Posted Monday, November 19, 2012 --- 7:25 a.m.

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 (http://bit.ly/S5GvD3 ) 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.

Copyright 2012: Associated Press