If the alternative weren't freezing....

We live in northern New England. This means our winters are long and very cold.
We heat with natural gas. To somewhat cushion the horror, we are on a ‘balanced billing’ system, that is, we are to pay the same amount each month, Winte or Summer, what the gas company predicts is 1/12 of what will use for the year.

In January our balanced bill rate was $137. In March it went up to $181. For June the monthly rate has just gone to $267. That is an increase of $130 in 5 months. If my feeble math skills aren’t completely off, that is an annual increase rate of ** 228% **
What the hell??? Are they blaming that on the way in Iraq, too? But isn’t natural gas an entirely domestic commodity??

Here’s some poop on that.

http://www.naturalgas.org/overview/resources.asp