WASHINGTON — (WMAL) State regulators in Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and Virginia have already approved a merger between Chicago-based Exelon and Pepco; DC residents will see if DC’s Public Service Commission follows suit Tuesday.

“I’m hoping to hear that the merger is disapproved, however I doubt that that’s what we’ll be hearing,” DC Councilmember Mary Cheh told WMAL. “They’ll approve it, and sugarcoat it with a lot of conditions and qualifications and restrictions; but at the end of the day it’s a bad deal that shouldn’t be approved at all.”

Exelon says the merger would mean a more reliable Pepco, but opponents like DC Councilmember Mary Cheh are skeptical at best.

“Our reliability will not increase beyond anything that we were headed toward anyway,” Cheh said.

Instead, she said DC residents can expect a more expensive and less response Pepco.

“Prices are likely to rise because nuclear power is not paying for itself,” she said. “And we will have a company that will be harder than it is now to have any responsiveness from because they’ll be a distant company and we’ll just be like one little piece of their empire.”

The Council has been working to make DC a forward thinking place focused on renewable energy, she said. “The whole business model of Exelon is antithetical to what we do here.”

If approved, Exelon-PHI would be the Mid-Atlantic’s largest electric and gas utility.

Copyright 2015 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (PHOTO: Pepco)