Baltimore families are barely keeping up with electricity bills that have nearly doubled over the past decade, and Baltimore Gas & Electric’s latest idea is to make things even worse. Maryland Delegate Brian Chisholm laid it out plainly in his Maryland Matters column: BGE isn’t trying to lower your bills or improve reliability. It’s trying to expand its monopoly by muscling into the power generation business.
That’s not reform. That’s a power grab.
If BGE gets its way, one company would control both how electricity is delivered and how it’s produced. Ratepayers already know how this movie ends: higher bills, fewer choices, and zero accountability.
Chisholm points out what Marylanders have seen for years. BGE’s big construction projects run over budget, its “modernization” schemes magically inflate profits, and ratepayers are always the ones holding the bill. The Office of People’s Counsel, which represents utility customers’ interests in the state, has spent months warning regulators about exactly this pattern. There is scant proof that BGE can build energy cheaper, cleaner, or faster than private developers. The only certainty is that BGE’s captive customers would be stuck with the bill.
The company claims Maryland imports too much power and should produce more in-state. That might sound patriotic until you remember how the regional PJM grid covering Maryland and 12 other states actually works. Building BGE-owned power plants is not a formula for lowering bills. It would just kill competition and cement monopoly control.
If Maryland wants more energy generation, the answer isn’t giving BGE another sandbox to bulldoze. It’s opening the door to private-sector generation, cutting red tape that slows down new projects, and letting real competition drive down costs.
Baltimore families are tapped out. They can’t afford another round of monopoly adventurism disguised as “solutions.” Chisholm is right: Maryland needs transparency, competition, and consumer protection — not another blank check for utility executives and their Wall Street owners.
BGE has one job: deliver electricity safely and affordably. If it wants to play power plant tycoon, it can do it without dragging Marylanders along for the ride.
