Ratepayers

Did the Public Service Commission give the C&P Telephone Co. an extraordinarily favorable write-off of a huge pension obligation in order to help C&P pay for a fiber-optic network linking together every high school and college in Maryland?That's the impression left by the confluence of these two events. C&P's ratepayers, it appears, will indeed be footing a hefty portion of the bill for this statewide fiber-optic telecommunications system.That's not the way C&P is promoting this project, though.

Maryland telephone customers will foot some of the bill for a new statewide telecommunications network that the president of the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Co. had promised would have "absolutely no impact on basic ratepayers."C&P officials acknowledged last week that a favorable ruling by Maryland utility regulators in late March will allow the company to finance installation of a fiber-optic network, at least in part, with money that otherwise would have been refunded to telephone customers from excess profits.

When his predecessor left for a job in the private sector, O. Ray Bourland III was handed the task of deciding the biggest rate case in the state's history -- a decision that will affect the electric bills of all Baltimoreans as well as the financial health of the Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.In his new position as chief hearing examiner for the state's Public Service Commission, Mr. Bourland will decide who should pay approximately $450 million for BG&E's...

Customers of public utilities in Delaware, Virginia and 20 other states may be able to cut their monthly bills a little by asking courts to declare a portion of their rates unconstitutional in the wake of Supreme Court action yesterday.A brief order by the nation's highest court implied that ratepayers in some states -- excluding Maryland -- could file suits charging that utility stockholders, not customers, should pay for a utility's donations to charities.Maryland's Public Service Commission ruled in 1962 that utility companies could not pass through their charitable donations to ratepayers, said PSC spokesman Frank Fulton.