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washington dc
Power Bills Are Bankrupting DC Residents—but There's a Path to Affordability for All
Public ownership of power has worked for decades in thousands of towns and cities and is being actively pursued in the District and other communities across the country.
Jan 24, 2026
Affordability will remain a top issue in 2026, continuing to draw political attention and likely defining this year’s midterm election races. Among the principal contributors to the cost-of-living crisis are power bills. For millions, the cost of keeping the lights, heating, and cooling on feels like “a second rent,” a problem that the explosive growth in the development and use of AI and associated data center capacity appears poised to aggravate.
The nation’s capital is no exception. A quarter of residents in the District of Columbia are unable to pay their power bill and in debt to the city’s private electricity company Pepco, which prioritizes short-term profits over affordable service. In 2024, the utility sent disconnection notices to 187,000 customers, threatening to shut off their electricity if they did not pay their arrears in full and forcing them to choose between, for instance, keeping their home safe and comfortable and food fresh or making their car payment.
Thankfully, we have a proven alternative–public ownership of power–that has worked for decades in thousands of towns and cities and is being actively pursued in the District and other communities across the country.
Alongside rent, home prices, dining, and entertainment, our electric bills have shot upwards. The only difference? Our power rates are comprehensively regulated. To protect against the monopoly power of Pepco, we have the Public Service Commission (PSC): a three-person board that reviews Pepco’s costs when the company wants to raise rates. Officially, the PSC acts as our watchdog to protect consumers from being billed thousands of dollars each month and to ensure the lights stay on in an environmentally sustainable way. In reality, it’s a depressingly familiar story of corporate capture of government.
We Power DC, a local campaign for energy democracy, has a simple demand: replacing Pepco with an electric utility that belongs to the people of the District.
In just the past few years, Pepco has jacked up rates while slow rolling climate action and energy efficiency. According to a 2023 PSC report, Pepco obtained only 16% of its power supply from renewable energy sources, while it thwarted the adoption of rooftop solar across the city. In response to this bad behavior, the PSC rewarded Pepco: approving a $147.2 million dollar rate increase in 2021 and a $123 million dollar rate hike in 2023. These dollars flow out of the District and into the coffers of Pepco and its holding company owner, Exelon of Chicago.
Despite a wide-ranging outcry from the community, industry experts, and even landlords, the PSC in November 2024 largely approved Pepco’s latest proposed rate increase. Commissioner Richard Beverly wrote a blistering dissent in which he said the other two commissioners were essentially approving the case “because Pepco said so.”
The effects of the rate increase were immediate and expected. Following a cold winter, the additional 5% bump on bills slammed DC residents, with some customers seeing their bills double or triple. Public anger forced Pepco to suspend shutoffs for the first few months of 2025—but both bill collection and the rate increase stayed in place.
Meanwhile, Exelon flaunted the rate hike in DC as a major success, all the while an impending recession looms across the city and the country at large. Even in bleak times, the pursuit of profits by Pepco (and utilities like it) is relentless.
Unfortunately, the District is not an outlier: Regulators across the country rubber-stamp requested rate increases, despite the lack of economic logic. State regulatory agencies liberally reward utility shareholders even though they assume little risk by parking their money in a safe and stable industry.
Fortunately, there is an alternative for all of us. In towns and cities across the country, utilities are not controlled by shareholders—instead, they are governed by the communities that they serve and run on a not-for-profit basis. Public power is a proven model that altogether supplies electricity to about 55 million Americans in around 2,000 towns and cities across red and blue states, including Los Angeles, Nashville, and Seattle. On average, publicly owned utilities provide electricity that is cheaper and more reliable than their shareholder-controlled counterparts. Public power is not foreign or experimental but firmly established in the United States.
Affordable power is not the only argument in favor of public ownership. The urgency of the climate crisis means that we cannot rely solely on cajoling private utilities to remake our power grid. Despite the declining costs and rapid growth of wind and solar over the past 15 years, decarbonization of the American power sector is not happening quickly enough.
Furthermore, for the next few years, the responsibility of cleaning up the power sector will largely fall to state and local governments. Congress’ gutting of the Inflation Reduction Act in the One Big Beautiful Bill means that federal tax credits for wind and solar will soon dry up. Instead of trying to bribe the private sector to invest, we should take control of the climate transition through direct public investment. New York did exactly this in 2023 when it enacted the Build Public Renewables Act (BPRA) and empowered the state-owned New York Power Authority to build large-scale renewable projects and lead a just transition to a clean electric sector.
Inspired by the successful movement behind BPRA and determined to end the unbearable burden of power bills for hundreds of thousands of residents, We Power DC, a local campaign for energy democracy, has a simple demand: replacing Pepco with an electric utility that belongs to the people of the District. A utility governed by us could provide reliable service at lower rates; provide high-quality union jobs; and be a leader, not a laggard, in the fight against climate change. On top of its grassroots organizing, We Power published a report describing in detail how DC would benefit from a publicly owned utility, and how we can get there. While the road to public power can be long, the report outlines key intermediate steps that DC should pursue, including commissioning a study on municipalization of Pepco, taking control of grid planning, and building and operating community solar projects.
We Power is accompanied by fights for public power in places as far flung as Ann Arbor, Michigan; Clearwater, Florida; and Tucson. Last month, a financial feasibility study found that power customers in New York’s Hudson Valley would save money right away by converting their private utility to a locally controlled public power authority. At a moment in which climate action and our political institutions are under full-frontal assault at the national level, We Power is one of many fights to build democratic and sustainable utilities.
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US Voters and DNC Fight Trump DOJ Efforts to Seize Sensitive Voter Data
"We must prevent this federal power grab and protect our democracy from these corrupt partisan stunts," said the ACLU of Wisconsin legal director.
Jan 09, 2026
Residents of Wisconsin and Washington, DC this week continued the legal fight against efforts by President Donald Trump's administration to gain access to confidential information about registered voters as the Democratic National Committee issued a related warning to 10 state governments.
The group Common Cause on Thursday highlighted its recent motion to intervene in United States v. Evans, a federal lawsuit brought by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) against the District of Columbia's Board of Elections, led by Monica Evans.
Lawyers from the ACLU National Voting Rights Project filed the motion in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of Common Cause and two DC voters, Ruth Goldman and Chris Melody Fields, in late December.
As the filing notes, the Trump administration wants to obtain personal details about adults in DC and all 50 states "to build an unauthorized national voter database and to target voters for potential challenges and disenfranchisement."
The Republican administration has sued nearly half of US states plus DC in a bid to get their voter information.
"Handing over voter data without any parameters or protections in place is a huge violation of privacy and invites exactly the kind of errors that have historically led to eligible voters being wrongly purged or denied their right to vote."
Ethan Herenstein, staff attorney with the ACLU project, explained in a statement that "federal law does not authorize the Department of Justice to demand sweeping access to voters' most sensitive personal information."
"Handing over voter data without any parameters or protections in place is a huge violation of privacy and invites exactly the kind of errors that have historically led to eligible voters being wrongly purged or denied their right to vote," Herenstein warned.
Maryam Jazini Dorcheh, senior director of litigation at Common Cause, said that "voters in DC, and all voters, rightly expect the government to keep their personal information secure and only use it for its intended purpose of maintaining accurate records."
"We are committed to defending voters' rights and privacy in Washington, DC and nationwide, and this case is one of many where we are stepping in to ensure those protections are upheld," she continued.
The Trump administration's attempt to build a national voter database could be the catalyst for disenfranchising voters nationwide and putting our private data at risk.We're taking legal action to defend the states rightfully refusing to cooperate with the U.S. Justice Department's scheme.
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— ACLU (@aclu.org) January 6, 2026 at 11:29 AM
Demonstrating that commitment, Common Cause and the ACLU also partnered with attorneys from Law Forward and three Wisconsin voters—Melissa Adams, Amanda Makulec, and Jaime Riefer—on Thursday to file a motion to intervene in a similar suit the administration launched against the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC), which has refused to hand over vote data.
"If provided this data, the Justice Department could easily manipulate the data to spread disinformation about voting and attempt to baselessly target eligible voters and remove them from the rolls," said Ryan Cox, legal director at the ACLU of Wisconsin. "We've seen this play out in numerous other states, and there is no reason to believe that this administration wouldn't weaponize Wisconsinites' private data toward those same ends. We must prevent this federal power grab and protect our democracy from these corrupt partisan stunts."
Eric Neff, the acting chief of the DOJ's Voting Section, said in federal court last month that Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, and Wyoming—which all have Republican secretaries of state—have "complied voluntarily" with the department's data demand. He also said that several other states "have expressed with us a willingness to comply" based on an agreement called a memorandum of understanding (MOU) "that we have sent them." The DNC issued warnings to 10 of those states on Friday.
Daniel Freeman, the DNC's litigation director, sent letters to election leaders Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah "to address an imminent violation of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA)," pointing to Neff's comments about the MOU.
Specifically, the letter warns that the MOU's 45-day removal demand "has the potential to violate two provisions of the NVRA: the notice and waiting provision governing removal based on a suspected change in residence... and the quiet period provision barring systematic voter list maintenance in the months before a federal election."
"This letter does not constitute written notice of violations of the NVRA," Freeman noted. "Rather, the DNC sends this letter in the hope that the imminent violations set out above may still be avoided. Nonetheless, the DNC stands ready to issue a formal notice should evidence of ongoing violations come to light."
In a Friday statement, DNC Chair Ken Martin accused Trump and US Attorney General Pam Bondi of a "big government power grab" aimed at gathering "sensitive personal information like driver's license numbers, Social Security numbers, and party affiliation, opening the door to privacy concerns and further political retribution."
"The DNC won't stand idly by as the Trump DOJ tries to get access to voters' sensitive information and put eligible voters at risk of being wrongfully purged from voter rolls, which is why we are calling on secretaries of state and election officials across the country to stand up for voters and reject the Trump administration's illegal agreement," he said. "To be clear: Democrats stand ready to fight back and defend voters, and we're prepared to use the tools at our disposal to do so."
Some state officials have already publicly responded. Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen accused the DNC of "grandstanding" and said that he has no plans to sign an MOU but will send the state's registration list next month "unless barred by a court order," while a spokesperson for the Texas Secretary of State's Office told Votebeat and the Texas Tribune that the state sent its voter roll last month.
Others have been tight-lipped. The office of Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson—who gave the administration a public statewide voter registration list last year—told Deseret News on Friday that she doesn't have anything additional to add at this time. Mississippi Today reported that Secretary of State Michael Watson's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
TJ Lundeen, a spokeperson for the South Carolina Election Commission, told the Post and Courier that the agency's legal team is reviewing the DNC's letter. Lunden added that any deal with the DOJ will be presented and voted on during a public meeting.
Meanwhile, a DOJ spokesperson told Axios, which reported on the DNC letters, that "organizations should think twice before interfering in a federal investigation and encouraging the obstruction of justice, unless they'd like to join the dozens of states that are learning their lesson in federal court."
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson also weighed in, telling the outlet that "the Civil Rights Act, National Voting Rights Act, and Help America Vote Act all give the Department of Justice full authority to ensure states comply with federal election laws, which mandate accurate state voter rolls."
"President Trump is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections, and that includes totally accurate and up-to-date voter rolls free of errors and unlawfully registered noncitizen voters," she added of the Republican leader who notably tried to cling to power after losing the 2020 presidential election.
The current fight over voter data dates back to Trump's controversial March executive order on US elections. In October, DC-based District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly permanently blocked the part that required proof of US citizenship on federal voter registration forms. The ACLU was also involved in that legal battle. Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the group's Voting Rights Project, welcomed the ruling as a "clear victory for our democracy."
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Artists Cite Trump's 'Ego' and 'Overt Racism' While Canceling Kennedy Center Performances
"When American history starts getting treated like something you can ban, erase, rename, or rebrand for somebody else's ego, I can’t stand on that stage and sleep right at night," said folk singer Kristy Lee.
Dec 30, 2025
President Donald Trump's decision to slap his name on the side of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is not going over well with many of the artists scheduled to perform there.
Days after the annual Kennedy Center Christmas Eve jazz concert was canceled over performers' objections to the name change, more artists have decided to withdraw in protest over the president's actions, leading to the cancelation of New Year's Eve festivities at the center.
A Monday report from the Washington Post quoted saxophonist Billy Harper, a member of the jazz ensemble the Cookers that had been set to perform on New Year's Eve, as saying his group did not want to play in a venue that had been unofficially renamed after the current president.
"I would never even consider performing in a venue bearing a name... that represents overt racism and deliberate destruction of African American music and culture," said Harper. "After all the years I spent working with some of the greatest heroes of the anti-racism fight like Max Roach and Randy Weston and Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Stanley Cowell, I know they would be turning in their graves to see me stand on a stage under such circumstances and betray all we fought for, and sacrificed for."
The Cookers weren't the only artists to withdraw from a scheduled performance at the Kennedy Center, as the New York-based dance company Doug Varone and Dancers also announced Monday that they were withdrawing from April performances at the venue.
In a social media post announcing the cancelation, the company explicitly linked its decision to Trump's renaming of the building.
"With the latest act of Donald J. Trump renaming the Center after himself, we can no longer permit ourselves nor ask our audiences to step inside this once great institution," the company explained.
Doug Varone, the head of the company, told the New York Times that his decision to cancel the performance was "financially devastating but morally exhilarating," and he noted that the troupe was set to take a $40,000 hit from withdrawing.
Folk singer Kristy Lee last week also announced she would not be performing at a scheduled Kennedy Center show in January, even while acknowledging that doing so "hurts" her financially.
However, she emphasized that "losing my integrity would cost me more than any paycheck," and argued that "when American history starts getting treated like something you can ban, erase, rename, or rebrand for somebody else's ego, I can’t stand on that stage and sleep right at night."
Trump-appointed Kennedy Center chairman Richard Grenell has lashed out bitterly at artists for canceling their performances, and accused them of having "a form of derangement syndrome." Grenell has also threatened to sue the jazz musicians who withdrew from the Christmas Eve performance for $1 million in damages.
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