As The Sun reported this morning, Gov. O'Malley and his allies are trying to get rid of a provision that the Maryland Senate tacked onto legislation that is crucial to the settlement with BGE and parent Constellation Energy. The amendment would require new generation plants in Maryland -- including a putative new nuclear unit at Calvert Cliffs -- to be regulated by the Public Service Commission. Great idea! What a gesture of solidarity with electricity customers!

But if it passes, it won't just scuttle O'Malley's BGE settlement. It will either 1) prevent any new power plants from being built in a state that badly needs them, or 2) force the public to pay for the costs of constructing them. The regulatory covenant -- dating to the 1930s -- was that capital costs for building transmission lines and generators were built into rates. The ratepayers covered the mortgage. In return regulators capped profits from generation.

The deregulatory idea is that power companies use their own money to build plants and then compete for customers. Customers escape the capital costs but bear the risks of "the market," such as it is. But Constellation will never use its own money to build Maryland plants if what it can charge for the juice will be controlled by the PSC. Nor will anybody else.

So then we're back to square one on ensuring Maryland's energy future. My guess is that we'll end up having a combination of new plants -- some built entirely with nonregulated money and some built with ratepayers covering a portion of the mortgage.