The Public Service Commission has extended its review of the proposed joint venture between Constellation Energy Group and Electricite de France. EDF is buying 49 percent of CEG's nuclear-generation business. The companies wanted to close the deal by Sept. 17. Not gonna happen now.

Says the PSC:

In each instance, the State and MEA argued that they have not received full responses to data requests to Constellation Energy Group, Inc. (“CEG”), Baltimore Gas and Electric Company (“BGE”) and Electricité de France International, SA (“EDF”) in a complete and timely fashion, and that they find themselves with insufficient time to prepare their reply testimony, currently due on August 5th.

The Commission is aware and mindful that CEG and EDF want to close the transaction by September 17, 2009, and the Commission has made every effort to complete the public interest review with that deadline in mind. But the Commission cannot and will not compromise the quality of the public interest review of this transaction, and the Commission finds that the public interest in a thorough review outweighs the companies’ understandable desire to close by September 17th.