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What’s New
Maryland PIRG and a number of other citizen organizations have intervened in cases before the Public Service Commission on the future of Maryland’s electric system. Last spring, lawmakers ordered the PSC to review the structure of Maryland’s electric utility and recommend solutions to the legislature by December 31, 2008. Read our Statement.
How You Can Help
E-mail your legislators and urge them to support legislation to reinstate energy efficiency programs.
Brief Summary
Deregulation of the electricity market has failed. Energy companies promised us more competition and lower rates, but the exact opposite has happened. Maryland ratepayers have seen their rates skyrocket and there is no real competition.
This June, over 1.2 million Marylanders will see the remainder of a 68% rate increase hit their utility bills that was postponed by a law passed in June 2006. The same law took some good first steps towards fixing the underlying problems caused by deregulation. But much remains to be done to make sure that Marylanders aren’t forced to pay unreasonable rates for their electricity.
State agencies need to have greater oversight of utility decision making. This means making utilities do things they may not be inclined to do when thinking only of their shareholders, but that state agencies have identified as being in the best interests of Maryland consumers. For example, utilities should be saving energy through energy efficiency and conservation, developing long-term energy plans, and investing in clean renewable sources of energy to increase our energy independence.
