Pepco Rate Hike: No Evening Hearing in Ward Two

If you live in DC's Ward Two and don't want to pay six dollars more a month for electricity next year, you can make your opinion known to DC's Public Service Commission in two ways. They are:

1) Take a day off work to attend a hearing in the mid-morning on September 30.

2) Write a paper letter and send it through the US Mail.

You cannot tweet, send an email, use social media, or even send a fax.

PEPCO Headquarters (credit below)

According to DC's Office of the People's Counsel, the Potomac Electric Power Company ("Pepco") is seeking a revenue rate increase of $51.75 million. This would add about six dollars a month to the bill for the typical residential customer.

If approved, the increase would take effect in spring 2014 at the earliest.

The Ward Two meeting will be held at the DC Public Service Commission Hearing Room (1333 H Street NW) at 10am on September 30.

If you can arrange to be at the meeting, you can testify for not more than five minutes, but you must call (not fax, email, etc.) the commission at 202-626-5150 by the close of business on Tuesday, September 24, and tell them you intend to do so.

Evening hearings in Wards 5 and 7 will be held on September 19 and October 2, respectively.

Alternately, you can submit a written statement to

Brinda Westbrook-Sedgwick, Commission Secretary,
Public Service Commission of the District of Columbia
1333 H Street NW, Suite 200, West Tower
Washington D.C. 20005

Click here for a .pdf file from the Public Service Commission explaining the proposed rate increase. 

Ward Two covers an area roughly from the National Mall to U Street, and from Mount Vernon Square to Georgetown University. See map here.

(Photo courtesy of AgnosticPreachersKid/Wikipedia)