We'd rather see reductions be made through a process like this than any kind of confrontational process.

That's prohibited by law. Unlike retail gas stations, we cannot make a profit on gas.

It's traditionally a time when you see quite a few disconnections, but we certainly try to minimize those.

We just don't disconnect customers if they're a month or two behind. We looked at this case in depth. We believe we took all the steps we could to avoid a disconnection.

In all steps along the way, what we're asking the customer to do is to call us. . . . We do this with all customers facing disconnection.

Weather in December has been roughly about 20percent colder than normal. So, our guess right now is that the increase in the December bill will be more than the 27 percent that we forecast, simply because the weather has been so cold.