MR. KOJO NNAMDIWelcome back. It's now your turn to call about anything on your mind at 800-433-8850 or send kojo@wamu.org. During a conference to call to investors on Tuesday, Joseph Rigby, the chief executive of Pepco Holdings announced that Pepco would again ask for a rate hike in Maryland in the fourth quarter of this year. Pepco had sought a $68 million dollar increase this year, but last month it was granted only $18 million by the Maryland Public Service Commission. It's also requested a $42 million dollar increase for DC.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIWhat do you think? Should we think about a rate increase as a reward for good service or a necessary evil? 800-433-8850. If you were sitting without power for a week after the derecho and during 100 degree weather with no air-conditioning, it may strike you as wrong that you are in effect rewarding Pepco for bad service, but is a rate hike really a reward for service, or something that is necessary to improve the quality of the service? What do you think? Give us a call, 800-433-8850, about that, or anything else on your mind. Here is Camille in Reston, Va. Camille, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

CAMILLEYes. Hi. Thank you for talking my call, Kojo. I would like to address the previous subject because I didn't get a chance to call.

NNAMDISure.

CAMILLERegarding the meat industry, and the (unintelligible). Anyway, I'm sorry, because I'm working in the health care provider industry, and I do see a lot of patients that come in with hypertension, obesity, sleep apnea. I think a lot to do with their diet and not exercising, and this gentleman named Kelly mentioned about he's eating a lot of meat, not eating any grains or vegetables. I think that's very rare, because in true fact, if you do some research, you see that with the meat industry, first of all, factory farming is horrendous, and it's true that lady from Centerville was saying that extremely horrendous, horrific, the animal (unintelligible).

NNAMDIHow do you -- how do you use that information in the guidance for your own diet, Camille? What does your diet look like?

CAMILLEOkay. My diet -- I'm pretty much a vegetarian now. I must say I still each fish occasionally, very rarely I eat fish. But 15 years ago just for some health reasons, I do not eat any meat anymore, and I eat mostly vegetables and vegetable protein.

NNAMDIAnd how do you feel?

CAMILLEOh, I feel great. I must say I feel better now than when I was 20 years old. I'm 48 years old, and I can tell you I feel good. I, you know, people say I look younger than my age, and I have a lot of energy.

NNAMDIWell, if you feel better than you did when you were 20 years old, that's got something to say I guess both for your diet and for your lifestyle. So thank you for sharing that with us. Remember this is your turn. You can call about any subject that you please. According to a new traffic report commissioned by the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, congestion along the Rockville Pike corridor has actually gone done since the facility had rapidly increased in size.

NNAMDIThis study finding that some of the worst traffic chokepoints along Rockville Pike and Jones Bridge Road actually saw declining vehicle counts per hour, and officials at Walter Reed have speculated that it could mean people are using alternative transportation methods to get to work, but skeptics suspect something else is at play. Fewer cars are getting past because the Pike has turned into a parking lot at rush hour and because people's commuting schedules have shifted to different hours.

NNAMDIDo you live near a major congestion point? How has traffic affected the way you commute? Call us at 800-433-8850. It's your turn. Here's Sterling in Columbia, Md. Sterling, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

STERLINGHi Kojo. I just wanted to comment on the PFC and the Pepco issue with the power.

NNAMDIYes.

STERLINGNot to be an apologist for Pepco, but these power lines run through trees, and these trees was on the private property of homeowners. How can you hold Pepco responsible for a tree that fell down and knocked down power lines that are on somebody's private property? Shouldn't the homeowner be responsible for make sure trees are properly pruned? Otherwise, Pepco can come in and start cutting down trees, but then we'll pushback from environmentalists about trees being cut down.

NNAMDIYes. There has been some controversy in some part of Montgomery County about pruning trees in a neighborhood where people did not feel that they wanted their trees pruned because they felt that pruning the trees was not, as you say, environmentally friendly. So does this mean you think that Pepco deserves a rate increase, Sterling?

STERLINGAbsolutely not. I think that Pepco's response has been smug. It has been obstinate, and I think that there needs to be much more improvement on the part of Pepco, but Pepco doesn't own 100 percent of the blame.

NNAMDIOkay. Thank you very much for your call. I think Chris in Upper Marlboro, Md., might share your sentiment. Chris, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

CHRISHow you doing, sir? I'm responding to the Pepco situation. I don't think Pepco necessarily needs a rate increase, but I do believe that we should maybe look at the numbers and figure out where all the money is going and if it's necessary, you know, maybe get some government assistance or a small rate increase. But I also believe that they're not fully responsible for, you know, for inclement weather and things that happen that are beyond their control.

NNAMDIStuff happens, huh?

CHRISI'm sorry. Say that again?

NNAMDIYou're saying that stuff happens.

CHRISYeah. Yeah. Stuff happens, and, you know, you can't blame Pepco for something that, you know, that happens in the weather forecast, you know. So I think we should give Pepco a break and just wait it out and be more prepared.

NNAMDII'll see how many people agree with you on that proposition, Chris, but thank you very much for your call. I'm not sure Tim in Fairfax, Va. feels the same way. Tim, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

TIMYeah. Hi there. Thanks for taking for my call. I'll try to be as brief as I can, though this is a pretty red-hot issue for a number of Pepco customers. I think Pepco demonstrated the height of incompetence in handling the situation. They didn't put upon themselves, nobody controls the weather, but my neighborhood, out of 50 homes that were out of power for six days, my neighborhood is within two miles of downtown Bethesda, and despite over 100 contacts to the Pepco call center from neighbors, Pepco said -- their official response was that they didn't even realize we were out of power until a fire started in the neighborhood when one of the live wires started a fired in the middle of the road and the local fire department had to come to put it out.

NNAMDIAnd so you are saying that all of these phone calls and contacts that were made with Pepco, as far as you were concerned, were simply ignored?

TIMTheir word to us, my wife, was that we didn't even know that you guys were out of power, and we said, well, how could that be possible? We've been calling every single day, and their customer service representatives would say, well, just keep calling every day to make sure that we know that you're still out of power. And then they came back and said, well, we thought you guys had power as of Sunday and this was Thursday -- the Thursday after -- so six days after the power outage. We were flabbergasted. We couldn't believe how that could be possible.

NNAMDISo you are saying that as far as your neighborhood was concerned, there is a clear lack of efficiency on the part of Pepco.

TIMYeah. And I would go so far as to say that there is over -- they have so much incompetence in their, I think, leadership, in terms of asking for money without delivering a service that's worth the money. So I think they should be -- they….

NNAMDINo rate increase? No rate increase. No rate increase for Pepco says Tim. Here, on the other hand is Ryan in Fairfax, Va. Ryan, your turn.

RYANHi. How are you doing today?

NNAMDII'm well.

RYANThank you for taking my call. I just wanted to reach out and say that I agree with some of the previous callers about how it's difficult to hold Pepco responsible for the outcome of the storm. Personally, having grown up in an area that's been hit by hurricanes and has city-wide power outages on occasion...

NNAMDIWhat area did you grow up in?

RYANI grew up in Virginia Beach.

NNAMDIOh, okay.

RYANIt happened a few times. And one thing that still blows me away, just about the storm in general is the amount of damage that happened in 90 minutes was equivalent to what I've seen happen over the course of 12 hours. So I felt like the power outage was, though unexpected, kind of what would happen. However, I have recently learned of all the troubles that Pepco has had in its service department, so I'm curious, are they really saying the need for the rate increases would it be there to better infrastructure and responses and the team, or is there a way to track that, and perhaps if the rate increase went into effect, if there would be such a deal where if they're not showing the proper improvements that they would have to give that back as a refund.

NNAMDIA, yes. Pepco has said that it needs the rate increase in order to generally improve service. B, whether there is a way to track that, I do not know. C, whether the rate increases will be made conditional by the Public Service Commission on Pepco Services, I'm sure that every public service commission in the vicinity, in Maryland, in the District, and in Virginia, is trying to figure out exactly how to do that, but I don't know of a situation where a rate increase was ever taken back. So we would have to figure out exactly how that is likely to happen. But Ryan, thank you very much for your call. We have time for one more call, if you can keep it to 30 seconds or less, and that is Jeannine in Silver Spring, Md. You got about 25 seconds, Jeannine.

JEANNINEHi. I just want to make a point about the Walter Reed Bethesda Medical Center, and the increased traffic or decreased traffic on Rockville Pike.

NNAMDIYes.

JEANNINEMy husband works there, and I bring my children to the preschool there every day, and I experience firsthand the hard work that the people there have done to try and reduce parking by getting their employees to take public transportation. So much so that it's a huge issue for the entire administration and the work force there. Not that they're right all the time, but they...

NNAMDIBut has there -- have you noticed a reduction in traffic?

JEANNINENo.

NNAMDIOkay.

JEANNINEIt's terrible. Terrible traffic.

NNAMDIThank you very much for your call, and thank you all for calling and for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.