Utility's rate hike would also pay legal fees

MILWAUKEE (AP) - We Energies latest rate hike request includes more than $34 million in legal fees it wants customers to fund.

The Public Service Commission will consider We Energies $242 million rate hike in the coming weeks. It would amount to about $5 more for the average residential customers beginning in January and another $3 in 2014.

The legal fees include $13 million the utility spent fighting the federal government after it failed to open a nuclear waste disposal site in Nevada.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports We Energies says the legal fees should be viewed in context and that because it won the case, electrical rates didn't increase this year.