FirstEnergy President and CEO Anthony J. Alexander Addresses Ohio House of Representatives on Energy Proposal

AKRON, Ohio, Nov. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- FirstEnergy President and Chief Executive Officer Anthony J. Alexander 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 supply and prices beginning in 2009. In his remarks, Mr. Alexander said that Ohioans should not be denied the benefits of the competitive electricity marketplace as provided for under Ohio's 1999 deregulation law, Senate Bill 3.

"At FirstEnergy, we continue to believe that Senate Bill 3 has set the stage for long-term price moderation as well as more reliable and responsive service for Ohio's customers, and that customers should not be deprived of the opportunities presented by a competitive market," Alexander said. "If we turn back the clock on the progress we've made over the past seven years, the ultimate impact on our customers and business would be considerable."

Under Senate Bill 3, FirstEnergy transferred its generating assets from its utility companies to its competitive subsidiary. The generating subsidiary has increased plant performance and efficiency - including a 27- percent increase in plant productivity and 1,600 megawatts of increased capacity, at no risk to customers.

Alexander believes that the competitive electricity market will provide customers with better products, services and prices over time. "The bottom line is, prices under both regulated and unregulated models have increased about the same," Alexander said. "And, we simply don't know how high regulated prices would be today in Ohio if artificial price caps weren't in place."

There is wide agreement that electricity prices in Ohio will increase in 2009 because costs to produce it have gone up significantly since prices were last established. For FirstEnergy's Ohio utility customers, base rates have remained essentially the same since the early- to mid-1990s.

"Since rate caps went into effect, we've seen double- or triple-digit increases in the costs of fuel, transportation, steel, concrete, copper and aluminum - as well as increases in employee health care, wages and benefits," Alexander said. "And it is these cost increases that drive up the price of electricity across the country - whether utilities operate in regulated or unregulated environments."

A complete text of Mr. Alexander's remarks 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.

Forward-Looking Statements: This news release includes forward-looking statements based on information currently available to management. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. These statements include declarations regarding our, or our management's, intents, beliefs and current expectations. These statements typically contain, but are not limited to, the terms "anticipate," "potential," "expect," "believe," "estimate" and similar words. Forward-looking statements involve estimates, assumptions, known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially due to the speed and nature of increased competition in the electric utility industry and legislative and regulatory changes affecting how generation rates will be determined following the expiration of existing rate plans in Ohio and Pennsylvania, economic or weather conditions affecting future sales and margins, changes in markets for energy services, changing energy and commodity market prices, replacement power costs being higher than anticipated or inadequately hedged, the continued ability of FirstEnergy's regulated utilities to collect transition and other charges or to recover increased transmission costs, maintenance costs being higher than anticipated, other legislative and regulatory changes including revised environmental requirements, the uncertainty of the timing and amounts of the capital expenditures needed to, among other things, implement the Air Quality Compliance Plan (including that such amounts could be higher than anticipated) or levels of emission reductions related to the Consent Decree resolving the New Source Review litigation or other potential regulatory initiatives, adverse regulatory or legal decisions and outcomes (including, but not limited to, the revocation of necessary licenses or operating permits and oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission including, but not limited to, the Demand for Information issued to FENOC on May 14, 2007) as disclosed in our SEC filings, the timing and outcome of various proceedings before the PUCO (including, but not limited to, the Distribution Rate Cases and the generation supply plan filing for the Ohio Companies and the successful resolution of the issues remanded to the PUCO by the Supreme Court of Ohio regarding the Rate Stabilization Plan and the Rate Certainty Plan, including the deferral of fuel costs) and the PPUC (including the resolution of the Petitions for Review filed with the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania with respect to the transition rate plan for Met-Ed and Penelec, the continuing availability of generating units and their ability to continue to operate at or near full capacity, the ability to comply with applicable state and federal reliability standards, the inability to accomplish or realize anticipated benefits from strategic goals (including employee workforce initiatives), the ability to improve electric commodity margins and to experience growth in the distribution business, the ability to access the public securities and other capital markets and the cost of such capital, the outcome, cost and other effects of present and potential legal and administrative proceedings and claims related to the August 14, 2003 regional power outage, the risks and other factors discussed from time to time in our SEC filings, and other similar factors. The foregoing review of factors should not be construed as exhaustive. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict all such factors, nor can we assess the impact of any such factor on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. We expressly disclaim any current intention to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.