Politics & Government

Van Hollen Calls for Leadership Change at Pepco

In letter to Pepco CEO, Congressman says "complete overhaul of management" is needed.

U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen called for a change in leadership at Pepco in a recent letter to the utility.

The letter, sent Feb. 1 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. And Thursday, legislators in Annapolis that would create reliability standards for utilities including Pepco and 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,” Van Hollen wrote.

Find out what's happening in Bethesda-Chevy Chasewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Van Hollen took Pepco to task on issues including 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 supported the proposed legislation and calls for immediate hearings through the Maryland Public Service Commission, “but in the near-term, it is time for a change of leadership and a complete overhaul of Pepco’s management.”

A spokesman said Pepco 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.”

Find out what's happening in Bethesda-Chevy Chasewith free, real-time updates from Patch.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here