Happy Holidaze from DC for Reasonable Development.

Exelon wants to nuke Santa, and bring DC more coal.

This is a reminder that at 5pm tomorrow, Wednesday night, your views, further opinions, and conclusions about the ridiculous Pepco-Exelon mega-merger should be on the public record, and the right side of history.

Please take a two-minute look at the following link, then edit and send your personalized note to the Public Service Commission (PSC) using this easy online form >> http://powerdc.org/take-action.html

Or email the PSC directly in re: Formal Case No. 1119 — Psc-commissionsecretary@dc.gov

TALKING POINTS BELOW

* Again, please send a note >>
http://powerdc.org/take-action.html

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GATHER IN PERSON TOMORROW
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Dozens of DC ratepayers will gather at the PSC offices, Suite 800, to SAY NO to the MERGER and file personal letters with the PSC opposing the Pepco-Exelon merger (Formal Case No. 1119).

MEET TOMORROW — 8:45 a.m., Wednesday, December 23rd at the DC Public Service Commission (the PSC), located at 1325 G Street, NW.   Suite 800 — Public Service Commission (they say you should have your id to get upstairs)

Bring a letter written by you to the DC Public Service Commission opposing the merger; and, two or three letters from family, friends and neighbors, if possible.

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suggested talking points
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The backroom deal announced by Mayor Bowser and Exelon on October 6, is not in the public interest, undermines the year-long public process that resulted in the rejection of Exelon’s bid to take over Pepco and raises serious ethical and legal questions.

Tell the D.C. Public Service Commission (PSC) to deny the Bowser-Exelon-Pepco deal.

The Bowser-Exelon-Pepco deal:

* Is highly controversial and tainted with the appearance of impropriety (i)

* It represents a significant flip-flop by Mayor Bowser, who backed the PSC’s decision to reject the takeover.

* Just days before announcing the backroom deal with Exelon to revive its failed takeover of Pepco, Mayor Bowser struck a $25 million sponsorship deal with Pepco to pave the way for the future DC United soccer stadium.
Exelon and Pepco refused to disclose whether they had been asked to contribute to the Mayor’s, now disbanded, Super PAC

* Public Citizen and the Chesapeake Climate Action Network have called for a formal probe into the questions surrounding Mayor Muriel Bowser’s decision to reverse course and revive the  $6.8 billion merger between Pepco Holdings and Chicago-based Exelon. (ii)

* The Washington Post reported that just prior to the settlement between D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and Exelon being announced, charities were told that philanthropic contributions ‘could be jeopardized if the deal is not approved. (iii)

* Undermines transparency and public process

* The deal was made behind closed doors and negotiations were led by the City Manager, who previously had no role in the takeover proceedings before the PSC.

* Key intervenors such as DC SUN and the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) were excluded from the discussions and other intervenors such as the Apartment and Office Building Association (AOBA) and D.C. Water and Sewer Authority (WASA) were only brought in at the very last minute and strong armed into signing on by their Boards who have deep connections to the Mayor.

* Exelon has spent millions including full page adds, radio, TVs, paid petitioners, and door to door pressure tactics to try to bamboozle the public into supporting the deal. But the public isn’t buying it.

* The initial proposal was reviewed and deliberated over for nearly a year and included four public hearings and an ample public comment period that led the commission to declare that the proceedings generated more interest and more active participation by the public – which largely opposes the merger – than any other proceeding in the commission’s 100-plus years of operations. (iv)

* Exelon, supported by the Mayor, requested and was granted an expedited review of the deal that limits public participation and the opportunity for new challenges to the takeover.

* Exelon’s fact track motion coupled with the mayor’s backroom negotiations could shatter the public trust in the very processes established to protect energy consumers in the District.

* Is NOT supported by the public — Nearly 700 comments have already been submitted in opposition to the Bowser-Exelon-Pepco deal. 27 out of 42 Advisory Neighborhood Commissions (ANC) have passed resolutions in opposition to the takeover, no ANC has come out in support. The 27 ANC’s conservatively represent 300,000 District residents. Pepco claims it has generated 28,000 signatures in support of the deal by using its customers’ contact information to drive customers to an Exelon sponsored petition site.  These 28,000 signatures represent 8% of Pepco’s D.C. customer base.

* If this deal is allowed to go through, it could harm D.C. electricity consumers

* The Mayor is claiming that the $78 million settlement will benefit ratepayers and ‘freeze’ electricity rates until 2019. This is grossly misleading:  $25.6 million of the settlement will go straight back to Exelon to pay for the immediate rate increase they’ll put in place once they take over PEPCO. (v)

* Once March 2019 arrives, the Mayor’s deal allows Exelon to hit DC with several years’ worth of accumulated rate increases and allow Exelon to charge an additional 5% on those rate increases  that exceeded the bill credits approved by the merger.– that means DC will have to pay interest on its electricity bills! (vi)

* Cynically, the rate hikes will be felt right after the next Mayoral election.

* Exelon gets to take back its much-touted $50-per-customer credit in 2019 as part of the new rate hikes – so we ultimately get nothing in our pockets.  By contrast, Pepco shareholders will get nearly $2 billion windfall. (vii)
If approved, the deal would create the largest electric utility holding company in the country and give Exelon a monopoly in the mid-Atlantic region.

* This would allow Exelon to use its influence over its utilities to protect its generation interests at the expense of ratepayers and eliminate the independent voice of Pepco, which has taken positions that differ from – and in some cases served as a counterbalance to – Exelon in numerous forums including regulator matters, energy legislation and energy market proposals.

*The small changes in this settlement on board Governance and the siting of offices are smoke and mirrors designed to distract from the essential relationship which is unchanged stunt efforts to expand clean and local energy in the District

* Exelon has repeatedly demonstrated their disrespect for DC in their conduct of this proceeding and their back room arm twisting and divisive tactics are very well know in places like Chicago where they have long had a stranglehold on the state legislature

* Exelon views the advancement of renewable energy and energy efficiency as a ‘cannibalization’ of its core nuclear power generation.

This conflict between Exelon’s nuclear business and clean energy was a core reason why the PSC rejected the merger – the negotiated deal does NOT resolve this issue. (viii)

And it would lock the District into a regime far worse than Pepco (ix)

* Exelon is one of the leading opponents of renewable incentives at the federal level, as well as a foe of clean energy initiatives at the state regulatory and legislative level and in the wholesale market.

* Exelon uses not only aggressive political lobbying, but funds other groups to advocate for its interests and try to eliminate pro-clean energy policies that conflict with Exelon’s bottom line. For example, Exelon spends more funding the anti-clean energy Edison Electric Institute in one year than all the charitable giving it proposes for D.C. organizations.

* According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index released in spring 2015, Exelon has one of the worst customer satisfaction scores among energy companies coming in third to last among the investor-owned utilities in the survey.

FOOTNOTES:

(i)   Infographic on the web of influence surrounding the Bowser-Pepco ‘Soccergate’ questions: http://www.citizen.org/documents/bowser-pepco-exelon-web-of-influence.pdf

(ii)   http://www.citizen.org/documents/pepco-exelon-bowser-bega-investigation-request.pdf

(iii)   https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/2015/09/17/1ceb5388-5d7d-11e5-b38e-06883aacba64_story.html

(iv)   http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-bz-exelon-pepco-merger-rejected-20150825-story.html

(v)   http://www.powerdc.org/settlement-fact-sheet.html

(vi)   id

(vii)   id

(viii)   https://www.citizen.org/SSLPage.aspx?pid=6637

(ix)   id

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Why must we do this?
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After the PSC’s categorical rejection of the deal as ‘not in the public interest’ the Mayor directed DC government to enter into a non-unanimous settlement.

Pepco-Exelon unleashed an orgy of spending and backroom dealing (#Soccergate) on the public with the DC government, orchestrated by some of the same officials who ran the Mayor’s FreshPAC.

Pepco-Exelon spends  daily to manufacture ‘support’ for the merger.At $15 per hour, petitioners, paid by Pepco, have filed 40,000 names with the PSC, many with no address; names that include Dick Balls, Harry Balls, SUckage Yeah, and F*ck Y#@.

That is why we are asking our allies — real DC residents, who pay Pepco rates, to join us in telling the PSC how much we don’t want to be sold to Exelon. Thanks.

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Good citizens seeking good planning in the District , here’s the latest update from the DC for Reasonable Development team.

 Menu:

 1) Upcoming City Council Hearings

 2) DC’s Infrastructure Collapse

 3) McMillan Park :: Climate Folly

1) UPCOMING COUNCIL HEARINGS

http://dccouncil.us/news/entry/performance-oversight-and-budget-hearing-schedules-slightly-updated

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TOMORROW, FRIDAY, MARCH 6 — 12PM
Oversight hearing on DC’s Planning Agencies
http://dccouncil.us/events/committee-of-the-whole-boh3
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There may be a hearing tomorrow about DC’s planning agencies, the Deputy Mayor’s Office on Planning and Economic Development (DMPED), the DC Office of Planning (OP), and the DC Office of Zoning (OZ). The hearing starts at Noon in Room 500 of the Wilson Building located at 1350 Pennyslvania Avenue NW.

In the case you are not able to come to the Wilson Building to testify tomorrow, or if the Wilson Building is closed tomorrow, you can send in your testimony about the bad planning in the district to the Committee Clerk, Cynthia LeFevre, clefevre@dccouncil.us or call her directly at 202-724-8092.

In shaping your testimony, DC4RD suggest the following points and topics. If you want to send us your testimony draft, we’d be glad to support you with case studies, data, links, and any edits to help.

DC4RD offers these suggested points of contention with DMPED:

* DMPED is brokering deals, terms of which are not made available to the public either before or after the deal is signed. DMPED will not put details of the deals on their website as required by law.

* DMPED’s deals tend to giveaway public assets, like DC land and public buildings. Once DC’s limited public property is given away, its rarely ever comes back.

* DMPED defines affordable housing as studio/one-bedroom units at $1,500 a month.

* DMPED is hiring private firms to discredit the communities that are opposed to their deals.

* DMPED mischaracterizes public amenities which they say the developer pays for, but which ultimately the public pays for.

* DMPED purposely undervalues the price of public land, so when the deal is struck developers are paying for our land at significant discount, sometimes getting our assets for a $1.

DC4RD offers these suggested points of concern with the Office of Planning:

* OP does not conduct robust studies of projects, particularly large luxury projects so to identify and attempt to mitigate displacement pressures and to evaluate infrastructure needs.

* OP is pushing forward 1000+ pages of zoning changes using a one-size-fits-all model without meaningful review of possible impacts their changes will have on DC’s future.

* OP disregards community outreach and input from many Wards where low income families predominantly live, like in Wards 5, 7 and 8.

* OP does not use the work and efforts of planning initiatives of other jurisdictions to model their work from.

* OP has done nothing to mitigate the affordable housing crisis in the District, despite being a central planning organ which is supposed to raise up the principles of “Building an Inclusive City” as found through the DC Comprehensive Plan.

* Planning should be removed from under DMPED. DMPED is focused on “economic” development and the best deal they can give developers, whereas municipal planning encompasses many points of evaluation to improve the built urban-landscape such as parks, infrastructure, and mitigating displacement. OP should not have to report to DMPED on major planning projects.

DC4RD offers these suggested points on the Office of Zoning:

* The Office of Zoning ought to have a People’s advocate or commission so to help everyday laypeople get a sense of their rights in administrative cases before the Zoning Commission. Right now the structure at OZ is set up to serve developers rights, but there is little in the assistance in guiding DC residents to the rules, to their rights, and to better outcomes for the interests of the people.

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TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 2015 — 10AM

Oversight hearing on DC Public Schools and the DC PUBLIC LIBRARY.

http://dccouncil.us/events/committee-on-education-poh4

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Please testify about your public schools and libraries on Tuesday. In particular, we want less charter schools and more charter-school accountability and we want to make sure the programmatic planning of what’s happening inside MLK library is done by all Eight Wards and by people of all backgrounds, including teens and children.

2) DC’s INFRASTRUCTURE COLLAPSE

DC’s municipal infrastructure is failing and the under belly is collapsing under its own isht. Literally >> http://www.dc4reality.org/updates/148#up4

Here’s John Oliver’s great satirical take on how important municipal infrastructure is, and why we need the City to prioritize upgrading and improvements to our utilities structures instead of funding private soccer stadiums >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpzvaqypav8

Let’s make infrastructure sexy.

3) MCMILLAN PARK

Wow, with the recent news of the Mega-Drought, its making DMPED’s decision to tear out McMillan’s underground and historic water storage and filtration facility seem like foolish folly that will bite us in the not to distant future. Where will Congress get their water when the drought comes east.

• http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/todays-drought-in-the-west-is-nothing-compared-to-what-may-be-coming/2015/02/12/0041646a-b2d9-11e4-854b-a38d13486ba1_story.html

• http://www.wsj.com/articles/drought-stricken-sao-paulo-battles-dengue-fever-outbreak-1425420508

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rQmG-koEPI

Here’s some solutions and ideas:

1. Save McMillan Park >> http://friendsofmcmillan.org/

2. Get this going locally now >> http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/26/8112889/vertical-farm-wyoming-hydroponics-grow-food

3. The City can install these awesomely cool pipes >> http://magazine.good.is/articles/portland-pipeline-water-turbine-power

PLEASE SEE ALL OF DC4RD’S UPDATES HERE >>

http://www.dc4reality.org/updates/category/updates

Please see DC4RD online Resources here >>
http://www.dc4reason.org/resources