FirstEnergy Senior Vice President and General Counsel Leila L. Vespoli Addresses Ohio House on Proposed Energy Policy

AKRON, Ohio, Nov. 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Leila L. Vespoli, senior vice president and general counsel for FirstEnergy Corp. , today testified before the Ohio House of Representatives' Public Utilities and Energy Committee on Substitute Senate Bill 221 (Sub. SB 221), which outlines a process for establishing electricity prices beginning in 2009.

In her remarks, Ms. Vespoli summarized the electric utility industry's concerns that the bill does not offer a true hybrid approach - a critical selling point of the Strickland administration's proposed energy policy - in that it does not provide the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (Commission) with adequate statutory authority to continue the success of rate- stabilization-type plans or to offer customers the benefits of a competitive marketplace. She also pointed out that the bill legislatively preserves very low, subsidized rates for large industrial customers.

Ms. Vespoli noted that rate plans work when coupled with competitive options for customers. "We continue to believe that competitive markets will deliver the best prices for customers over the long-term; will continue to drive innovation, efficiency and productivity for our company and for the industry; and will offer the kinds of products and services customers want - including green products," Ms. Vespoli said.

Ms. Vespoli provided an open letter from several prominent economists - including Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Paul Joskow, Alfred Kahn from Cornell University and Nobel laureate Vernon Smith from George Mason University - on the many benefits of competitive markets and urged policymakers to ensure that customers would have access to those benefits under Sub. SB 221.

"In effect, if we fail to preserve the market-based option for utilities and customers, we create a number of legal problems that won't easily or quickly be resolved," said Ms. Vespoli. "In order to avoid such an outcome and achieve the desired hybrid approach, the bill should be modified to provide the Commission with clear statutory authority to negotiate ESPs (Electric Security Plans), coupled with a true market rate option. Together, these two components will achieve the balanced negotiation process that has succeeded in the past."

A complete text of Ms. Vespoli's testimony is available on FirstEnergy's Web site, http://www.firstenergycorp.com/.

FirstEnergy is a diversified energy company headquartered in Akron, Ohio. Its subsidiaries and affiliates are involved in the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, as well as energy management and other energy-related services. Its seven electric utility operating companies comprise the nation's fifth largest investor-owned electric system, based on 4.5 million customers served within a 36,100-square-mile area of Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey; and its generation subsidiaries control more than 14,000 megawatts of capacity.

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