Passing the (Gas) Buck

By Matt Wood in News on Mar 23, 2006 4:09PM

Still waiting for that $100 refund from Peoples Energy? Yeah, so are we. And it seems that we'll be waiting a little longer while they haggle with the Illinois Commerce Commission over the wording of the settlement in which they agree to reimburse natural gas customers $100 million, or $100 each, for allegedly overcharging them between 2000 and 2004.

The ICC was expected to finalize the settlement yesterday, but Peoples Energy balked at a final change to the wording that indicated they had acted "imprudently." The Sun-Times reports that Peoples Energy filed a statement with the ICC saying they "have not and do not admit any wrongdoing or liabilities in the settlement." And here's $100 million to remember that too, because we always hand out nine-figure settlements when we don't do anything wrong. Once Peoples Energy is finished passing the buck, it will take up to 30 days to begin crediting customer bills with refunds.

Of course, they might be a little testy with the ICC because they just nicked them for $500,000 for failing to comply with gas meter inspection regulations. State and federal laws require that gas companies inspect meters for leaks on a regular basis, but over the past five years Peoples Gas has checked only 25 percent of its quota. Of course, that's not their fault either: they blame residential customers who aren't home or ignore requests to let inspectors in.