The mission of the Public Service Commission of the District of Columbia is to serve the public interest by ensuring that financially healthy electric, natural gas and telecommunications companies provide safe, reliable and quality utility services at reasonable rates for District of Columbia residential, business and government customers.
We do this by:
- Motivating customer– and results–oriented employees
- Protecting consumers to ensure public safety, reliability, and quality services
- Regulating monopoly services to ensure their rates are just and reasonable
- Fostering fair and open competition among service providers
- Conserving natural resources and preserving environmental quality
- Resolving disputes among consumers and service providers
- Educating consumers and informing the public
The Commission has identified three goals for carrying out its mission:
Economic Development
The Commission contributes to the economic development of the District through the continued regulation of monopoly electric and natural gas distribution services of Pepco and WGL respectively, and, where feasible, the introduction of competition in other segments of the electric, natural gas, and telecommunications industries. Since 1996, the Commission has had statutory authority over new providers of local telecommunications services called "Competitive Local Exchange Carriers" (CLECs). Retail electric competition legislation in 1999 granted the Commission jurisdiction to restructure the electric industry to permit competition for generation and transmission services, including the licensing of competitive electric generation and transmission suppliers (CES). The Commission implemented retail electric choice for electric generation and transmission services in January 2001. The Commission introduced competition for commodity natural gas through a series of Gas Tariffs beginning in 1999. In 2003, the Commission began licensing competitive commodity natural gas suppliers (CGS), a process previously undertaken by WGL.
Public Safety
Public Safety is promoted through the natural gas pipeline safety and public payphone programs and the investigation of certain occurrences, such as manhole explosions and utility outages. A Commission engineer routinely inspects natural gas construction projects to ensure compliance with federal and local natural gas pipeline safety rules. The Commission has revised its public payphone rules to streamline the process for both community participants and payphone providers. The Commission engaged an engineering consulting firm to provide technical advice on the causes of the manhole explosion. The Commission issued a final
Order No. 12735 on May 16, 2003.
Customer Satisfaction
Customer Satisfaction is encouraged by increasing public access to the Commission through the consolidation of offices to 1325 G Street, NW, Suite 800, Washington, DC 20005 and the associated implementation of a number of information technology projects, such as a new LAN and website. The Commission also routinely distributes customer satisfaction surveys to citizens who have sought mediation assistance regarding their complaints with the utility companies. The Commission is also promoting customer satisfaction by improving service delivery through the streamlining of the processing of CLEC applications, payphone complaints, payphone registration applications, and tariff and financing approval requests.