CHICAGO — Peoples Gas on Monday filed a $202.3 million rate hike request with the Illinois Commerce Commission, sparking public outcry and protests from consumer advocates.

The increase, which the company estimates will add $10-11 to monthly gas bills for typical residential customers in Chicago if approved by the ICC, comes three years after Peoples Gas received a $303 million rate hike in 2023, the largest in state history.

Around a dozen consumer, environmental and community advocates gathered in front of the Peoples Gas headquarters in downtown Chicago on Tuesday to denounce the filing and vowed to push back against spending requests over the course of the case.

“It’s all the more outrageous that this new cash-grab comes as Chicago descends into one of the coldest months of the year, and far too many families can’t afford to pay Peoples Gas bills amid rising costs for other necessities like prescriptions and groceries,” Citizens Utility Board Communications Director Jim Chilsen said in a release after the filing.

The ICC will review the request over the next 11 months, giving opponents the opportunity to submit expert opinions and reports countering the company’s submission.

Over recent years, the ICC has pushed the utilities to justify their costs more directly, slashing requested rate hikes in 2023 and recently rejecting over 40% of the spending requested by Ameren and Nicor.

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Peoples Gas said in a news release the additional revenue is required to meet the ICC’s order to retire over 1,000 miles of old iron pipes that move natural gas through Chicago’s heating system by 2035. The company added that it expects Chicago home heating bills to remain lower than those in other major U.S. cities.

The statement pointed to the impact of inflation on infrastructure construction costs, as well as the need to meet environmental sustainability goals. The planned work will also help prevent leaks and set the stage for use of cleaner energy sources like biomethane and hydrogen, according to the company.

However, environmental and consumer advocates say the company’s approach does not make use of more cost-effective strategies for maintaining the system and transitioning to cleaner energy sources.

Abe Scarr, director of the Illinois Public Interest Research Group, said the company could invest more in relining pipes.

“You can insert a liner into the pipe, and that can extend the life of the pipe for a hundred years, eliminate leaks and drastically reduce the risk of failure, all while costing less for Chicagoans,” Scarr told reporters at the protest. “That’s the type of alternatives we expect Peoples Gas to explore, that we haven’t seen them explore nearly enough, and that we’ll be challenging them to explore more through this rate case.”

Consumer advocates also point to the filing’s proposal to raise shareholder return on equity to 10.1%, which would be an increase from the 9.38% return on equity approved by the ICC in the 2023 rate case. Peoples Gas parent company WEC Energy Group had a $34.3 billion valuation as of Dec. 31, 2025. The company made $1.2 billion in profit over the first nine months of 2025.

“Everybody agrees that Peoples Gas needs to maintain its system, that’s their responsibility,” Chilsen told reporters at the protest. “But they’re supposed to do it competently and they’re supposed to do it in a way that doesn’t bankrupt your customers.”

Peoples Gas serves an estimated 894,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in Chicago and 165,000 customers in the northern suburbs.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.