My name is Naira Brown, and I am testifying on behalf of Justice First, a DC Metro Area grassroots organization. Our campaign, “Power for the People” is based on the belief that utilities are a basic right! Electricity is not a luxury. It’s a vital element for a safe home.

Pepco’s unpreparedness for the recent storms is outrageous. Now, Pepco says it will take $256.3 million and five years to improve reliability and quality of service.

Undoubtedly, requests for rate hikes from Pepco are on the horizon. During the last five years, Pepco doubled the utility rates for customers in Maryland and DC.

Why do they need rate hikes when profits are at an all-time high? Pepco Holdings made $10.7 billion in revenue and $300 million in profits in 2009, and that same year, their Fortune 500 ranking went from 279 to 254.

Pepco executives and its board of directors receive obscene levels of payment. Pepco Holdings CEO and President Joseph Rigby received compensation in 2009 exceeding $3 million. In 2008, former CEO Dennis Wraase received compensation exceeding over $9 million -- that's nearly $25,000 a day.

This is obscene when many Pepco customers are choosing between paying rent, buying food, dealing with metro fare hikes and service cuts, and paying their utility bills.

The cost of improving the reliability and quality of service should be the burden of Pepco – not the customers who have already suffered. The PSC should oppose all future rate hikes and, furthermore, should move to reduce rates.

Not one penny of profit should go to pay a dividend or continue the payment of huge management salaries until the scandalous failures of Pepco are corrected.

When the PSC does grant Pepco rate hikes, it does so based on Pepco receiving a guaranteed rate of return. In other words, Pepco is a monopoly that is guaranteed a certain rate of profit. How many companies can say that?

It is the residents of Maryland and the DC area who should have a guarantee – not a profit-hungry utility monopoly. Right now, there is a right to profit – but not a right to power. This is an outrage! Light and heat should be a guaranteed right!

Pepco’s goal is not to provide electricity. Their goal is not to provide light or heat. Their goal is to maximize profits for a small group of already rich investors, primarily the biggest banks in society.

It is for these reasons that we demand a 50% rollback in utility rates, and a freeze on all shutoffs. Once again, electricity is not a luxury – it is a right!