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ANNAPOLIS — The chairman of the House Economic Matters Committee said this week that he does not back a late-session push by Gov. Martin O'Malley to reregulate Maryland's utilities.

"I just can't support it at this point in time," Del. Dereck E. Davis (D-Dist. 25) of Upper Marlboro said Wednesday.

O'Malley proposed the reregulation March 2, giving lawmakers about six weeks to pass a bill on an issue that has divided the legislature since it voted to deregulate utilities in 1999.

"It just seems to me, if this is the right way to go, someone would've come in, be it the administration or the department or a delegate, and filed [the bill] Jan. 1," said Davis, who pledged to be "very cautious" in taking up the O'Malley administration bill.

The bill would give the Public Service Commission the power to decide when new energy supplies are needed and to regulate plants built after July 1.

The Senate Finance Committee has been considering O'Malley's proposal in the form of amendments to a bill introduced by Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Thomas McLain Middleton.

Middleton (D-Dist. 28) of Waldorf is confident that the committee can produce a strong bill.

"I think we've just about covered every aspect of it," he said Wednesday. "We're going to give it enough time. As long as we're going and getting into new areas and new information, I'm going to let the review continue."

The committee's almost-daily meetings have led to a thorough vetting of the bill, said Del. Jeff Waldstreicher, who is sponsoring the cross-file of Middleton's bill.

"By the time it comes out of the Senate and those amendments are added on to my bill, the House bill will also be ready for prime time," said Waldstreicher (D-Dist. 18) of Kensington, whose bill will be heard by the House Economic Matters Committee on Thursday.

O'Malley's amendments are designed to be "prospective," Waldstreicher said.

Other bills introduced this session propose the repurchasing of old power generators.

The economic recession is compounding the pain of rising rates, especially for ratepayers in places like Baltimore.

"I just don't want to make it worse," said Davis, adding that he worries that, in its zeal to reregulate, the legislature could act hastily.

Advocates and critics of the plan both say that passing the bill would not affect rates in the near term.

Reregulation is not the "silver bullet" customers are hoping to see in reduced rates, Davis said. It might be years until a new power plant is built and could be decades before the state is fully reregulated, he said.

"I don't want to mislead folks into thinking we passed this bill and within three to five years happy days are here again," he said.

House Minority Leader Anthony J. O'Donnell shares Davis' concerns.

"What we should not do is rush into these last three weeks of session with a bill that hasn't been fully vetted yet and come out with a policy that makes it even worse," said O'Donnell (R-Dist. 29C) of Lusby.

"Because the bill is prospective it will take a while for people to see prices come down if this bill passes," Waldstreicher said. "But they will come down. That's the whole point of reregulation."

One of the amendments being considered by the Finance Committee would exempt the commercial and industrial markets from regulation.

Sen. Robert J. Garagiola said he worries about "unintended consequences" of the bill.

"What we risk with these bills here in Maryland is ratepayers paying for power plants and new generators," said Garagiola (D-Dist. 15) of Germantown.

Commercial customers are benefiting from deregulation, with more than 70 percent of all commercial customers buying electricity in a competitive environment, O'Donnell said.

There is little market competition for residential customers at this point, something that O'Donnell attributes to rates being depressed for so long that no one was able to compete.

While the bill is aimed at relief for residential ratepayers, "To the extent that large, industrial or commercial users have benefited from this in the last 10 years, we don't want to take that benefit away from them," Waldstreicher said.

But if lawmakers are to approve the amendment and allow the PSC to regulate new capacity, it will be left to residential customers to pay for the construction of new plants, O'Donnell said.

The legislature has three options, Waldstreicher said.

"We can do nothing, and prices will remain sky-high," he said. "We can pass a full, retroactive reregulation, which is too complicated and too expensive to do in this environment, or we can do the right thing, which is a rational, affordable, prospective regulation that is fair to industry and brings down prices for residential consumers. It seems like an easy choice to me."