The agreement includes "dismissal of all ongoing PSC proceedings related to the 1999 settlement and other investigations," says Constellation's statement.
Does that include the Bowring investigation? Bowring declined to comment without definitive information from the PSC.
It would be a shame if it did. An similar inquiry into Illinois electricity auctions showed "disturbing evidence of price manipulation," state Attorney General Lisa Madigan said last year. Illinois customers were paying 40 percent more than the market rate, she said.
The probe set the stage for scrapping the auctions and rebating $1 billion to customers of two utilities, Ameren and Commonwealth Edison.
True, O'Malley's haul - $533 million in credits and rebates and relieving customers of (very) roughly $1.5 billion in liabilities that Constellation now agrees to take over from BGE - is significant.
Most gratifying is Constellation's agreement to pay for the rest of the eventual decommissioning of the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plants. Once owned by BGE, Calvert Cliffs went to Constellation in a 2000 sweetheart deal and now charges BGE customers far more than what regulation would have allowed. To stick BGE customers with decommissioning costs for somebody else's plants was doubly insulting.
The balance, however, is still heavily in Constellation's favor. It got the former BGE plants, whose value has appreciated by billions. And it got $1 billion in "stranded costs," which BGE customers paid after Constellation argued that Calvert Cliffs was a risky white elephant. (It wasn't.)
Robert F. McCullough Jr., the head of McCullough Research and the investigator in the Illinois auction, doesn't fault O'Malley for striking a deal.
"Though one would like to see larger numbers, it's very hard to actually bring these things to fruition, particularly in the time horizon of an elected official," he said yesterday. "They can go on for years."
Full investigation of the Maryland auctions would require subpoena power, which Bowring doesn't have, he said. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission could look into electricity auctions, but so far has shown little inclination.
"Settlement does seem to be a reasonable option," McCullough said.
Reasonable for a politician, maybe. But a settlement that leaves significant doubts about the core of deregulation - whether the process really is competitive - is an incomplete deal.
jay.hancock@baltsun.com
