![\"Nicor](\"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/nicoradvanced-getstarted.jpg\")
<\/p>\nHey you Tea Party folks, how\u2019s that \u2018drowning the government in the bathtub’ routine going??? How\u2019s that \u2018getting rid of government regulations\u2019 working for you, huh?<\/p>\n
My neighbor just opened up her Nicor gas bill to see a ONE month charge of $960.00. The month before was nearly $700.00. The bills were double and triple the bills from last year. <\/p>\n
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No, she doesn\u2019t live in a house the size of a public library. Her house is about 3,200 square feet\u2014large for sure, but not enough to warrant one month\u2019s heating costs of well over $900. <\/p>\n
She checked all over her house for changes in her venting, open storm windows, and any heating leak problems she could find. NADA. NONE. Everything sealed tight. Everything. <\/p>\n
So she called Nicor. <\/p>\n
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\u201cThere must be a gas leak,\u201d she told the guy answering the phone at Nicor. \u201cI nearly fainted when I opened my bill for $960.\u201d<\/p>\n
He empathized with her, but said that many years ago she had signed up for this \u2018special program,\u2019 called Nicor Advanced, and they were not regulated by the government. <\/p>\n
\u201cAren\u2019t you Nicor?\u201d she asked. <\/p>\n
\u201cOh yes ma\u2019am, but Nicor Advanced is a \u2018sister\u2019 company to Nicor. Nicor Advanced is not regulated. Nicor is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t recall ever signing up for this Nicor Advanced\u201d she said, thinking the advance is actually for Nicor shareholders and the company, and certainly not for homeowners just trying to heat their house and pay their bills. <\/p>\n
\u201cWell, somehow you got signed up for this program, ma\u2019am. The charge per therm under the Nicor Advanced program is $1.390. The charge per therm with the Nicor program is $ 0.68, about half of that.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cHalf?\u201d she asked. ![](\"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/nicoradvanced-needhelp.jpg\")
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\u201cHalf,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
After several hours on the phone, most of them spent on hold while listening to advertisements about Nicor, she was able to switch out of the program and into the government regulated program called just plain\u2014Nicor. <\/p>\n
But she still had to pay the nearly $1000 bill. On top of the nearly $600 bill from last month, which she had already paid. If she had been in the government regulated program in the first place, her bills would have been AT LEAST HALF THAT. How\u2019s that for government regulation?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know about you, but I can do quite a bit with an extra $800 dollars in my pocket. Instead, my friend\u2019s $800 went to Nicor Advanced Energy LLC, the unregulated sister company of Nicor. <\/p>\n
After hearing her story, I did just a little bit of research. Turns out, the Illinois Commerce Commission regulates utilities. But some programs are able to opt out and sign up poorly informed people who, as one accountant told me during this research, \u201c\u2026for some reason, don\u2019t like regulations.\u201d <\/p>\n
Could that be you \u2018tea party folks\u2019 who don\u2019t like government regulations? The \u201cpoorly informed\u201d people the accountant referred to who don\u2019t want the government regulating big business? <\/p>\n
Please know Big Business likes poorly informed people who don\u2019t want \u2018government regulations,\u2019 so they can up their charges and redistribute your income into their pockets. Wake up folks and smell your dollars going into their wallets. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s called redistribution of money from the bottom up\u2014or \u2018trickle up,\u2019 but perhaps better experienced by us regular folk as \u2018legalized\u2019 theft. <\/p>\n
![](\"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/nicoradvanced-choose.jpg\")
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