Illinois utilities cannot cut off a home’s main gas or electric heat for nonpayment on days when the forecast calls for 32 degrees or colder, a protection that runs from Dec. 1 through March 31. It is a standing state rule rather than a new law, and it starts a month from now. Both the Illinois Attorney General’s office and the Illinois Commerce Commission, the state utility regulator, describe it the same way.
The forecast, not the calendar, triggers the bar
The trigger is the National Weather Service forecast, not a thermometer reading. A utility cannot terminate service that is a customer’s only source of heat on any day when the forecast for the next 24 hours is 32 degrees Fahrenheit or lower. The same bar applies the day before a holiday or weekend if any day in that stretch is forecast at 32 or below.
Commerce Commission Chairman Doug Scott tied the rule to the weather itself. In the agency’s Dec. 9, 2025 announcement, Scott said Illinois winters bring “frigid temperatures and frequent snowfall.” The release says the rule covers residential customers who heat with gas or electric, along with master-metered apartment buildings, where a single meter serves a whole building…