Baltimore council presses BGE, OPC over surging bills and pipeline replacements

Baltimore City Council members pressed Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) and the Maryland Office of People’s Counsel (OPC) at a Legislative Investigations Committee hearing over sharply higher winter utility bills and the company’s multi‑year pipeline replacement program.

Councilman Isaac Schleifer, chair of the Legislative Investigations Committee, opened the session by saying the committee sought “a full understanding of how we got here and what can be done to prevent this situation from escalating.” He called BGE’s current rate trajectory “simply not sustainable for our constituents.”

The hearing combined company testimony about weather and market drivers with pointed critiques from OPC and dozens of residents who said bills had become unaffordable. David Lapp, Maryland people’s counsel, told the committee that multi‑year rate plans and related cost‑recovery mechanisms have shifted risk to customers and “have contributed to the massive rate increases that have occurred.” Lapp said the OPC’s office had petitioned the Public Service Commission (PSC) for rules to limit punitive late fees and deposits and urged the PSC to end multi‑year rate plans.

BGE executives framed the price spike as a mix of factors. Charles Washington, BGE vice president of governmental and external affairs, and Mark Case, the company’s vice president of regulatory policy and strategy, said unusually cold weather raised customer usage and that recent rises in…