The Power Drain

Mark McGee, 43, a security guard at the Smithsonian Institution, cares for his 72-year-old mother in their family home in the District. He fell behind on his bills when he got sick from cancer and was horrified to learn that he owed $2,400 when he started to recover. He earns about $800 a month now but cannot have the gas disconnected because of his health problems. Instead, he has been paying off the bill over the past year, leaving him $20 a week for spending money.

"I'm just about overwhelmed, what with the mortgage, the other bills and now this gas thing," he said. "All they are out for is the money."

Beverly Jeffries, director of the Salvation Army's East of the River Initiative in the District, said that more people are seeking help but that it is more expensive to try to help them out of jams. "The bills are higher than I've ever seen," said Jeffries, who has worked there 12 years.

In the District, the number of low-income people applying for energy assistance has risen about 10 percent in the past year, to 26,070 households, and the number of Virginians seeking help has risen about 2 percent, to 108,000.

But the number of Marylanders who have applied for help paying their energy bills has risen sharply, said Ralph Markus, acting director of the Maryland Office of Home Energy Programs. Last year, about 93,400 households qualified for help through a state electricity-assistance program, a 64 percent increase from the previous year, and about 100,000 qualified for a federal heating-assistance program, up 36 percent over a year.

Markus said that it is painful to deal with people suffering without heat or electricity -- frequently having to turn them away because they make more than the qualifying salary -- while utility companies earn record profits.

"These companies are making money every which way," he said.

Not just the poor are affected by rising prices, however. Even affluent families say the higher bills are causing them to make uncomfortable adjustments.

Jose and Sandra Carrion are reminded of the effects of deregulation every month when their utility bills arrive. They own homes in Tacoma, Wash., and Salisbury, Md., and use about 1,100 kilowatts of electricity a month in each. That costs them $80 a month for their Tacoma home, and $200 a month in Salisbury, paid to Pepco subsidiary Delmarva Power, even though they have closed off the top two floors of the house, are now sleeping in the dining room instead of the bedroom, have turned down the heat to 62 degrees and dress in sweat suits to stay warm.

"We're basically getting screwed up here in Maryland," Sandra Carrion said.

The difference, said Joe Nipper, senior vice president of the American Public Power Association, a trade group of municipally owned utilities, is that the state of Washington did not deregulate its industry. Robert Dobkin, a spokesman for Pepco, said that Washington state also benefits from having hydroelectric power.

Maryland, the District and, to a lesser extent, Virginia were among the many states in the 1990s that loosened the rules that restricted energy-price increases. Industry executives, including economists and officials from Enron, convinced public utility commissions and state legislatures that fewer regulations would lead to more competition and lower prices.