Dec. 13--Add Maryland's energy future to Wall Street, the federal deficit, Washington politics, Detroit carmakers and everything else turned topsy-turvy by the financial crisis.

Six months ago, we worried about even higher electricity prices and blackouts or brownouts as early as 2011. But the recession granted a reprieve.

Not an especially welcome one, for sure. But the economic slowdown and crash in energy prices have delayed the future and offered policymakers time.

The Public Service Commission just grabbed it. In a long-awaited report delivered Thursday, the agency focused on conservation as the main way to ensure that electricity resources meet electricity needs in the next few years.

The panel rejected the politically explosive option of seizing generation plants once owned by Baltimore Gas and Electric and Potomac Electric Power Co.

And it delayed whether to order BGE or Pepco to build their own generators at the expense of ratepayers.

"No bureaucrat will ever make a decision until he has to," an old Washington hand once told me.

But in this case, procrastination makes sense. Now that doomsday is delayed by an expected dip in the growth of electricity use, Maryland can concentrate on cutting demand instead of taking risky steps to buy or build generators. We'll avoid huge bills for at least a while. Maybe longer. And we'll reduce pollution while we're at it.

The commission was never, ever going to recommend forcing unregulated power companies to sell back generation plants once owned by Pepco and BGE. Mirant owns some of the plants. BGE parent Constellation Energy owns others, including the Calvert Cliffs nuclear units.

Deregulating the plants was a terrible mistake. Banning Pepco and BGE from making their own megawatts and forcing them to shop on the open grid helped drive up prices.

But trying to re-regulate generators through state seizure would be an even bigger disaster.

Leave aside the troubling breach of property rights that comes with any involuntary government takeover. Never mind the billions in costs that would accrue to taxpayers or ratepayers. (Even if you grab the plants, you have to pay for them.)

Assume for argument's sake it's a great idea to buy aging, dirty, coal-fired generators that will be obsolete in a low-carbon economy.

Let's also assume the expertise to run these facilities would be magically transferred from Mirant and Constellation to whomever ends up in charge.

The litigation alone would burn resources for years and distract from planning for the future.