When Treasury Secretary Timothy    Geithner goes before the House Financial Services Committee tomorrow about preventing more financial abuse and taxpayer bailouts in the loan-sale markets, he'll see a lot of familiar faces.

Geithner met with the committee's influential Capital Markets subcommittee Tuesday night, off the record, at a Financial Regulatory Roundtable dinner sponsored by the Bipartisan Policy Center - a group started by ex-senators to pitch "solutions to the nation's most pressing public policy challenges" behind closed doors.

Should we expect the members asked Geithner questions they won't ask tomorrow? And was he likely more candid without his TV face on?

"Yes," the subcommittee's minority leader, U.S. Rep. Scott Garrett (R., N.J.) told me.

Will the members be any easier on Geithner,

having spent a pleasant, candid evening in advance?

Maybe not. "Members from both sides have an interest in making a public stand in committee meetings, regardless of who's on the witness stand," Garrett said.

Are closed-door meetings where supposed antagonists hammer out common solutions a threat to democracy?

"The Constitution was written behind closed doors," Garrett said, though "it can be problematical." Still, "as long as you're at the table, you don't see that as a problem."

Turnpike subsidy

Federal taxpayers helped the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission borrow $275 million to fund a wider Northeast Extension near Lansdale, among other projects, in a taxable bond sale subsidized by President Obama's Build America Bonds (BAB) program.

The commission paid investors 6.1 percent on the bonds, said chief financial officer Nikolaus Grieshaber.

But federal taxpayers, under BAB, paid 35 percent of the interest, he added. So the bonds cost the commission (and future toll-paying drivers) just 3.97 percent.

Without the federal subsidy, the commission would have had to issue tax-exempt bonds paying around 4.5 percent, Grieshaber said.

Do the math, and you'll see the difference was worth around $1.4 million a year. That's $55 million amortized over the 30-year bond payback, Grieshaber said.

Investors saved more - about triple what the commission saved. But a lot of that will be paid back as taxes by the owners of the taxable bonds.

Grieshaber said the commission has not rushed to boost construction with BABs - unlike California or New Jersey.

In part that's because the Pennsylvania Turnpike faces an unsettled fiscal future: Gov. Rendell would still like to lease it to private operators, while the commission hopes Obama officials will approve its plans to charge tolls for I-80, to raise money for road and bridge repairs.

NRG to Exelon: More

"While your revised offer is not acceptable as it is, it certainly represents a step in the right direction," NRG Corp. chief David Crane told Exelon boss John Rowe in a letter yesterday.

Chicago-based Exelon, which owns Philadelphia's Peco Energy, upped its offer for Princeton-based NRG to around $7 billion in stock last week. Crane says Exelon is still trying to get NRG's oil and nuclear assets and customers too cheap.

Outsourced

Sunoco's closing of the ethylene plant at its Marcus Hook refinery after it exploded, idling 40 to 50 workers, follows a collapse in U.S. demand for the basic petrochemical.

Andrew Brady and Wen Li, writing for bond analyst CreditSights Inc., told clients, "Capacity shutdowns by Dow (Chemical Co.) will reduce the chemical bellwether's ethylene intake by roughly 30 percent," and end its purchases of 3 billion pounds a year - 6 percent of all U.S. production.

Dow spokesman Dave Winder confirmed those numbers, which follow Dow plant closings that idled thousands.

"Domestic producers will continue to rationalize their less efficient plants," while "massive" new petrochemical plants in the Middle East threaten what is left of the U.S. industry, Brady and Li added. So even when the economy speeds up, "We believe any demand recovery will be at levels much lower than the norms of the past several years," they forecast.

Contact Joseph N. DiStefano at (215)854-5194 or JoeD@phillynews.com