Pepco blame game: Fact-checking mayor's race attacks over pricey bills
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AI's power thirst and geopolitical upheaval are jacking up electricity prices — so what's a mayor's race got to do with it? Well, D.C.'s frontrunners are pointing the finger at one another for the panic you now feel every time you get a Pepco bill.
The big picture: It's hard to blame a council member in D.C. for the phenomenon of rising global energy prices — so let me try to separate some fact from fiction.
State of play: At a rowdy debate recently, Council member Janeese Lewis George and Kenyan McDuffie made specious claims about why the other had a hand in D.C.'s escalating utility bills.
- Scuttling criticisms of being a lowkey candidate, McDuffie launched into a thunderous attack, claiming Lewis George hasn't introduced "a single piece of standalone legislation to deal with the problem."
🔎 McDuffie reality check: Ehhh, technically true. But as the Sierra Club points out, Lewis George signed onto at least one council bill that aimed to reduce costs. (A pending measure, for instance, would enroll households unable to keep up into affordability programs.)
The other side: Lewis George is blaming McDuffie — when he was chair of the council committee overseeing electric utilities — for not putting pressure on the Public Service Commission, whose job it is to set fair rates.
- "He sided with Washington Gas and Pepco and delivered higher rates for you," said Lewis George.
🔎 JLG reality check: You can't draw a straight line from McDuffie to your gas bill, but it's fair to say McDuffie and his colleagues can always be more aggressive at oversight — crack some agency heads and hold them accountable, on behalf of the taxpayer. But ultimately, it's up to the PSC members to set rates.
- The council's real power lies in the appointment process. And this is where Lewis George's argument is weakened by the fact that she, like McDuffie, voted in favor of all three of the commission's members.
- In fact, there was broad support for the nominees. PSC commissioner Emile Thompson had the backing of former Attorney General Karl Racine, an ally of Lewis George, per council records.
- And at the time, the Sierra Club, which now blasts McDuffie's record on utility oversight, had applauded the nominations of the other two members, Richard Beverly and Ted Trabue. (Four years later, Sierra Club director Mark Rodeffer rues backing Trabue.)
💭 My thought bubble: The strongest line of attack in this messaging war is that McDuffie could've been more muscular on oversight — at the same time, that's not a terribly satisfying, succinct stump speech for JLG.
💭 Town Talker is a column about money and power in Washington. Tell me about the talk of the town: [email protected]