By contrast, his best-known accomplishment as PSC chairman is the $170 rebate that Constellation agreed to give each BGE household.
Many companies selling electricity to Marylanders are out of state and out of the PSC's reach. PJM Interconnection, which manages the Mid-Atlantic wholesale megawatt market, is in Pennsylvania and answers - to the extent that it answers to anybody - to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Maryland badly needs new interstate transmission lines. But those are completely out of the PSC's control, too.
True, the $170 rebates add up to $187 million. O'Malley and Larsen got Constellation to give up $2 billion in potential future charges. They persuaded federal regulators to cap prices on certain generators that had reaped monopoly profits at times of peak demand.
In last week's petition, they're asking Washington to block another $2 billion in charges Maryland customers must pay to generators for guaranteeing power to the grid.
But most of this money wouldn't have been billed for years or decades, which makes it irrelevant to families worried about $300 electric bills now. Larsen wasn't able to block BGE's initial, 70 percent price increase for households. It's obvious O'Malley wanted to do a lot more, a lot more quickly, and that constituents expected him to.
Soaring energy costs, just as much as legal obstacles, have wrecked chances to lower electricity prices.
Even with complete re-regulation, costs for coal and other fuels would make prices much higher than they were a few years ago. And complete re-regulation - price controls on all Maryland generators once owned by utilities - isn't going to happen. These days electricity's market price is largely driven by increasingly expensive natural gas.
The state must also build generators and cut carbon emissions, which will drive up costs even more. Steering the PSC in such an environment will be unglamorous, grueling and frustrating.
Last week's self-congratulatory moment included a news release from the Maryland Democratic Party with heroic quotes from O'Malley and Larsen. A separate, PSC media statement signaled the impending transition by giving a cameo role to PSC General Counsel Douglas Nazarian, whom O'Malley has appointed as Larsen's successor.
Presumably Nazarian will last longer as chairman than Larsen did. Certainly, he knows it will be difficult. Larsen's early departure demonstrates that to everybody else, too.
Mission not yet accomplished.
jay.hancock@baltsun.com
