ComEd to pay $434 million back to customers
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[July 14, 2022]
By Andrew Hensel | The Center Square
(The Center Square) – ComEd customers will
start seeing monthly checks from the utility company as they are
required to pay back $434 million over the next three years.
The payments come from excess deferred income taxes collected by the
company as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The plan comes
after the Illinois Commerce Commission approved nearly $485 million in
tax refunds to the state's electric customers beginning in 2023.
Abe Scarr of the Illinois Public Interest Research Group, or PIRG,
explained the payment process to The Center Square.
"The checks will be around $3 a month for the next three years," Scarr
said. "So it's not incredibly significant, but it will hopefully balance
out a little bit of this pending [utility] rate increase."
The proposed rate hike would raise average bills by $2.20 a month, but
ComEd added that offsets and other decreases due to a reduction in
energy capacity costs would result in lower bills by next year.
Around $65 million will be distributed by the utility in 2023 with
between $195 million and $282 million in 2024. The remaining amount will
be paid out in 2025, according to ComEd spokesman David O'Dowd, as
reported by the Chicago Tribune.
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Scarr said the original plan was to pay out customers over the next few
decades.
"It has always been our money, and they've always needed to return it,"
Scarr said. "A couple of years ago, they convinced regulators to give
them 39 years to repay it, and a law was passed last year that said they
have until 2025."
In 2016, the utility's parent company, Exelon, secured large subsidies
from the General Assembly for two of its nuclear power plants. In 2020,
ComEd admitted wrongdoing in a deferred prosecution agreement with
federal investigators and paid a $200 million fine after admitting it
gave jobs and contracts to allies of then-House Speaker Michael Madigan
in exchange for favorable legislation.
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Scarr worries that this could be a public relations move by Commonwealth
Edison.
"I do have some worries that ComEd is using these refunds, which is the
customer's money to begin with, to clean up previous issues," Scarr
said.
Andrew Hensel has years of experience as a reporter and
pre-game host for the Joliet Slammers, and as a producer for the Windy
City Bulls. A graduate of Iowa Wesleyan University and Illinois Media
School, Andrew lives in the south suburbs of Chicago. |