DECATUR - Lawmakers say they've pulled off a $1 billion electric-rates deal that will put rebate checks in the mail within weeks and create a new state agency to negotiate lower prices for electricity. | Video

Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, Senate President Emil Jones and Attorney General Lisa Madigan flew into Decatur Airport on Monday to announce the deal reached with Ameren Corp. and ComEd. The taxpayer-funded fly-around also visited Peoria, Cahokia, Marion and Quincy.

The House and Senate are expected to vote on the deal this week and send it to Gov. Rod Blagojevich for his signature.

"We have come together and resolved to give consumers immediate relief," said Jones, D-Chicago, promising the governor will sign the bill.

Checks should arrive within weeks for families and small businesses, but how much anyone will get is hard to say.

Ameren customers should see a 40 percent to 70 percent reduction in their rates. Many would get rebate checks for the extra amounts they've paid since Jan. 1 and then credits on future bills until 2010.

Seniors, small businesses and low-income residents would be in line for even bigger reductions.

Estimates on the range of individual checks stretch from about $100 to $180 for people with non-electric heat. Rebates for people with electric heat could be up to $1,000 or more.

ComEd customers would not get rebate checks, but their bills would be credited to provide decreases of about 45 percent.

Customers more than 60 days in arrears won't get a check but will have rebates credited to their accounts.

The rebate plan won't mean rates will freeze again, however.

Ameren's rates would rise about 34.5 percent from next year through 2010, and ComEd's would go up 24.5 percent, said Sen. James Clayborne, the Belleville Democrat who helped negotiate the deal.

Jones had steadfastly opposed proposals to re-impose the 10-year rate freeze that expired Jan. 1. He claimed that would have resulted in an immediate court challenge by the power companies and no prospect of any quick relief to consumers.

The lawmakers also announced plans to kill the controversial reverse auction process that resulted in some electricity bills jumping 45 percent to 100 percent. The auction was designed to have utilities buy power from the cheapest generators, but critics say the utilities instead sent the business to specific generating businesses - sometimes their own generating subsidiaries.

Instead, power generators will submit sealed bids to sell power in Illinois, and a new Illinois Power Agency would oversee that process.

The agency, an independent body whose head would be appointed by the governor, would use the purchasing power of millions of Illinois customers to negotiate prices and possibly even pay for building power plants.

"Now there is going to be a new sheriff in town," said Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, referring to the agency. "At a minimum, it will eliminate the collusion that happened in the reverse auction process."

His daughter, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, has dropped legal challenges she had started after questioning the fairness of the reverse auction process. Hailing the "killing off" of the reverse auction, Lisa Madigan told a 100-member audience at the Decatur Airport that a new era was dawning for consumers with the creation of the Illinois Power Agency.

"We will have an independently run system that will set rates at the lowest possible prices for electricity here in the state of Illinois," Lisa Madigan said. "This is the type of reform we needed to see and that is why it has taken so long to get to this point."

State Rep. Bob Flider, D-Mount Zion, said he was relieved consumers were finally getting some help after months of negotiation. He said surveys had warned Illinois could have lost 20,000 jobs if the power bill increases by Ameren and ComEd had not been offset.

"What they wanted to do was put profits for their shareholders ahead of the needs of consumers and ahead of the economy," he said. "And that was not the right thing to do."

Not all consumers were dancing in the streets, however. Watching from the back of the airport crowd, retired Caterpillar Inc. worker Richard Springman wasn't impressed at the size of the $1 billion relief package, spread among all those hundreds of thousands of consumers in the Chicago area and downstate.

"You take someone who is 60 days in arrears and they get maybe $100? That don't amount to nothing, that don't amount to nothing at all," said Springman, 67, who lives in Mount Zion and isn't behind on his own power bill. "And if you're $500 or $700 in arrears, what good is $100?"

Told that some rebate amounts could be much higher, Springman still was skeptical, saying if it sounded too good to be true, it wasn't true.

"If I get a big rebate check out of this, you will have to send an ambulance to get me to the hospital," he added.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Power points

SPRINGFIELD - Details from a $1 billion plan to provide relief to electricity customers, according to information provided by Democratic leaders:

Rate discounts: Ameren customers would receive an average 40 to 70 percent discount, mostly through rebate checks. ComEd customers would get about 45 percent off in bill credits. The discounts essentially cut in half the increases that both companies' customers have paid this year.

Shutoffs: Customers with all-electric homes would not be allowed to have their service shut off through September this year, and they couldn't be shut off between Dec. 1 and March 31 of any year.

Conservation: Utilities would be required to include a growing percentage of renewable energy in their power portfolio each year and to encourage more efficient consumer energy use or face fines.

Power buying: A new Illinois Power Agency would negotiate the best electric rates it can get for Ameren and ComEd customers. It would also have authority to build power plants, or sell bonds so cities and other governmental bodies can build plants, to produce electricity more cheaply.

SOURCE: Associated Press