Public Act 096-1404
 
SB3683 EnrolledLRB096 20708 RLJ 36435 b


  
    AN ACT concerning local government.
  
 
    Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois,
 
represented in the General Assembly:
  






 
 
    Section 5. The River Edge Redevelopment Zone Act is amended  
by adding Section 10-10.1 as follows:
 
    (65 ILCS 115/10-10.1 new)
    Sec. 10-10.1. Utility facilities.
    (a) It is in the public interest that costs for 
redevelopment in a River Edge Redevelopment Zone impacting a 
public utility, as defined by Section 3-105 of the Public 
Utilities Act, or a public utility's property, as described in 
subsection (b) of this Section, should not be allocated solely 
to the entity engaging in economic redevelopment because this 
economic redevelopment benefits the utility service territory 
as a whole and not just the particular area where the 
redevelopment occurs.
    (b) A public utility that has facilities or land affected 
by the clean-up, remediation, and redevelopment of a River Edge 
Redevelopment Zone and that incurs costs related to the 
remediation or the removing or relocating of utility facilities 
in the River Edge Redevelopment Zone may recover these costs 
pursuant to subsections (c) and (d) of this Section.
    (c) The reasonable and prudent costs incurred by a public 
utility for facility removal or relocation described in 
subsection (b) of this Section shall be shared equally among 
the public utility, the municipality in which the facility is 
located, and any landowner that is located within 100 feet of 
the utility facility and that directly benefits from the 
removal or relocation of the utility facility or the 
redevelopment of the public utility's land.  In no event shall 
the costs incurred by each municipality or landowner for a 
given project exceed an equal percentage of the total direct, 
indirect, and overhead project costs, or $3,667,000 each, 
whichever amount is less.  The reasonable and prudent costs 
incurred by the public utility for facility removal or 
relocation that are not the responsibility of the municipality 
or landowner under this subsection (c) shall be recovered by 
the public utility from all retail customers located in the 
municipality or municipalities in which the removal or 
relocation occurs through an appropriate tariff mechanism, and 
the public utility may record and defer such costs as a 
regulatory asset until they are so recovered.
    (d) The Illinois Commerce Commission shall allow a public 
utility described in subsection (b) to fully recover from all 
retail customers in its service territory all reasonable and 
prudent costs that it incurs in conducting environmental 
remediation in the River Edge Redevelopment Zone related to the 
removal or relocation of utility facilities in the River Edge 
Redevelopment Zone, including, but not limited to, 
transmission and distribution lines, transformers, and poles. 
These environmental remediation costs also include, but are not 
limited to, direct, indirect, and overhead costs calculated by 
the public utility for taxes or other charges, cost adjustments 
made after the project has begun, and any other environmental 
remediation-related charges. The public utility shall record 
and defer such costs as a regulatory asset to be included in 
the public utility's total rate base and amortized in the 
public utility's next filing for a general increase in rates 
over a reasonable period that is shorter than the life of the 
affected facility or facilities.  Such regulatory assets shall 
be collected from all residential and commercial ratepayers 
system-wide, and not only from ratepayers in the municipality's 
corporate limits.  In the event the River Edge Redevelopment 
Zone is decertified, the public utility shall be permitted to 
recover all reasonable and prudent costs incurred as of the 
date of the decertification, as well as all reasonable and 
prudent costs incurred subsequent to decertification that are 
necessary to complete any projects commenced while the River 
Edge Redevelopment Zone was certified, consistent with this 
Section.
    (e) This Section is repealed 7 years after the effective 
date of this amendatory Act of the 96th General Assembly.
 
 
    Section 99. Effective date. This Act takes effect upon 
becoming law.