Another Company Makes Fraudulent Claims About GOP Tax Bill

On January 5th, Pepco, the energy provider that services Washington, DC and surrounding areas announced that it was going to cut rates for DC customers in the wake of the reduction in the nominal tax rate for corporations from 35% to 21% recently passed by Congress. According to the President and CEO of Pepco, “The tax law will result in lower bills for our customers and lower taxes for Pepco. We are pleased to provide these savings to our customers, while at the same time ensuring we are making prudent investments in the local power grid to maintain the safe, reliable, and affordable service our customers have come to expect.”

It seemed to reflect exactly what Trump and the Republicans had promised. Too bad, like so many other company’s announcements of similar nature in the wake of the tax bill’s passage, it probably isn’t true. The reality is that just slightly more than two weeks beforehand, Pepco had filed a request with its regulators to actually raise rates which would generate an additional $66 million in revenue for the firm.  According to a Pepco spokesperson, “The increase to a typical residential customer’s monthly electric bill would be $7.54.” That doesn’t sound like a cut to me.