PA INDUSTRY EXECUTIVES SUPPORT SEN. BOSCOLA ON RATE CAPS; AREA COMPANIES SAY ELECTRIC RATE HIKES MEAN MORE JOB LOSSES

            BETHLEHEM, May 21 — State Senator Lisa M. Boscola will meet with executives from more than 30 of the area’s largest employers on Friday to discuss what can be done to prevent rising electric rates from forcing more jobs to be lost during these difficult economic times.

            “These are companies that buy and sell things in the global market every single day,” Boscola said.  “They compete against businesses in Taiwan and India that pay a fraction of what they pay for electric power.  They are scared to death.”

            Just some of the corporate executives joining Boscola to call for extending the looming expiration of electric rate caps in 2010 include those from:

Orasure Technologies

Just Born, Inc.

Mack Trucks

Air Products & Chemicals

Praxair

Nestlé’s Water

Coca-Cola Bottling

Dorney Park

Lehigh Cement, and

Lafarge, Inc.

This roundtable “RATE CAP SUMMIT” will take place:

Friday, May 22

from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.

at the 4 Points Sheraton (on Airport Road in Allentown).

            “These major companies are very concerned about being forced to pay 30 to 40 percent higher electric bills,” Boscola said. “At a time when these companies are doing everything they can to stay competitive and to ride out this bad economy, huge rate hikes in 2010 could put them out of business or put thousands of more workers out of their jobs. I am working with these local companies to keep their electric rates affordable and keep our local working men and women employed.”

            An independent, econometric research study conducted last year by Penn State University warned that 60,000 jobs will be lost in Pennsylvania if “un-capped” electric prices for the 5 remaining “capped” electric utilities increase by 30 to 40 percent, as anticipated.

            Those 5 power companies serve 85 percent of all electric customers in Pennsylvania.

            When Pennsylvania’s electric deregulation act was enacted 12 years ago, many of these same industrial companies had lobbied Representative Boscola (when she served in the House of Representatives) to support “free-market” rates.  One of deregulation’s major industrial supporters was the giant Bethlehem Steel.  Soon after “de-reg” was enacted – and Boscola was elected to the Senate – Big Steel went bankrupt.

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