WASHINGTON, Oct. 20, 2026 — U.S. Rep. Jefferson Van Drew on Tuesday asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to help secure an independent audit of Atlantic City Electric's digital smart meters, after several South Jersey residents reported their meters kept registering electricity use after they had turned off their homes' main breakers.
"Something is very wrong here, and I am not going to stop until we get to the bottom of it," said Van Drew, whose 2nd District includes Cape May County. "People are telling us they shut off the electricity to their entire homes, and the meters are still running."
Van Drew said bills have doubled and tripled, and that families are paying more than ever despite promises of a rate freeze. He said the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities has done nothing to give them relief.
He acknowledged that FERC does not directly regulate residential meters, but said the review should be done by "a party with no financial ties to ACE or its parent company."
The request follows an Oct. 6 letter in which Van Drew asked FERC Chairman Laura Swett to independently determine how much ACE customers were overcharged, after a federal audit found the company overbilled transmission customers from 2021 to 2025. He objected to ACE deciding for itself how much it overcharged customers and then putting the figure at "less than two cents a month," and called for "full refunds with interest."
In a social media post Tuesday, Van Drew said he is "fed up" and asked residents whose meters kept running, or whose meters aren't properly accounting for their solar energy, to report it through the digital meter survey on his website.
Source: Office of U.S. Rep. Jefferson Van Drew.