Must Read: Jay Hancock on O'Malley's Petulant Battle With Constellation Energy 10/09

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The manner in which Governor Martin O'Malley has placed his personal politics ahead of wise policies for the citizens of Maryland has been well-documented by Jay Hancock of the Baltimore Sun.

Hancock's column today is a facetious analysis of how O'Malley is saving Maryland from the burden that would be caused by the tremendous opportunity for job creation under the Constellation Energy-EDF merger proposal:

O’Malley fights the danger of energy jobs – Constellation spending money here? That would never do! October 7, 2009

Gov. Martin O’Malley and the Public Service Commission are doing their best to save Maryland from Constellation Energy. Just when the state was plunging into its biggest recession since the early 1990s, Constellation threatened to spend $8 billion and create 4,000 construction jobs on a new nuclear power plant on the Chesapeake. Fortunately, the commission has ordered endless, expensive, irrelevant hearings that are likely to make Constellation and its partner, EDF Group, give up. So diligent is O'Malley that his energy department tried to suppress testimony from the commission's own expert showing that Marylanders would save a billion dollars over eight years from the new electricity supply and resulting lower prices.

In his August column, Hancock was more direct. O'Malley is blatently risking the potential for the long-term benefits to Maryland's energy policy of the third nuclear power plant solely to blackmail Constellation Energy was rate concessions that were the trademark campaign promise of the 2006 O'Malley campaign:

Adieu, Constellation deal with EDF, and 3^rd atomic plant, August 19, 2009

The General Assembly passed a law excluding the Public Service Commission from blocking such deals unless certain conditions were met. The EDF agreement didn't come close. But regulators asserted authority anyway. Hearings start next month. O'Malley presented a list of demands including givebacks to BGE ratepayers, new regulations protecting BGE from potential financial trauma and "a rational approach" to pay for Shattuck, who pulled down $15.7 million last year after he nearly wrecked the company. Worthy goals all. Except for the fact that in this case they're none of the state's business. To get the short-term political bump that would come with Constellation concessions, O'Malley risks the new Calvert Cliffs plant, a crucial, long-term piece of Maryland's economy.