proposed people's gas rate hike that's drawn.

The ire of consumers could be getting smaller judges with the Illinois Commerce Commission this week recommended a 54% cut to the proposed 144 million dollar increase.

That would bring the number down to 66 million dollars peoples gas as the rate hike is necessary to replace old iron pipes and modernize its system.

Meantime, consumer advocates say the ICC's proposed cut is a good start but still isn't enough.

Joining us to discuss the rate increase our a scar director of the Illinois Public Interest Research Group.

And Jim Chills and communications director for the Citizens Utility Board.

Gentlemen, thank you for joining us to make you think so.

As we just mentioned, that recommended 66 million dollar figure, a reduction of Jim, why do you think they can trim that rate hike even further?

You know, this is true in any rate case, but there are millions and millions of dollars of unwarranted costs.

>> That the proposed order leaves on Chicagoans gas bills.

We think they can go significantly beyond the 66 Million.

Like you said to step in the right direction.

We need to go further.

Still items on the ledger that aren't necessarily related to Absolutely.

All kinds of things they want cut consumers to to pay for such as you know, insurance for executives compensation for outside consultants, things like that, wasteful spending that we can reduce so people's gas declined to join the program this evening.

But in a statement they told us, quote.

>> Our rate filing is about the critical need to modernize energy infrastructure that serves almost every Chicago in every day.

The Illinois Commerce Commission directed us to retire more than 1000 miles of old natural gas pipe.

So Chicago's heating system remains safe and reliable.

Because on this large-scale complex work requires substantial investment rate request is to recover those costs.

A view of argue that the modernization program isn't actually targeting the system's biggest safety risks wanted person.

Alice's find.

>> Well, the bottom line is we found based on people's gas own risk analysis that the safety benefits that would accrue from this billions of dollars in pipe replacement spending.

I would be only about 60 million dollars.

So that's a penny of benefit for every dollar spent.

And that's just not worth it.

It's not worth it to raise our rates so much for so little benefit.

And the reason for that we've assumed for years that these old iron pipes are at elevated risk of failure and need this urgent attention.

But this evidence from their own risk analysis and there's new national analysis that just shows that a lot of these pipes aren't as risky as we thought and we don't need to replace them right away.

You know, Jim, to that point, the idea of the danger of failure, what would you say to a resident who might worry that?

>> You know, cutting funding for replacing the century.

Old pipes could put their community at risk.

Now the company is under legal obligation to keep their their system safe.

They've got plenty of resources to do that.

This is a company whose parent made 1.6 billion dollars in profits.

Peoples gas this year is going for their record profit for the 8th time in 10 years.

This company has plenty of resources.

And by the way, company always says this is about maintaining their system.

They conveniently leave out the fact that they're asking for a 10.1% profit rate for their shareholders and they're rolling in profits.

how about that?

If, you know, I think that the company might argue or at least its supporters might argue that, you know, they do have a requirement to deliver on, you know, profits for their shareholders and that this is a reasonable request here.

So they have well.

The commission has a responsibility to make sure that people's gas can raise the capital.

>> It needs to make the investments it needs.

And that's a question that's before the commission peoples Gas.

As Jim said, he's asked for a 10.1% profit rate, which we believe is far excessively recommended.

An 8.9% prof are 8, which we still think is actually higher than it needs to be.

These properties have got inflated over the years.

These utilities are very low risk ventures has a financial when it comes to finances.

Its less risky than like a normal business in the market.

That's not a monopoly, right?

we've put evidence in the record and we think commission can lower the even further and that the one of the ways that we can lower this rate hike.

It has a big impact on the rates that the company charges Kunce customer.

Is there a targeted figure that you have in mind lower than that 8.9 Our our expert actually set a reasonable range would be between 6.6 8.4% But we even with higher just for the principle of graduates to not make to draft drastic a change too You know, more than 160,000 families, Jim, are reportedly at least 30 days behind on their peoples gas bills.

A cub says customers the utility more than 90 million dollars.

How could another rate increase affect people who might already be struggling to pay their gas bill?

That's 144 million dollar rate hike would increase bills by about 6 to $8 a month.

>> We hear from people all the time.

What the heck is wrong with my people's gas bill.

People are having a hard time affording their bills right now.

You just pointed out those statistics.

heating affordability, crisis.

people this would be a hardship are far too many customers.

We're already hearing from customers.

I can't pay anymore.

>> And is there you know anything in place, whether it's from people's gas or, you the public assistance try to help people get out of those, you know, the holes that they may be terms of the dead absolutely did question the low-income home energy assistance program just opened on October.

First for a limited number of customers, opens for other income eligible customers.

But, you know, it's never enough and it can't compete with a company that keeps escalating these bills, peoples gas, his raise bills by about a half a billion dollars since 2011.

They've nearly doubled delivery charges.

I mean, that's what is causing the heating affordability crisis.

>> You the ICC is is slated to make its final decision next month.

What are you hoping to see from that?

>> Well, we're hoping to see a lower rate hike and less impact on customer bills for us.

The big priority is stopping this pipe replacement program.

That is the biggest driver of rate hikes said that almost doubling delivery rates over the last 15 years.

Rates will explode people's gas continues to invest in his pipe replacement program, the way it has in the way plans to.

And again, we think that the evidence clearly shows that this spending is unnecessary and wasteful and there are better investments that the company can make to better improve safety.

And so we want the ICC to recognize the evidence that's in the record in this rate case tell people's gas change course and to stop replacing somebody pipes and to instead make smarter investments that actually improve safety.

What with those smarter investments look like if it's not the current So the first thing to acknowledge is that the the number one risk to the people's gas system, according to people's gas itself is excavation damage.

So we don't have this rash of old pipes exploding on their own.

What does happen is that the city of Chicago or road builders are doing work in the streets and they strike a pipe and people's gas has higher rates of excavation damage than pure utilities.

So there are steps the utility can do to prevent.

This is not a fact of life.

So focusing on the actual risks that the utility faces in the the telly itself documents is that the biggest threat to system would be the place to start.

Peoples Gas also told us in a statement, quote, that we fully understand concerns about affordability, postponing essential infrastructure work, though, is not a solution.

>> It would greatly increase safety risk and costs and they add the opponents of our work want to ban natural gas and for Chicagoans onto an all electric system, that's less reliable and would double or triple everyone's heating bills.

Jim, what's your response to those claims about, you know, wanting to ban gas are absolutely ridiculous.

This is a company that wants to protect it's gravy train and it's, you know, record profits that's received several times.

There are alternatives to gas that are much more efficient and it's not going to happen overnight.

It'll be a long term transition, but what's happening right now is you have a lot of people are unhappy with people's gas.

We're already moving off the gas system and going with electric.

He pumps because it's more affordable.

It's cleaner and safer for a number of reasons.

What's happening is getting a fewer number of people on the left on the gas system have to pay these escalating bills.

And it's just an unsustainable system.

They call it the utility death spiral.

And how about that idea that the claimed that an all electric system wouldn't be reliable enough would be more expensive.

Yeah, that just hasn't shown in several in several studies.

It's shown that, you alternatives are much cleaner, much more affordable, much more efficient.

So again, there are people already.

They are pushing a lot of people off the gas rose.

They're going on to alternatives and what's happening is that fewer number of people have to pay these higher costs.

People, I guess is unsustainable.

That is very clear.

People are telling us now they can't afford these rate hikes.

And now they faced another rate hike.

You know, we've been talking a lot about pipe replacement program, but before we run out of you know, what are some of the other priorities you have long-term looking for changes from people's gas.

You know, things like lower bills are improved environmental outcomes.

Well, we do welcome the debate about the future of home heating in Chicago.

And I think it's important to recognize that by spending billions of dollars on its system now.

>> Peoples Gas is trying to foreclose that debate and lock us in to using this polluting infrastructure for decades in decades to come, where we pay for it, even if we stop using it.

So some of the safety recommendations we have, believe will actually make the system safer more safer than the pipe replacement they're doing now will cost less and actually help facilitate this transition to safer cleaner energy.

And we think those are the types of solutions that the utility should be considering right now in its thinking about investments in its system.

All right.

I know a lot of folks will be looking to see what happens with the