As almost every Chicago homeowner knows by now, natural gas prices are at historically high levels and show no sign of coming down soon.
We empathize with those who are hardest hit. That’s why, for months, we have urged Peoples Energy to extend the budget plan beyond the current 12-month period and to make it easier for customers to automatically sign up for the plan. And that’s why the city has launched a massive public information campaign to urge residents to automatically enroll in the Peoples Energy budget payment plan by paying the lower amount that will be printed in the message section of the gas bill they receive in January.
Unfortunately, an article in the Dec. 22 Tribune mistakenly contends that the city benefits from the high cost of natural gas because it generates additional city revenue through the municipal utility tax (“City to net bonanza on natural gas, Tax may yield $38 million more,” Page 1).
The fact is, the only people who profit from higher natural gas prices are the ones who produce and distribute natural gas. Although during the cold winter months of December through February the city could receive about $7.2 million in increased revenue, half of that money will go straight back to Peoples Energy to pay the gas bill for city buildings. The other half will pay for weather-related services to city residents, such as snow removal, emergency shelters for the poor and homeless, building inspections and water-main repairs.
Additionally, to directly help those who may face other winter-related expenses that they cannot afford, Mayor Richard Daley recently asked the City Council to appropriate an additional $2 million to the city’s Emergency Housing Assistance Program. This program helps seniors and others who cannot pay to replace inefficient and inoperable furnaces and helps them break the cycle of high-energy use and gas bills.
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Further, although the cost of city services will go up, not down, due to the extreme weather this winter, we are prepared to defer additional tax revenues by encouraging as many people as possible to sign up for the budget payment plan, which sharply reduces winter gas bills, including taxes, by averaging customer bills over 12 months. We have called on Peoples Energy to dramatically increase the number of customers on its Budget Payment Plan.
Finally, it should be noted that help already exists for those hardest hit who need help paying high bills. It is available through the Low-Income Heating Emergency Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP, and it provides assistance to pay energy bills through federal and state dollars that are marked for grants.
Again, we urge all Peoples Energy customers to consider using their January heating bill to automatically enroll in the company’s budget payment plan to spread out the winter heating costs over the entire year.