Prince George's County Council Unanimously Seeks Probe of Surging Utility Bills

The bill that landed in one Prince George's County senior's mailbox recently read over $1,200. A month prior, that same account typically ran around $300. Multiply that shock by nearly 2,000 constituents who flooded District 8 Councilmember Edward Burroughs' office with complaints, and the result was a unanimous council vote demanding the state step in.

The Prince George's County Council passed a 10-0 resolution Tuesday asking the Maryland Office of People's Counsel to open a formal investigation into the surge in electric and other utility bills hitting county residents. The Office of People's Counsel is the state agency charged with advocating for residential utility customers, and a formal inquiry would give it authority to compel disclosure of billing methodologies, demand data, and rate structures from utilities operating in the county.

Burroughs, who sponsored the resolution, said the volume and severity of constituent complaints left little room for inaction. Nearly 2,000 seniors alone contacted his office seeking help with Pepco bills, with individual accounts jumping from roughly $300 to more than $1,200. To address the most immediate financial damage, Burroughs announced his office is launching a Phase II senior assistance payment program, issuing one-time $500 payments to eligible seniors in his district to help cover the bills.

Pepco, the dominant electric distributor in Prince George's County, pushed back on the notion of a billing error. A spokesperson told NBC4 the company does not generate electricity and attributed part of the spike to rising demand, pointing specifically to energy-intensive data centers straining the local grid, while noting Pepco had not filed a rate increase in more than two years.

That explanation has complicated an already contentious debate inside the county about data center development. Prince George's has been a target for large-scale data facility investment given its land availability and proximity to Northern Virginia's tech corridor. By linking the household budget crisis directly to data center energy consumption, Pepco's comments now inject regulatory and financial stakes into future permitting decisions the county has yet to fully resolve.

If the Office of People's Counsel accepts the council's request and opens a formal inquiry, the process could escalate well beyond council chambers. State-level hearings, subpoenas, formal data requests, and potential filings before the Public Service Commission for corrective action or refunds are all possible outcomes. Residents who described cutting back on heating and unplugging appliances yet still receiving four-figure statements are at the center of what regulators would be asked to explain.

The council's resolution moves the fight from constituent complaint calls into Maryland's formal utility regulatory system, where political pressure has structural limits but investigative authority does not.