![\"Jermyn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765389495_748_STT-L-PUCHEARING-1208-02.jpg\")
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)<\/p>\nA 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.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
Jordan also doesn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
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)<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t take my word for it. Here\u2019s Jordan:<\/p>\n
\u201cLike 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,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are constantly told to budget better and spend less on luxuries, while these billion-dollar corporations see record profits year after year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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\u2019re all living on the edge already in the fading middle class. How much more blood do you want to squeeze from us? I don\u2019t have kids, and I can\u2019t even think about starting a family in this economy, even though I\u2019m nearly 30 years old \u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n
He wasn\u2019t finished.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a semester away from a degree in cybersecurity, so I\u2019m one of the few that would benefit from these data centers opening in the area and I\u2019m here to say we want to keep that crap out of NEPA,\u201d Jordan said. \u201cI 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\u2019t be the ones to foot the bill \u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n
I struggled not to stand and applaud. The stated purpose of the hearing at the University of Scranton\u2019s Brennan Hall was to collect public testimony on yet another rate increase request from our benevolent friends at PPL Electric Utilities.<\/p>\n