiment with direct access for all of its customers. The utility has asked the Illinois Commerce Commission to consider two separate pilot programs that will allow customers to purchase some or all of their power requirements from other suppliers.

The Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) has signaled a willingness to remove the current business/residential differential from local telephone rates. While rejecting a proposal by its staff to begin the rate restructuring move in a case involving rates for a limited number of custom-calling services provided by Harrisonville Telephone Co., a small local exchange carrier, the ICC agreed that a movement toward eliminating the differential was appropriate under current pricing practices.

incremental-cost studies to measure the cost of providing individual services and to check for subsidies between service groups. Carriers will also be required to use an aggregate revenue approach to test pricing for competitive and noncompetitive services. Re Implementation of Section 13-507 of the Public Utilities Act, No. 92-0211, July 19, 1995 (Ill.C.C.).

The Illinois legislature has established a committee to study reforming the electric utility industry in Illinois through competition. The Joint Committee on Electric Utility Reform will be guided by Energy Choice 2000, a proposal that would allow utilities to compete for large customers as of 2000. The Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) would have the power to let residential and small commercial customers to select their supplier by 2006. The proposal was developed by the Coalition for Consumer Choice, which comprises various Illinois businesses as well as Illinois Power.

For the past several decades, utility regulation at the state level dealt with secure local markets and truly captive customers. A regulatory compact flourished that offered reasonable prices to customers, while guaranteeing the monopolist the opportunity to earn a fair rate of return on prudently incurred investments.

The Illinois Supreme Court has overturned a ruling by state regulators denying recovery by natural gas local distribution companies (LDCs) of the carrying costs on the unamortized balance of their coal-tar cleanup costs. The Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) had ruled that the utilities could recover the costs of statutorily mandated coal-tar cleanup expenses from ratepayers over a five-year amortization period.