Pennsylvania Power & Light Co. wants reasonable and competitive rail rates for transporting coal, no matter what the outcome of merger proposals involving Conrail.

"It's a basic dollars-and-cents issue for electricity consumers," said Frank A. Long, PP&L's executive vice president and chief operating officer. "The amount PP&L pays to ship coal has a direct bearing on the cost of electricity we produce."

PP&L representatives attended a congressional committee hearing in Washington Tuesday (11/19) on the subject of railroad mergers. The hearing was held by the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. PP&L plans to intervene in any Conrail merger proposal that comes before the Surface Transportation Board, the federal agency with jurisdiction over railroad mergers.

PP&L is one of Conrail's largest shippers. PP&L buys about 8 million tons of coal annually for its power plants, and ships nearly all of it by rail.

"From our perspective, the issue is not who owns the railroads, but whether we can obtain fair and reasonable shipping rates, continue to receive good quality service and have access to all coal suppliers," Long said.

In addition, PP&L wants assurances that its current rate case against Conrail will not be delayed while the Surface Transportation Board considers merger proposals. In PP&L's case, Conrail is the only railroad serving PP&L plants, and has proposed excessive rates for transporting coal from mines not on the Conrail system.

"PP&L is not advocating re-regulation of railroads, as some in the railroad industry have claimed," Long said. "Deregulation under the Staggers Rail Act has worked well. We simply want the Surface Transportation Board to apply the existing rules so that shippers served by 'bottleneck' railroads can realize fair shipping rates."

A subsidiary of PP&L Resources, Inc., of Allentown, Pa., PP&L provides electricity service to 1.2 million customers in 29 counties of eastern and central Pennsylvania.