Today The Sun is reporting that consultants hired by the Public Service Commission found no wrongdoing by Constellation Energy in connection with reverse auctions that caused BGE rates to go up 70 percent. But we know that former Constellation chief risk officer John Collins had contact with both Constellation -- the seller -- and BGE -- the buyer -- in BGE's purchases of electricity and could see bids from Constellation's competitors. Potential problem, right? That could have given Constellation -- which owns most of the generation around here anyway -- a huge advantage. Here is how the report, from law firm Kaye Scholer, addresses the issue:

Furthermore, we found no evidence of collusion by legally independent actors or market power abuse that would support federal or state antitrust claims. As affiliates wholly owned by a common parent, Constellation and BGE are legally incapable of conspiring with one another. [My emphasis.]

So Kaye Scholer is basically saying that BGE and Constellation cannot break collusion laws no matter what their relationship in the auction. That misses the point by a mile. The essential problem -- a potentially uncompetitive auction costing BGE ratepayers millions -- is still there. And what happened to a separate investigation of the auction process by Joseph Bowring, market monitor for the Mid-Atlantic electric grid? I've been asking for four days and still don't have a good answer. More later.