Duquesne Light's Phillips strategy has industrial clients up in arms. (to establish accounting and rate-making procedures in advance of building power transmission line)

Duquesne Light's Phillips strategy has industrial clients up in arms

A request by Duquesne Light Co. to pre-establish consumer rates for a cross-state transmission line threatens to crush long-standing state policy that requires power to be useful before rates are set. The request also has other utilities lining up for similar treatment.

The precedent-setting request by Duquesne Light to establish accounting and rate-making procedures in advance of building a proposed 200-mile, $480 million power transmission line to New Jersey encounters an important hurdle this week when it undergoes review before a Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission law judge.

Duquesne Light's request for a "declaratory order," designed to provide a schedule of rates and end controversy, has stirred resistance from the utility's large …