A state panel on Monday called for Illinois gas utility provider Nicor to reduce its requested rate hike by nearly $110 million, a number the Citizens Utility Board says could be reduced even further.

“Stop treating your customers like an ATM,” Jim Chilsen, CUB’s communications director, said during a video news conference Wednesday.

In January, Nicor asked the Illinois Commerce Commission for a rate increase – the fifth request since 2017, according to CUB. This year, that rate increase request is for an additional $314.2 million.

The ICC has solicited utility user’s comments on the request via its website, and two public hearings have allowed residents to chime in, both for and against the hike.

CUB, as well as the AARP and other advocacy groups, have been vocal in their opposition to the rate increase.

“We are doing everything we can to defeat it,” Chilsen said on the media call.

The commerce commission’s two administrative law judges, tasked with drafting the state’s response, “rejected Nicor’s proposed authorized profit rate of 10.35%, instead recommending a 9.93% profit rate,” according to Illinois PIRG, a public interest research group.

CUB says the cut suggested by the judges is a “step in the right direction,” Chilsen said, adding the watchdog group believes Nicor’s request could be cut further. “There are tens of millions in additional fat that should be shed from Nicor’s rate hike, at the very least.”

In the past eight years and the previous price increases, the Nicor profits are nearing $1 billion “and for the same period, their corporate parents has $25 billion in profits. Enough is enough,” Chilsen said.

According to the Illinois PIRG data provided in a release, with the lower rate hike suggested by the judges, “Nicor would have annual authorized profits of $471 million.”

The judges’ proposal also recommends increasing the gas delivery charge, from $19.48 to $23.41 each month.

“We propose lowering it to $18.51,” said Abe Scarr, director of Illinois PIRG, on the press call. “A lower fixed charge incentives lower use.”

The panel of judges also suggested Nicor end its TotalGreen program that allows allowing customers to pay more to offset climate-changing emissions.

“Over three years, only 238 of Nicor’s 2.3 million customers have opted in and the program has offset only 0.0031% of the company’s total emissions,” Scarr said.

According to Nicor data provided at an Aug. 7 public hearing in Elgin, its proposed new rate come out to a 9.21% increase, or an average of $7.63 a month.

What that increase is for individual users fluctuates, Chilsen said, based on usage.

The ICC’s final decision on the rate increase is expected by Nov. 24.