Post Author's Photographer By Andy Johnson October 10, 2019

Alliant is still pushing a 15% increase. Here are the recent developments.

  1. On October 3rd, intervenors including the Office of Consumer Advocate, large business, and environmental groups filed a “non-unanimous, partial settlement” proposal with the Iowa Utilities Board.
  2. While the Decorah Area Group (DAG) testimony was certainly part of the body of evidence and pressure on the company to settle, DAG believes the settlement terms still place too great a burden on customers and communities. DAG filed a partial objection to the proposed settlement on October 4, and shared a news release explaining the position. (“DAG” = City of Decorah, Winneshiek Energy District, Luther College, Winneshiek Medical Center, and Aase Haugen Senior Services)
  3. The Iowa Utilities Board held a three-day hearing on the current Alliant rate increase October 7-9 but won’t come out with a final order until December or possibly January. DAG was represented at the hearing by a team led by attorney Sheila Tipton of Brown Winick, and including witnesses Dave Berg, Jim Martin-Schramm, David Osterberg, and Andy Johnson. The Utilities Board asked good questions of DAG witnesses, related both to the rate case as a whole, and to the promise of low rates that Alliant had made to the community during the municipalization debate: specifically, 1% per year on average for at least 20 years.
  4. DAG member representatives Andy Johnson and Jim Martin-Schramm submitted a guest column to the Cedar Rapids Gazette highlighting the unprecedented fact that 55 cities and counties in Alliant service territory have passed and submitted resolutions opposing the rate increase. Roughly half of these have utilized the resolution passed by the City of Decorah on April 22nd as a template, focusing on both the economic burden on customers and communities and the company’s simultaneous effort to keep the lid on energy efficiency and locally-owned renewable energy such as solar.
  5. The hearing was preceded by multiple rounds of testimony, and the parties still have over a month to submit final briefs, with final arguments. DAG has submitted over a hundred pages of testimony from six witnesses, and will continue efforts on behalf of the Decorah area community “? and customers and communities throughout Alliant’s territory “? through to the end of the docket.
  6. Any customer or community can still submit a comment through the IUB’s Open Docket Comments Form (choose the Alliant docket RPU-2019-0001 from the list). And, you can find all our resources related to this case, on our Alliant rate case web page.

A middle-aged man with glasses and a graying beard smiles while looking to the side, standing in front of a wooden background.

Andy Johnson

Director of Winneshiek Energy District

Energy Policy

Love this post?

Share it with family and friends.

Sign up for our newsletter.

subscribe

Don’t miss these

Winn Board of Supervisors approves M2 Zoning for Data Centers

June 1, 2026

The rapid expansion of data centers expansion is impacting rural communities faster than many localities can regulate them. As data center development expands across Iowa, …

Read More

Balcony Solar is on the Rise, Not Yet in Iowa

September 2, 2025

Plug-in balcony solar arrays are beginning to attract attention in the US after rapid growth in Europe. The idea first gained traction in Germany, where …

Read More

Clean Energy Advocacy

July 2, 2025

Energy is a highly regulated and policy-driven industry. This is in part because it affects the livelihood of each person who flips a switch, drives …

Read More