MARYLAND (WBFF) — As lawmakers heard bills in Annapolis during a committee hearing Tuesday, advocates and lawmakers took a strong stance against Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE), calling for an end to the “money grab.”
Lawmakers, along with consumer advocates from Maryland PIRG, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, as well as other organizations, argued BGE has been excessively spending on infrastructure projects, like pipeline replacements. They are calling on lawmakers to pass a bill, which would change the STRIDE law in Maryland, impacting how utilities like BGE could recover costs from customers.
“Since Exelon acquired BG&E, Pepco, Delmarva Power, you see an extraordinary increase in distribution costs that overshoots the costs of inflation over time,” Del. Lorig Charkoudian said. “And so what we know then is that the Exelon utilities have, as a corporate strategy, build as much as you possibly can, as fast as you possible can, so that you can keep charging ratepayers for that over time.”
“It’s time for our legislators to repeal the 2013 STRIDE law. BG&E is legally required to maintain the safety of its gas system, including making necessary repairs and replacements without additional financial incentives,” Emily Scarr, with Maryland PIRG, said.
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However, officials with BGE have pushed back on their arguments, claiming infrastructure spending is necessary to maintain an aging gas system.
“We’re replacing infrastructure that needs to be replaced. Full stop. This is not an argument,” BGE spokesperson Nick Alexopulos said. “This stuff, these pipes have to come out of the ground. They’re brittle, they are crumbling, they leak at 100 times the rate of the replacement material. STRIDE itself adds roughly $12 to your average customer’s bill.”
Another bill up for debate would pave the way for utilities to generate energy in the state, a bill BGE supports.
“BGE is focused on its customers and we all have a crisis right now in terms of reliability and also customer affordability. This bill would allow a different solution for customers where we can increase the amount of generation in the State which is desperately needed, and the byproduct of that is that the prices in the capacity market could decline,” Brittany Jones, Vice President of Governmental and External Affairs for BGE, said.
“This bill only enables us to submit a plan to the Public Service Commission for consideration. This bill does not rubberstamp any type of automatic generation. It would go through a very public process,” Jones added.
“Investors who build generation, whether it’s solar, gas, batteries, their investors bear the financial risk. But if we let BG&E get into the power generation, it’s rate payers who are at financial risk,” Scarr said.
During an interview last week, BGE’s CEO Tamla Olivier addressed the legislation, saying, “it’s definitely not a money grab.”
“What we’re saying is, if the generators show up, great. That solves affordability issues for our customers. I’m good with that. But in the absence of that, we want to be able to play a role and be part of an all-of-above solution that Governor Moore has talked about to ensure that we are not reliant on New Jersey to get our power or West Virginia to get power, that we’re able to generate in the state to save our customers and Marylanders money,” Olivier said.
When asked if it would increase BGE’s profits, Olivier responded by saying, “Yep, it would increase our profits. But what I would tell you, and people I don’t know understand this, when we make investments in the system, that’s not state dollars, we have to go to the market as an organization, and we have to go get capital. That capital is used to make investments in the system. So essentially, we are loaning the dollars to the state of Maryland. We might not get paid back for one year, two years, three years, but we make that loan to the State, then we go back to the State and say, look, we made all these investments in this system that you have agreed to. Now, how much of those dollars are you going to give us back? One thing is for sure, we have never got 100% of our investment back.”
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