SPRINGFIELD - A southern Illinois lawmaker said he wants to strip the Illinois Commerce Commission of its power to regulate utilities if its members approve another rate increase for Ameren.

State Rep. John Bradley's proposal comes as Ameren is requesting an 8.6 percent increase in its delivery charge for customers, depending on where they live.

The commission regulates other businesses in addition to utilities, and Bradley said he wasn't sure about how those details would work in his proposal.

"To be honest with you, my main concern was over the utility part of it," the Marion Democrat said.

After electric rates spiked at the beginning of the year, the commission took heat from lawmakers and some filed proposals similar to Bradley's. One, for example, would require members to be elected by the public instead of appointed by the governor.

Few, if any, of those kinds of changes were approved.

This year, Ameren joined ComEd in agreeing to pay out $1 billion in bill credits over several years to lessen the impact of the rate increase.

Bradley was an especially vocal critic of the utility companies, and at the time, Ameren officials said they would ask for a delivery charge increase that would mean less than a 10 percent bump for customers.

"And we have kept to that promise," said Ameren spokesman Leigh Morris.

Ameren later asked for an average of 8.6 percent. ComEd asked for an increased charge that would mean about $6 more to a monthly bill.

Morris said Ameren needs the money generated from an increase to the delivery charge portion of power bills to maintain its infrastructure. Power-producing companies get paid for the actual electricity cost.

Last time the utilities asked for similar increases, the commission gave them about half of what they wanted. Commission spokeswoman Beth Bosch said a decision on upcoming hikes won't be made for another 10 months.