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Rather than review Mr. Daley’s eight year record on utilities, Mr. Cassel merely criticizes the State’s Attorney for agreeing to a five-year rate freeze plan for Commonwealth Edison which was opposed by Mr. Cassel’s group Business and Professional People for the Public Interest. Furthermore, although he discusses the rate freeze plan for nine paragraphs, Mr. Cassel does not mention the fact that the recent rate increases granted to Edison by the Illinois Commerce Commission were nearly twice as high for typical residential users as the rate freeze plan which was rejected by the Commission.
Working with the Citizens Utility Board and other consumer representatives, Mr. Daley has won court decisions reversing Edison’s last two rate increases. Due to State’s Attorney Daley’s legal action before the Commerce Commission, all of Illinois Bell consumers received rate reductions and refunds for the first time in history in 1988. Bell’s rate refunds and reductions, including a 33 percent discount for Sunday calls, totalled over $150 million in the last year. State’s Attorney Daley also won $14 million in rate reductions and refunds from Peoples Gas last year.
Doug Cassel replies:
Finally, residential consumers do not live in a vacuum–we live in an economy where businesses pass on costs to customers whenever they can. There is simply no getting around the fact that Daley supported a total rate hike of $660 million, whereas the recent increase was “only” $235 million, and the increase proposed for next year will add “only” another $245 million. While I join Daley in opposing these increases, they pale beside the even larger rate hike Daley proposed.
