Ratepayers

LAUREL -- Prince George's and Montgomery County officials will meet today to decide whether to take the first step toward selling the nation's seventh-largest water and sewer company. But already, the proposal is in trouble.The Montgomery County Council has decided that a yearlong, $400,000 study of the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission has failed to prove ratepayers would benefit if the utility's assets were sold."We're not saying privatization is bad, that it will not happen [ever]

The fight against hunger still needs public contributions Rob Kasper absolutely nailed the story of our Second Helping program ("Food shuffle: how to fill the plates of the needy," Oct. 17). He structured clearly what we see every day -- the odd combination of joy and pathos, celebration and deprivation, and of enthusiastic volunteers dealing with the consequence of a frayed safety net. For years we've picked up food from the food service industry and delivered it to shelters and soup kitchens, hoping that maybe, around the next legislative session, the key to ending hunger will emerge.

Regarding BGE's restoration of electrical service after Hurricane Irene, I think I speak for many BGE customers when I say we understand the company's frustration: We appreciate their sending us our latest bill, which is very important to us and will be paid in the order in which all our other bills were received. Be assured that we will do everything in our power to pay it soon. We thank BGE for their continued patience. George Emil

Don't blame deregulation for the 72 percent pop in electricity bills that Baltimore Gas and Electric customers will see after July 1, says BGE. "It is not deregulation that has failed," BGE spokesman Rob Gould said on WYPR radio last week. "The real cause for the price increase is the world energy market." But for all of BGE's and parent Constellation Energy's portrayals of themselves as victims of high energy costs, the facts show not only that regulation would have softened this kind of rate shock but that deregulation was fixed from the start in their favor.

Marylanders gained some insight into their new governor last week when the state's Public Service Commission, controlled by Gov. Martin O'Malley, approved a 50 percent rate increase for residential customers of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. The approval comes less than a year after a bitter gubernatorial campaign between Mr. O'Malley and incumbent Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. Recall that Mr. O'Malley lambasted Mr. Ehrlich's PSC for approving a 72 percent BGE...

As a BGE ratepayer, I'm strongly opposed to the Constellation-Exelon merger ("O'Malley praises Exelon-CEG deal," Dec. 16). For the third time since 2007, Constellation CEO Mayo Shattuck has been trying to engineer a buyout or merger of Constellation while doubling costs to BGE ratepayers, this time with a $13.4 million payday for himself. The primary legal responsibility of the Maryland Public Service Commission, as state Sens. E.J. Pipkin and James C. Rosepepe noted in a letter to agency, is to protect the best interests of BGE ratepayers.

Maryland's ratepayer advocate is objecting to Exelon Corp.'s proposed buyout of Constellation Energy Group, telling federal regulators that the combined company would have too much control of electricity prices on the grid that serves much of the Mid-Atlantic region. The Maryland Office of People's Counsel, which represents state consumers in matters involving utilities, joined with its Pennsylvania counterpart this week to ask the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to hold a hearing on the issue.

Last week, a decade after Maryland deregulated electricity by splitting the business of generating power from the business of delivering it to your house, worried regulators took a step backward. They essentially ordered Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. and Potomac Electric Power Co. to seek proposals for building a big, new electricity plant — and billing the cost to ratepayers. BGE, Pepco and other delivery companies were supposed to be through with generation plants. They were supposed to supply households, factories and stores with electricity bought from third parties on the unregulated wholesale market.

The dismantling of Exelon Corp.'s Zion Station nuclear power plant near Chicago is setting several remarkable precedents. It's the biggest-ever nuclear decommissioning job in the United States, says Exelon, which is seeking permission to buy Constellation Energy and Baltimore Gas & Electric. The enterprise will take a decade, employing hundreds. Instead of separating the radioactive debris from the nonradioactive, the usual method, workers will ship most of the rubble to Utah and dump it in the desert.

The Illinois Attorney General's Office has renewed its request to federal energy regulators for a hearing on Constellation Energy Group's plan to sell itself to Chicago-based Exelon Corp. In a brief filed Tuesday, Attorney General Lisa Madigan said the $7.9 billion deal would raise rates for customers of Exelon's ComEd utility, citing testimony by the company's executives during regulatory hearings before the Maryland Public Service Commission. The Illinois attorney general's office is among several groups that have objected to the deal on the grounds that the combined company would have two much control of electricity prices on the grid that serves much of the mid-Atlantic region.