A Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission hearing is a hell of a way to spend a Monday night in December, but 99.9% of this job is simply showing up.
That’s how you meet stand-up people like Jordan Moran. He grew up in Jermyn, holds down a full-time job and will soon have a degree in cybersecurity. Jordan is 29 and hopes to start a family soon. He doesn’t want to raise children in the shadow of artificial intelligence data centers, or take a high-paying job in one built next to neighborhoods, schools and public parks.
Jordan also doesn’t want to pay for the infrastructure necessary for multibillion-dollar corporations to blanket the region in colossal concrete mausoleums likely to be obsolete by the time they go online.
Jermyn resident Jordan Moran speaks during the public input hearing regarding the rate change proposed by PPL at the University of Scranton on Monday, Dec. 8, 2025. (REBECCA PARTICKA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Don’t take my word for it. Here’s Jordan:
“Like so many people here today, I come from a community of hardworking, family-focused folk who are here to say we pay our fair share and no more rate hikes should be presented,” he said. “We are constantly told to budget better and spend less on luxuries, while these billion-dollar corporations see record profits year after year.
“I make about triple the Pennsylvania minimum wage and I still freeze in my house. My thermostat is at 60 degrees, and my PPL bill is still nearly 20% of my monthly income. I eat ham sandwiches for lunch nearly every day and I make free coffee at work. We’re all living on the edge already in the fading middle class. How much more blood do you want to squeeze from us? I don’t have kids, and I can’t even think about starting a family in this economy, even though I’m nearly 30 years old … ”
He wasn’t finished.
“I’m a semester away from a degree in cybersecurity, so I’m one of the few that would benefit from these data centers opening in the area and I’m here to say we want to keep that crap out of NEPA,” Jordan said. “I would rather preserve my community than accept a six-figure job with some (expletive) tech corporation that wants to come in here and destroy the natural beauty of our valley and tear up our communities. We need to act now before the data centers become the new coal barons. We can’t be the ones to foot the bill … ”
I struggled not to stand and applaud. The stated purpose of the hearing at the University of Scranton’s Brennan Hall was to collect public testimony on yet another rate increase request from our benevolent friends at PPL Electric Utilities.
Ostensibly to make the grid more reliable and resilient for all PPL’s 1.5 million customers, PPL wants to hike residential rates by about 7% to raise $356 million for infrastructure upgrades. Times-Tribune Staff Writer Rob Tomkavage’s report has all the gory details.
While improved infrastructure would benefit all customers, none would benefit more than AI data center developers and the corporations behind them. For PPL to cash in on the data center gold rush, it must exponentially expand its power generation and transmission capacity. Rather than tap the seemingly bottomless well of capital shared by the industry’s titans, the utility is tagging everyday ratepayers already struggling to keep the lights on and food on the table.
Monday’s hearing and the proposed rate hike behind it should stand as an urgent lesson in logistics. While Midvalley and North Pocono communities are poised to bear the locational impacts of data center development, it will be a drain on public and private resources throughout Northeast Pennsylvania.
Like an octopus with unlimited tentacles, the AI industry is designed to reach into every corner humans call home. Its stated purpose is to replace us. We are like soon-to-be-downsized employees forced to train their replacements. Utilities like PPL expect us to feed and house our replacements, too.
Republican and Democratic elected officials alike have danced around the data center debate, but a quartet of Democrats appeared at the hearing to advocate in the interest of constituents. State Reps. Kyle Donahue, D-113, Scranton; Jim Haddock, D-116, Pittston Twp.; and Eddie Day Pashinski, D-121, Wilkes-Barre joined Scranton Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti in demanding the hike be denied.
“Just months after jacking up generation rates by 16%, PPL now wants another increase on the distribution side,” Donahue said, pointing to the fine print that cuts industrial customers like data centers a break.
“Families are rationing, skipping, cutting and praying the next bill won’t break them. Meanwhile, PPL proposed no increase for its LP5 (large commercial/industrial electricity users) rate class — the class that includes data centers — so seniors, small businesses and working families must foot the bill while massive, energy-consuming corporate users are shielded.”
The mayor told the PUC judges that the region’s ratepayers simply can’t afford another hike.
“This is the fourth time in less than two years that I stand before the Public Utility Commission, alongside the families, seniors and small business owners who are doing everything they can to make ends meet,” she said. “Families cannot absorb any more utility rate increases — the cost of electricity, gas, water and sewer are climbing faster than the wages of the people who rely on these services …
“We understand the utilities must maintain infrastructure, improve reliability and invest for the future, but those investments can’t come from the pockets of the most financially vulnerable people in their communities.”
People like Jordan Moran, who showed up, stood up and spoke up for himself and a lot of other hardworking, family-focused folk struggling to stay afloat in a sunken economy. When he finished his testimony, a PPL representative asked Jordan if he would like an associate to call him to discuss options for assistance.
“I make too much to qualify for assistance, but not enough to stop struggling,” he replied.
I hear you, man. Here’s hoping the PUC judges do, too.
CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, doesn’t know anyone with a bottomless well of capital. Contact the writer: ckelly@scrantontimes.com; @cjkink on X; Chris Kelly, The Times-Tribune on Facebook; and @chriskellyink on Bluesky.