Grist: "The Exelon-Pepco merger: Big, nuke-heavy utility looking for new ratepayers to fleece"

[Chathamization]

Excerpt:

The short version: Exelon is a big, crappy utility company that’s in trouble because it’s saddled with a bunch of uneconomic nuclear plants. It wants to buy Pepco, a smaller, better utility, so Pepco’s ratepayers can help pay for those uneconomic nuclear plants. Ratepayers and activists in Pepco’s service territory — especially Washington, D.C. — rightly see this as a bad deal. Exelon has argued otherwise, but now a new independent think-tank report has pretty much destroyed the company’s case.

It'd be terrible to see Pepco become even worse, all in the name of corporate profits. Unfortunately, from what I hear one part of the corporate strategy is to throw some money to non-profits so they can get behind this merger.

If you're interested in stopping this, here's a good place to start.

[leveymg]

1. Exelon enjoys some ties close to the WH. Axelrod and Emanuel worked there.

Ties to Obama Aided in Access for Exelon Corporation ...
www.nytimes.com/.../ties-to-obama-aided-in-access-f...
The New York Times
Aug 22, 2012 - The Illinois-based energy producer Exelon Corporation has ... David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel, Obama insiders, both have ties to Exelon.

[Chathamization]

2. And Pepco has close ties with the DC government:"Pepco Sale Opponents Face the Company’s Connections

in District Government"

The potential purchase puts At-Large Councilmember Vincent Orange in an awkward spot. Not only does he run the Council committee that oversees the PSC and the People’s Counsel, but he worked for Pepco for three years as the company’s vice president for government affairs.

After losing his Ward 5 Council seat during a disastrous 2006 mayoral bid, Orange worked for Pepco from 2007 to 2010. In 2007, Washington City Paper reported that he might have violated rules against former city employees lobbying their colleagues when he tried to convince councilmembers not to back one of Cheh’s power plant bills. Orange claimed at the time that he wasn’t lobbying, and nothing came of it.

Orange came back to the Council in 2011, meaning he has a chance to muddy the Council debate over the acquisition. So far, he’s doing great. When Cheh planned a hearing on the environmental impact of the merger, Orange threatened to exclude Pepco, Exelon, and District agencies from his own hearing if they went to hers. (In fairness, this could also be chalked up to Orange’s oft-territorial approach to committee management.)

Even stranger, Orange is the landlord to one of Pepco’s top executives. When Orange went to Pepco, he took his former committee clerk, Donna M. Cooper. She’s continued to rise at the power company, most recently becoming Pepco’s regional president.

At least one councilmember does unquestionably have a personal interest in Pepco’s future. In a May 2014 financial disclosure, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson reported owning shares in Pepco worth $17,000.

In another sort of acquisition, Mendelson could just sit back and watch that stock turn into Exelon stock. But because Exelon is paying cash for Pepco shares—an attractive proposition for Pepco investors, since Exelon’s stock has been in a long-term fall—Mendelson will have to take just a lump of cash. Using Mendelson’s 2014 valuation, the 25 percent premium paid to stockholders would net him around $21,250 if the deal goes through.

Meanwhile, the executive branch has its own ex-Pepco lobbyist in Beverly Perry, Bowser’s senior advisor. A top government affairs exec for Pepco until she retired last year, Perry played a key role in Bowser’s transition as a go-between with Vince Gray’s administration even before Bowser won the general election.

[leveymg]

3. The industry's revolving door spins so fast, it glows. ;-)