-- The direct amount -- over $500 million -- is enough to cause pain for Constellation and enough for O'Malley to claim he got significant $$$ for consumers.

-- O'Malley didn't have much ammo to work with. The 2006 law requiring the $386 million in credits was embarrassingly unconstitutional. Nor did the review of the 1999 stranded-cost settlement offer much ground for revisiting. Judges would have laughed efforts to regain stranded cost money out of court.

-- However, as noted in today's column, he didn't deploy what potentially was his biggest gun: an investigation into the 2005-2006 electricity auction that led to the 70 percent BGE increase.

-- Constellation buys political peace with the settlement. Did they also forestall the auction inquiry? We'll find out next week.

-- O'Malley gets Constellation to stop threatening to put their next nuclear plant somewhere other than Maryland. He had two opposing goals: 1) Look as though he redeems his promise for rate relief by beating up Constellation and getting money. 2) Secure Maryland's energy future. No. 1 is important. No. 2 is more important.