Utilities Board holds hearings on MidAmerican’s request for rate increase

The Iowa Utilities Board has three more public hearings scheduled across the state to discuss a proposed MidAmerican Energy rate increase. Utilities Board spokesman Rob Hillesland says the company wants to up its natural gas service charge by four-point-three percent.He says the increase is for the cost of delivering the gas, things like meters, pipes and things like that, not the actual cost of the gas. Hillesland says it’s important for customers to express their opinions on the proposed increase.There’ll also be an evidentiary hearing in September where the board will question expert witnesses. Hillesland says the public may attend that hearing, but says testimony there is reserved for the experts. Hillesland says the requested increase would generate nearly 27-million dollars for MidAmerican.He says the typical customer statewide would see an increase of four-dollars-and-50 cents if the increase were approved. MidAmerican has around 463-thousand residential natural gas customers in Iowa. The hearing tonight is at West High School in Davenport at seven o’clock. The other two hearings are Tuesday at 1:30 p-m at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, and Wednesday at Western Iowa Tech Community College in Sioux City at 1 p-m. The first hearing was in Des Moines last week.