20060620 KDDC MGA Spec Session June 15 2006 - A review

MGA Spec Session June 15 2006

June 20^th, 2006 by Kevin Dayhoff

Unless you have been on vacation for several weeks, by now you are aware that the Maryland General Assembly met in Special Session on June Thursday, June 15^th, 2006 and passed Senate Bill 1: “Public Service Commission - Electric Industry Restructuring.”

The bill was introduced as emergency legislation, by the President of the Senate and the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, with little input from the governor’s administration, the Maryland Public Service Commission or Constellation Energy…

The introduction synopsis for the bill reads:

“Limiting the increase in electricity rates in a specified service territory for a specified period; requiring specified electric companies to obtain electricity supply for extended standard offer service to specified customers in specified manners; authorizing the Public Service Commission (PSC) to take specified actions concerning competitive auctions and implementation of electricity rates; altering the criteria for appointment to the PSC and the method of appointment of the People's Counsel; etc.”

Governor Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. announced on June 15^th, 2006, that he would hold a public hearing on the Maryland General Assembly’s attempt to mitigate rising electricity costs for Baltimore Gas & Electric customers.

I attended the public hearing this evening. All six hours of it. Now I’m trying to make sense out of 34 pages of notes and just as many pages of copies of written testimony.

I thought that I would start with information gathered on the special session and proceed from there. I figured that as long as I was going through this process, I would share it on “kevindayhoff.com.”

Persistently, throughout the testimony of 59 citizens, my thoughts drifted back to several pieces that I had read in recent weeks.

One place in which I started was: “20060614 KDDC Lights Out, the second shoe:”

If you have not had a chance to read Jamie Smith Hopkins' article in the Sun the other day; find time to read it. She covered how this Maryland General Assembly continues to be disastrous for Marylanders.

Jamie Smith Hopkins continues to be one of the Baltimore Sun's best writers.

Much of Maryland's "industry" and employment is government. However, not everyone can work for the government. Government pays no taxes, it only consumes taxes.

So who is left to pay the bills? The answer is you and me. And if Maryland continues to perpetuate its anti-business reputation, "you and me" are going to only have to pay higher and higher taxes as business continues to flee of find somewhere else to establish and grow.

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Legislature makes businesses uneasy

Business leaders are concerned that lawmakers keep doing things to create an unfriendly climate

By Jamie Smith Hopkins

Sun reporter

Originally published June 14, 2006

Be sure to read the rest of Ms. Hopkins' article here.

The piece in the Wall Street Journal, to which Ms. Hopkins refers has been hard to find for me. However, I did manage to find it on the "Howard County Blog." I have pasted below the Howard County Blog's entry from April 18th, 2006:

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S. A. Miller, who used to write for the Carroll County Times, a number of years ago; wrote another good article on the anti-business aspect of all of this in the Washington Times, on June 5^th, 2006: “Moves on BGE Wal-Mart bad for business.”

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Also see: “20060523 KDDC BE editorial MD legislators fail basic economics.”

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And: “20060405 Omnibus Rolling Blackout Acts of 2006.”

20060405 Omnibus Rolling Blackout Acts of 2006

April 5, 2006 By Kevin Dayhoff

“In my Tentacle columns of April 4^th, 2006 and April 5^th, 2006, I referred to the “recent surge of Maryland General Assembly legislative initiatives in response to the end of the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company’s electric rate price freeze … as the “Omnibus Rolling Blackout Acts of 2006.”

Much is left to be accomplished with the time remaining in the tumultuous 421st legislative session of the Maryland General Assembly - now mercifully measured in days.

Although, for many, the 421st legislative session cannot end soon enough…”

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Hagerstown Herald-Mail Editorial: Questions for Lawmakers

An editorial in the June 8^th, 2006 Hagerstown Herald-Mail correctly aims questions at Senate President Mike Miller, as well as members of the General Assembly, about Mike Miller and the General Assembly's responsibilities for Maryland's deregulation debacle. It begins:

“If the members of the Maryland General Assembly have any sense of responsibility to their constituents, they will answer the following questions before a special session opens next week:

If you were in the legislature in 1999, why did you believe electricity deregulation was a good idea?

And, if you have served in Annapolis since then, why did it take you so long to figure out that deregulation wasn't working out as planned?

The first person who should be called on to answer those questions is Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, who was co-sponsor of his chamber's version of the electricity restructuring bill.”

Read the rest of the Hagerstown Herald-Mail’s editorial "Questions for Lawmakers" here:

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And last, but certainly not least is Barry Rascovar’s column in the Gazette: “What a sham!”

This column appears in the Friday, June 16, 2006 edition of the Gazette.

“Legislators patted themselves on the back for a job well done. Yet the flimflam we witnessed this week doesn’t hold up under close inspection. The details and long-range impact of the Democratic legislature’s answer to the electric rate increase controversy show that consumers are being conned.”

Read the rest here.

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I’ve got my work cut out for me…

Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster Maryland USA.

E-mail him at: kdayhoff@carr.org

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