Van Hollen Calls for Leadership Change at Pepco

U.S. Rep. Christopher Van Hollen Jr. called for a change in leadership at Pepco in a letter to the utility this week.

The letter, sent Tuesday to Joseph Rigby, president and CEO of Pepco Holdings, Inc., comes as criticism of Pepco’s reliability heightens. Thousands of residents were left without power after last week’s snowstorm, many for days.

On Thursday, state legislators  in Annapolis that would create reliability standards for utilities, including Pepco, and would impose fines for failing to meet the standards.

“'Enough is enough’ – that is the collective sentiment of my constituents in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties regarding Pepco’s abysmal handling of the recent storm and power outages,” wrote Van Hollen (D-Dist. 8) of Kensington.

Van Hollen took Pepco to task on the extent of the outages, delays in power restoration, the reliability of Pepco’s call system and online outage map, and problems with addressing downed wires.

He wrote that he supports the proposed state legislation and called for immediate hearings through the Maryland Public Service Commission, adding that “in the near-term, it is time for a change of leadership and a complete overhaul of Pepco’s management.”

A Pepco spokesman said the utility has responded to Van Hollen and released this statement: “Pepco remains committed to providing safe and reliable service to all of our customers. We welcome the active involvement of policy makers in helping establish a better system of standards that will help all of us provide a more effective level of service at a reasonable cost.  Mr. Rigby is personally committed to addressing the issues that concern our customers. Pepco welcomes legislative input as the company continues to execute its five year plan to invest over $250 million in Maryland alone to improve service reliability.”