Evening star., 1940-01-29
Pepco RateCut
Is Offered Only
To Business
Private Consumers
Would Get Nothing
Under New Schedule

The Potomac Electric Power Co
today submitted to the Public Utili-
ties Commission proposed revised
rate schedule that would give COM
mercial consumers the entire bene-
fits of the s575,O2s rate cut that will
be available this year under the
sliding-scale plan. Private con-
sumers would get no reduction.
At the same time the company
served formal notice of its objec-
ton to the amount which the COM
mission decided would be available
for rate reductions this year.
The commission said profits OF
the company last year were suffi-
cient to warrant the $575,029 rate
reduction, but company spokesmer
had contended that the rate cut
should amount to no more than
$454, ,766.
Board to Study Plans.
After today's hearing, commission
officials said they would consider the
companys revised rate schedule and
also would study other proposed new
rate schedules prepared by its own
staff. In past years the commission
has applied at least part of the an
nual rate reduction to residential
consumers.
w. K. Laws, counsel for the power
company, declared, in submitting
the revised rate schedule, that the
company does not agree with the
commissions figure and does not
waive its right to appeal to the COM
mission for rehearing or, if I'M
successful there, to appeal to the
courts.
Offering a revised schedule which
provides no rate reductions for
residential consumers, Harold A.
Brooks, vice president and COM
mercial manager of the company
said the company believes the COM
mercial rate schedules could thus
be brought closer to the lower resi-
Dental rate schedules.
The company has concluded from
It's studies of residential and COM
mercial rates that the commercial
business is producing higher rate
of return than residential consumers
in general, and that for this reason
the firm believes that the "unrea-
sonable" difference between the two
schedules should be changed.
Mr.. Brooks introduced a COM
parison of monthly bills at residen-
tial and commercial 1889 rates to
justify the company's position in
favor of commercial rate reduc-
tions. This schedule showed that,
for 100 kilowatt hours, the residen-
tial consumer cost IL -$2.71. and the
commercial $3.50; for $50 kilowatt
hours, S3.51 for residential as against
$465 for commercial, and so on up
to TOO kilowatt hours, available to
residential users at $11.76 as against
$16.86 for commercial users.
I'D" and "E" Would Benefit Most.
The company's revised rate sched-
ule would apply all but a small part
of the entire reduction to urban
schedules ID" and "E." The rate
cut for these schedules would
amount to S553,577 The reduction
of S8767 would be applied to sched-
ule IL" and $12,764 to suburban
schedule "E-S" and rural schedule
"E-R."
The proposed new rates under
schedule "E would be as follows: 3e
cents each for the first 80 k. W. h.:
2.1 cents each for the next ITO k
W. h.; cents each for the next
1,750 k. W. h.: IL cents each for the
next $4,000 k. W. h.; Z cent each
for the next 175,OOO k. W. h., and 6
cent for each k. W. h. over 225,00O.
For urban schedule ID" the new
rate would be 38 cents each for
the first 80 k. W. h.; 2.3 cents each
for the next 400 k W. h., and 81
cents each for all over 480 k. W. h
The new rate for schedule "L'
would be IL cents each for the
first 5000 k. W. h.: g cent each
for the next $4,000 k. W. h.: 6 cent
each for the next 10000 k. W. h..
and 5 cent each for all over 100000
k. W. h.
The company's proposed schedule
actually would result in a reduction
of S575,108, which is S79 above the
figure set by the Utilities Commits
sion.