Blog Archives: May 2012

Can Regulators Base Rates on Secret Information?
May 2012

A utility’s plant construction exceeds budget by hundreds of millions.  It seeks cost recovery, claiming that the design changes, delays and scheduling conflicts that caused the overrun were not its fault.  But it insists the supporting data is confidential.   A reporter asked me:  Can the state commission make customers pay for the overrun when the claimed support remains secret? 

There are two legal principles relevant to the question.

Read more
The Exelon–Constellation Merger: "Hyperbole" or Fact?
May 2012

Last fall I testified in the merger proceeding before the Maryland Commission (the testimony was on behalf of the State of Maryland).  Summarizing about 40 pages of analysis, I commented that the merger would attach Baltimore Gas & Electric (Constellation's utility subsidiary) to "a corporate positioning trajectory that is unknown, unbounded by Maryland's public interest and largely outside the Commission's control, permanently."  One of the Applicants' witnesses objected to this statement as "hyperbole," "designed to shock the Commi

Read more