Baltimore Gas & Electric certainly isn't likely to win any
popularity contests. It secured a rate increase from the Public
Service Commission in February — its second in the last three
years — and turned around and filed a request for another one on
Friday. And at the same time, the utility is asking the PSC for
what may be unprecedented in Maryland: a surcharge on customers'
monthly bills to pay for improvements to the electrical grid in
advance.  But as little as we may like it, the truth is that
failing to make investments in maintaining the grid and
improving its reliability is costing us dearly, too. It's just a
harder cost to figure than the one that shows up at the bottom
of our electric bills every month. How much do we lose in lost
wages and productivity — not to mention groceries — every time
the power gets knocked out by a storm for four or five days? How
often can we expect that to happen? And how well can we target
investments to make those outages rarer and shorter?  Gov.
Martin O'Malley — who,