Plan would help keep power rates down

Electricity legislation expected to be introduced in the House this week would do what no other bill has done in the past three weeks of post-deregulation panic: keep rates down for the long haul.

The measure, sponsored by Del. Dereck Davis, D-Prince George's, would require Baltimore Gas & Electric to buy its energy in bundles rather than in one contract. The idea, said the chairman of the House Economic Matters Committee, is that signing contracts at several different points in time, when prices and demand are different, could prove advantageous.

The current setup, which involves utilities buying all of their electricity...