{"id":9868,"date":"2025-05-15T09:13:47","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T14:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/?p=9868"},"modified":"2025-05-15T09:19:34","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T14:19:34","slug":"lines-being-drawn-over-proposed-natural-gas-rate-hikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/local-news\/9868-lines-being-drawn-over-proposed-natural-gas-rate-hikes\/","title":{"rendered":"Lines Being Drawn Over Proposed Natural Gas Rate Hikes"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pdfprnt-buttons pdfprnt-buttons-post pdfprnt-top-right\"><a href=\"javascript: window.print()\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_self\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/wp-content\/plugins\/pdf-print\/images\/print.png\" alt=\"image_print\" title=\"Print Content\" \/><span class=\"pdfprnt-button-title pdfprnt-button-print-title\">Print<\/span><\/a><\/div><p><em>The Michael A. Bilandic Building in downtown Chicago, shown in May 2024, houses the offices of the Illinois Commerce Commission (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Ameren Illinois wants to raise natural gas customers&#8217; bills by between $8 and $10 per month, but consumer advocates say the request goes too far.<\/p>\n<p>Capitol News Illinois reports the Citizens Utility Board, state attorney general, and several environmental groups say the request is too high.<\/p>\n<p>The groups say the utility&#8217;s profit margin is too large and that its infrastructure spending is unjustified, but Ameren, which serves much of downstate Illinois, says the spending is necessary to comply with federal safety regulations.<\/p>\n<p>Regulators will decide on the rate request in November, ahead of new rates going into effect at the start of next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Michael A. Bilandic Building in downtown Chicago, shown in May 2024, houses the offices of the Illinois Commerce Commission (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams) Ameren Illinois wants [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9873,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Lines Being Drawn Over Proposed Natural Gas Rate Hikes - Effingham&#039;s News and Sports Leader, 979XFM and KJ Country 102.3<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Effingham&#039;s News and Sports Leader\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/local-news\/9868-lines-being-drawn-over-proposed-natural-gas-rate-hikes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lines Being Drawn Over Proposed Natural Gas Rate Hikes - 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