U.S. Rep. Chris Carney toured the CraftMaster Manufacturing Inc., plant in Wysox Township Monday, where a federally-funded $1.35 million upgrade to make the plant more energy efficient is expected to reduce the plant's annual electricity bills by over $250,000.

"This is exactly what we ought to be doing as a country," Carney said about the upgrade, when speaking to television, radio and newspaper reporters after touring the plant.

The $1.35 million, funded by the America Recovery and Re-investment Act, will be used to purchase and install two steam-driven turbines and a generator, which will allow the plant to produce electricity from some of the steam that the plant generates, according to Carney and CraftMaster Manufacturing Inc. officials.

All of the electricity produced will be used at the plant, said Peter J. Klovekorn, engineering manager at the plant.

"It's a good use of stimulus money," Carney said of the upgrade. "It puts people to work in terms of building the generator, installing the generator and maintaining the generator, and will help CraftMaster Manufacturing be very efficient in how their operations continue down the road."

Carney had announced the award of the $1.35 million last December.

CraftMaster's estimate is that the installation of the equipment will save the plant $250,000 per year in electricity costs, said Paul MacKnosky, Carney's district director.

However, MacKnosky noted that the estimate of annual savings is based on current electricity rates, and he said the savings will be even higher after Penelec lifts its rate caps.

The new electricity generation system "lowers our costs, so we will be more competitive as a business," said Matt Ameigh, plant manager. "That helps to protect jobs" at the plant, he said.

Ameigh said it will take about 44 weeks for the equipment to arrive at the plant. He said he expected the new equipment to be up and running late in the first quarter of 2011.

While the plant had cut jobs during the past couple of years due to a downturn in the housing industry, Ameigh said he expected "some modest improvement" in the company's business this year.

He said he did not expect much change in the number of people employed at the plant in 2010, unless there is an unexpected large upturn in the economy, he said.

The plant currently employs about 450 people, he said.

The plant was awarded the $1.35 million through a competitive grant process, MacKnosky said.

Carney said that he was not involving in deciding who would get the grants, But, he said: "We (the staff in Carney's office) helped in terms of supporting the process along."

"The way the stimulus (law) worked in this case is that members of Congress did not have a direct ability to allocate money, But we had the ability to have supporting roles (for) those people who were applying for the grants," Carney said.

Health care

During a question-and-answer session with reporters after his tour, Carney applauded the proposal made by President Obama on Sunday to have GOP and Democratic leaders discuss possible compromises on health care reform in a half-day televised gathering on Feb. 25.

"I was thrilled to hear that," Carney said of the proposed gathering. "I think that is precisely what we need to do. As somebody who has always been a very bipartisan member of Congress, I've always thought that we can't reject ideas because they are not necessarily our ideas. We have to take all the good ideas we can, no matter where they come from. If this forum allows us to do that and get sensible health care reform in place, that's exactly what we ought to be doing."

By televising the forum, the public will be able to monitor the proceedings and "make sure that the good ideas are brought to light and injected into whatever health care reform we get."

Asked whether Congress should start from scratch to fashion health care reform legislation, Carney said there is "a lot in the bill" that passed in the House "that is very good."

"I suppose there are other things (in the bill) that we could probably jettison," the congressman said.

Carney voted for the health care reform bill that passed the House.

Carney said there are a number of things he wants to see in health care reform legislation, including banning insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, guaranteeing that workers can keep their insurance when they switch jobs, and eliminating the "doughnut hole" in Medicare Part D. "These are things we can do, and they make sense," Carney said.

James Loewenstein can be reached at (570) 265-1633; or email: jloewenstein@thedailyreview.com

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