A Public Utility Law Judge has effectively given Baltimore Gas & Electric the green light to move ahead with its hotly debated Brandon Shores Retirement Mitigation transmission project, a network of new and upgraded high‑voltage lines that would cut across Harford, Baltimore, and Anne Arundel counties. The proposed order, issued March 19, sharpens a months‑long showdown between the utility and residents who argue the overhead lines would carve through parks and private property. Neighbors who organized under the banner "No More Power Lines" say the plan would literally run through their backyards, while BGE insists the work is needed to keep the grid stable once the Brandon Shores Generating Station shuts down.
The proposed order is now posted in the Maryland Public Service Commission docket for PSC Case No. 9748, where the Public Utility Law Judge Division entry is dated March 19, 2026, alongside a thick stack of filings and motions. According to the Maryland PSC, the judge's ruling has been added to the official record. Local coverage has also highlighted that opponents have only a narrow window to fight back, with residents reported to have until April 21 to file exceptions or appeals.
BGE frames the work as a reliability fix
BGE describes the Brandon Shores Retirement Mitigation Project as a reliability insurance policy for the region, designed to connect transmission corridors to out‑of‑state power plants and replace the generation that will be lost when Brandon Shores retires. Company materials and public outreach say the project is needed to avoid reliability violations flagged by PJM and to tackle interim "Reliability Must Run" costs that kick in to keep the lights on in the meantime. State documents and company filings show the package includes roughly 37 miles of new or upgraded overhead transmission line, along with multiple substation upgrades.
According to BGE, the proposal would mostly stick to existing rights‑of‑way and utility‑owned parcels rather than opening brand‑new corridors. A BGE spokesperson told reporters the plan was "absolutely vital" to reliability across the system and argued that burying the lines would cost five to ten times more and would come with its own environmental footprint, as reported by CBS Baltimore. Review documents from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Power Plant Research Program spell out the route segments and technical details for the Graceton‑to‑Batavia and Batavia‑to‑Riverside sections of the project.
Neighbors point to parks, property rights and wildfire risk
Homeowners from Kingsville and Upper Falls through parts of eastern Baltimore County say the preferred corridor would cross environmentally sensitive stretches of land, including portions of Gunpowder Falls State Park, and pass close to existing houses. That has stirred up worries about property values, electromagnetic fields, and the risk of wildfires under high‑voltage lines. As WBAL‑TV reported, residents have aired those safety and quality‑of‑life concerns repeatedly at public hearings, sometimes turning normally quiet meeting rooms into standing‑room‑only forums.
Several landowners have focused on old paperwork. They point to easement language from 1931 that they say authorizes only a single transmission line through the corridor, not the scope of the current proposal, and they have pushed that argument in formal filings at the PSC. Local coverage and case documents show a series of petitions to intervene that raise title and trespass questions tied to those easements, according to East County Times.
Legal stakes and the path forward
The PSC docket for Case No. 9748 now runs dozens of entries deep, with notices, legal briefs, and petitions to intervene stacked up from residents, local groups, and the company. The judge's proposed order is the latest and most consequential item in that pile. Opponents have a limited window to file exceptions or appeals inside the PSC process; if the final Commission decision ultimately goes BGE's way, they could then look to the courts for further relief. The PSC framework is designed to give interested parties multiple procedural chances to challenge proposed findings before commissioners issue a final order.
Timeline, costs and ratepayer implications
Company and state materials peg the overall capital cost in the high hundreds of millions of dollars and point to an in‑service target around 2028, assuming the PSC grants the necessary certificates and construction stays on track. The Maryland DNR review notes that PJM reliability findings and an interim Reliability Must Run contract tied to Brandon Shores are already generating near‑term costs, which BGE says the transmission buildout would help eliminate once it is in place. Opponents respond that the long construction window and the permanent overhead structures would leave a different kind of legacy, one they say would burden neighborhoods and sensitive parkland for decades.
What is clear from the proposed order and the growing stack of documents on the PSC docket is that the Brandon Shores transmission plan is not quietly slipping through. It is shaping up as a high‑stakes infrastructure fight for the Baltimore region this spring, with both supporters and opponents promising to press their case hard before regulators lock in a final decision.
