Illinois families don’t need another lecture from utility executives about “modernization.” They need transparency. They need the truth about why their bills keep rising while utility monopolies keep cashing record profits.
Dr. Cornel Darden Jr. laid it out in The Chicagoland Journal, and he didn’t sugarcoat a thing. He called for real transparency around what Illinois utilities are actually spending money on, how those costs are justified, and why ratepayers are being treated like ATMs. His op-ed reads like a warning flare: Utilities have been operating in the shadows for far too long, and every year the price tag for their secrecy lands squarely on the backs of Illinois families and small businesses.
The heart of the problem is simple. Utilities are guaranteed profits on the capital projects they choose to build. And when you reward a monopoly for spending more money, guess what happens? You get gold-plated everything. Overbuilt grids. Bloated capital programs. And you get utility executives bragging to investors about earnings growth while working families get smacked with another rate hike.
Dr. Darden is right: Illinois deserves better than a system where utilities get all the upside and consumers get all the risk. A system where the books are closed, the details are hidden, and bills keep rising because no one can see what’s being padded, inflated, or quietly slid into the rate base.
His call for transparency isn’t radical. It’s the bare minimum. If utilities want another nickel from Illinois homes, they should have to show every line item, every assumption, every projection, and every cost driver. They should have to prove they’re not turning “infrastructure upgrades” into profit factories. And they should have to answer for why bills keep rising even when the supposed improvements never seem to show up.
Illinois shouldn’t tolerate black-box accounting from companies that enjoy monopoly protection. If utilities want power, they should be accountable for how they use it. And if they keep playing games with the grid and the bills attached to it, then lawmakers and regulators should tighten the reins until basic transparency stops being treated like a threat.
Dr. Cornel Darden Jr. said it plainly: this is about fairness. It’s about honesty. And it’s about refusing to let monopoly utilities rewrite the rules to suit themselves while families pay more and more every year. Illinois ratepayers deserve a fair deal, not another round of gold-plated excuses.
