The bill that passed to heated debate responded to public outrage over a proposed 72 percent BGE rate hike, and the bill does not require customers to opt-in this year. Instead all BGE rates will go up by 15 percent starting this July.

Maryland BGE customers will have an opt-in / opt-out choice to make in June 2007.

Next year customers will have a choice to phase-in whatever the total increase will be on June 1, 2007. Otherwise, BGE customers will be able to defer that increase until Jan. 1, 2008, according to The Washington Post's June 16 editorial on the bill. The deferral may bring interest penalties.

The Maryland General Assembly passed the bill with veto-proof majorities, and so the bill likely shall become law even though it appears Ehrlich may veto it. Ehrlich's critical public statements are increasingly against the bill and he may veto it before June ends. If so, the Assembly can convene again to override that veto.

The bill abolishes the Public Service Commission (PSC) that regulates electricity in Maryland; this agency approved the original 72 percent rate hike. Four out of five members of this commission were appointed by Gov. Ehrlich.

It appears the bill's firing of the PSC has irked Ehrlich. Nevertheless, someone must be held accountable. As one Maryland Senator noted during the floor debate on the new electricity legislation, the PSC failed to act to prevent or prepare for such an exorbinant rate hike, a rate hike that is costly for all Marylanders and could be catastrophic for the state's working poor and eldery on fixed incomes. The PSC failed to notify the General Assembly about the forthcoming 72 percent rate hike, claimed the state senator. The PSC also did not delay bidding for energy contracts when it knew that bidding right after Hurricane Katrina would force BGE to pay peak premium prices and thereby pass on high rates to consumers.

In fact the PSC Chairman, rather than look for a solution to this high increase, emailed with energy lobbyists about how to sell the huge rate increase to the public, according to email records unearthed by The Baltimore Sun.

Gov. Robert Ehrlich's two great Maryland initiatives to date--introducing legalized slot machines and protecting the anti-consumer Public Service Commission--are pathetic policy visions.

The upcoming governor's election will offer a choice for voters in November 2006. Both Democratic primary candidates Martin O'Malley and Doug Duncan have come out against BGE's increase and against the PSC's bias. Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley has launched a lawsuit to help uncover how the PSC reached its 72 percent rate increase, and has won the first round in court. Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan has called for re-regulating the electricity industry in Maryland. Green Party gubernatorial candidate Ed Boyd also offers an alternative to energy deregulation and out-of-control electricity rate increases.

During a broadcast of the Senate floor debate on Maryland Public Television, various Senators spoke of how the plan calls for a 15 percent BGE rate hike this summer, and then an investigation into what should be the necessary total rate increase to cover Maryland's electricity costs. This type of investigation is what the PSC should have done in the first place.

This number will be settled before the opt-in / opt-out choice next June. Maryland residents will have to keep the pressure on their elected representatives to find affordable energy solutions for Maryland.

This stop-gap measure and the firing of the industry-friendly PSC shows that concerned and active citizens can mobilize their representatives to act.