Electric Rate Caps to Expire

With a month to go before electric rate caps start expiring for millions of Pennsylvania consumers, a House bill aimed at curbing rate increases appears to have stalled.
At the beginning of this year’s legislative session, House Democratic leaders said they’d make expiring rate caps a priority. A centerpiece of that plan was House Bill 20, which would limit rate increases to fifteen percent a year through 2012.
But the legislation hasn’t seen action since late April, when it was recommitted to the Appropriations Committee. Democratic spokesman Brett Marcy says party leaders started looking for alternatives when it became clear utility companies would demand interest on the deferred payments.

"The amount of money that the utility companies would have been able to recover from basically phasing in those increases in payment were something we believed could have been concerting to consumers. We didn’t want to help consumers while at the same time hurting them on the back end."

Gene Stilp of Taxpayers and Ratepayers United didn’t like House Bill 20 at the beginning. Stilp says lawmakers have time to expand rate caps.

"There’s a one-month clock of legislation. I’d like to see these legislators work around the clock through the month of December to ease the burden of the rate payers come January 1. And it can be done."

But Marcy says it probably won’t be moved in December. Caps for PPL customers disappear January 1. Met-Ed, Pennelec and other utilities’ caps expire in 2011.