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Some problems are too big and too complex for politicians to solve. But that doesn't stop elected leaders from boasting about their pseudo-solutions.

Take the case of Gov. Martin O'Malley and his "rational re-regulation" of the electric power industry. He says he's doing it to fight high electric bills and restore power to the people (right on!).

He wants to give the Public Service Commission expanded authority to force those evil electric companies to build new generating plants even if they don't think it is wise. Under O'Malley's plan, the PSC also can seize land from a reluctant utility and order some other regulated company to build a generating plant there.

With this announcement, the governor dominated the headlines. It seemed like he was offering a lifeline to angry homeowners experiencing sky-high jumps in the cost of electricity.

But it was all smoke and mirrors. The governor himself admitted his plan doesn't do a thing to lower this winter's shocking electric bills. Even if the legislature were to pass O'Malley's plan this session, the governor likely will be out of office by the time the first PSC-ordered plant opens.

Worse, there is no guarantee the O'Malley plan will lower electric costs. In fact, there's a strong likelihood his scheme will force up the price of heating your home.

After all, who will pay for those brand-new power plants the PSC is going to mandate?

There's no way a power company can finance a half-billion-dollar generating plant out of cash reserves. Nor can a local utility sell construction bonds without a guarantee its customers will be paying the interest and principle.

O'Malley's plan also has the boomerang effect of harming renewable energy companies just starting to gain a foothold. His proposal puts the emphasis on requiring more traditional sources of energy for Maryland's future.

The governor wants to bury the notion of a deregulated energy market. It is "dysfunctional" and has failed consumers, he says. It's time to re-regulate the industry.

That's a great sound bite. It plays well with audiences. But O'Malley fails to recognize deregulation is working quite well for commercial and industrial users in Maryland. His re-regulation scheme could put an end to lower prices for these companies.

For instance, Safeway's 77 stores in Maryland enjoyed cheaper — yes, cheaper — electric prices last year because the company bought its power from competitive suppliers. Extending this kind of success to the state's homeowners has been the problem.

Yet the O'Malley plan squelches any possibility of true electric competition for residential customers. It essentially restores the old monopoly that utilities used to have when they controlled both the generation and delivery of electricity.

The 1999 deregulation law the governor regularly denounces sought to separate power generation from electric delivery. The idea was to let businesses, and then homeowners, shop for the lowest power supplier available while Pepco, BGE and other familiar names continue bringing electricity into our homes and offices.

That law, though, was fatally flawed. For one thing, BGE was never fully separated from its parent company, Constellation Energy, which now owns all the corporation's power plants.

Then the existing, local power companies cut a deal to avoid immediate free-market competition. They froze residential customers' rates for six years.

But that move also froze out any chance of competition from other companies.

It came as no surprise that when the caps came off those frozen residential rates, electric bills soared in order to catch up to current market conditions.

O'Malley's plan, unfortunately, doesn't untangle the mess created by the 1999 deregulation law. Indeed, it could make matters worse.

Instead of improving Maryland's competitive environment for alternative power companies and other electric suppliers, O'Malley is suggesting a modified, partially re-regulated system that essentially resurrects the old utility monopolies.

Once again, Pepco could be in the power-supply business as well as the power-delivery business. Ditto for all the other familiar Maryland utilities.

"Rational re-regulation" might drive off wind-power and solar-power companies. It might discourage other power suppliers from competing with the utility monopolies. It might kill efforts by businesses to lower their electric prices through competition. This is progress?

Complex forces beyond the control of any governor made a hash of Maryland's 1999 electric deregulation law. Putting a tiny piece of Humpty-Dumpty back together again — O'Malley's response to the problem — won't suffice. Nor is it possible to return to the pre-1999 days of full utility regulation.

Giving the PSC more clout to deal with utilities isn't a bad idea. But the notion of placing this state on a path to partial electric re-regulation could bring ominous results: The return of utility monopolies; rising electric bills for consumers and businesses, and government control of electric power that slams the door on the possibility of one day creating healthy energy competition — and lower rates — in Maryland.

Barry Rascovar is a communications consultant and longtime State House columnist.