By Bryan McDaniel
CUB Director of Governmental Affairs
Springfield’s November Veto Session was busy with the passage of the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability (CRGA) Act. CUB supported the bill as a response to rapidly rising power prices–but there is more work to do, as data centers continue to place a strain on the grid and their massive usage is pushing power prices higher. This spring should be busy with CUB, as part of the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition, working for legislation to address data centers and their impact on power prices. (Stay tuned for updates in the data center front.)
Additionally, CUB is working with a number of legislators on bills to help make utility bills more affordable.
House Bill 4313: No More Utility Bill Rip-Offs Customer Protection Act
Lead Sponsor: Rep. Kimberly Du Buclet
What it does: HB 4313 will help to reduce alternative electric and gas supplier overcharges. We continue to see consumers paying well more than the utility price and CUB’s analysis of state reports show the same. We are all paying more as a result of higher prices and data center demand, but unfortunately a number of our neighbors and fellow Illinoisans are paying double, even triple the utility price with alternative suppliers. HB 4313 would implement a number of consumer protections, including ensuring that customers of suppliers are not charged more than 25 percent higher than the utility price, and require a customer signature at time of automatic renewal if the supplier wants to raise the rate.
Urge your legislators to support the No More Utility Bill Rip-offs Customer Protection Act!
House Bill 4781/Senate Bill 3497: The Utility Transparency Act
Lead Sponsors: Rep. Theresa Mah, and Sen. Suzy Glowiak Hilton
What it does: HB 4781/SB 3497 would follow similar legislation passed in Colorado, Maine, and Connecticut, helping to reduce expenses utilities can recover from customers. The measure here in Illinois would prohibit cost recovery for a number of expenses we now pay for on our utility bills:For example, a utility’s outside lawyers and witnesses in rate cases, insurance that protects utility shareholders, utility memberships in trade associations, and utility goodwill advertising. Needless to say, the utilities aren’t real excited about this bill. Ratepayers should not be paying to enhance utility political power and utility efforts to raise rates. HB 4781/SB 3497 is a commonsense measure.
Read House Bill 4781/Senate Bill 3497.
Urge your legislators to support the Utility Transparency Act!
Senate Bill 75/House Bill 5073: The Water Affordability and Accountability Act
Lead Sponsors: Sen. Laura Murphy and Rep. Dagmara Avelar
What it does: SB 75 would end the “QIP” (Qualifying Infrastructure Plant) surcharge which allows a water utility to raise rates more quickly, and require shareholders to pay the majority of the price tag when a utility purchases a water or sewer system. Private water utility bills are rapidly escalating. The biggest private water company in the state, Illinois American Water, has filed its fourth rate-hike request in a decade–this one for $134 million. Their most recent increase took effect not long ago: January of 2025. Privatization of water is expensive. Additionally the parent company of Illinois American, American Water, has announced the purchase of the second largest private water company: Aqua Illinois. 2026 is a big year for Illinois American, and CUB is determined to work for a better deal for private water customers.
Read Senate Bill 75/House Bill 5073.
Urge your legislators to support the Water Affordability and Accountability Act.
House Bill 4562/Senate Bill 3965: The Copper-for-Lead Affordability Act
Lead Sponsors: Rep. Maurice West II and Sen. Graciela Guzman
What it does: AT&T is bound and determined to get rid of their landlines. It truly is puzzling until you realize copper prices are at all-time highs, and a pliable Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is going to let the company do whatever it wants. AT&T has begun sending its Illinois customers letters that their landlines are going away for good as early as March of 2027, and the phone company has announced publicly they want to end their landline network by 2029. HB 4562 would ensure AT&T has to operate the network for an additional five years to ensure the health and safety of Illinoisans. Also, the legislation would deposit money from the value of the network–the copper lines in Illinois that AT&T seeks to dismantle and turn into fuel for profits and dividends for their shareholders–into the state’s Lead Pipe Replacement Fund. Illinoisans paid for that network on AT&T’s behalf, and HB 4624 would ensure the value in that network helps to keep future water bills lower, as Illinois has the most lead service lines in the country.
Read House Bill 4562/Senate Bill 3965.
House Bill 1802: Electric Utility Accountability
Lead Sponsor: Rep. Joyce Mason
What it does: HB 1802 would greatly increase transparency at the Committee level within Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs). Having unfamiliar names, such as PJM Interconnection and the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, these bodies create the markets in which electric wholesale prices are set–and they have a big impact on what we pay for power. Generators and utilities tend to dominate decision-making at RTOs around the country. Currently at PJM, votes taken at the Committee level are not made public–meaning generators and utilities can vote against consumer interests under the cover of nondisclosure.
HB 1802 would shed light on their actions by requiring utilities to file a report detailing their positions on votes taken at the Committee level within RTOs. CUB is working with legislators in a number of PJM states on the issue.
Read House Bill 1802.
About the author: Bryan McDaniel is CUB’s Director of Governmental Affairs. Bryan started at CUB on the phones, taking consumer complaints and helping people save on their utility bills at events all over the state. Now he goes to Springfield, where he works to protect Illinois consumers. Helping people save money is his favorite part of the job.
