http://www.pressconnects.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070310/NEWS01/703100325/1006ALBANY -- Is it worth raising the electric bills of most upstate residential electric customers by $5 to $10 a month so more cheap power is available to retain jobs and even attract new ones to the struggling region?
That is the choice that could face Gov. Eliot Spitzer and state lawmakers later this year as they try to decide what to do with a pool of cheap hydropower: continue giving it to upstate utilities to help keep residential costs down or set it aside for businesses that use a lot of power?
On the one hand, New Yorkers already pay among the highest rates for electricity in the country, and taking away the hydropower would make that situation worse.
On the other side, the cost of power is one of the major disadvantages companies that are heavy users of electricity have in competing against firms in other states -- they pay 42 percent more than the national average for power, according to the state Business Council, a lobbying group.
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