Maryland Attempts to Make Utilities Meet Minority Owned Business Quotas

(MoneyWatch)  Recently we wrote about how a US Federal Court had thrown out the DoD requirement on sub-contracting with minority owned businesses as being basically Unconstitutional. Now it is reported at The Birmingham Examiner that the Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) wants to set goals for the private utilities that do business in the state to contract with minority owned firms. Most of the utilities believe the 25% goal is not realistic.
The US Supreme Court has made it clear in the past that these types of quotas are driven by the need to counter past discrimination. Maryland law may allow arbitrary goals such as these; although I am sure if the issue is pressed there will be a law suit. The state argues that they have been able to grow their percentage to as high as 18 in this area, and thus the companies should as well. The DoD requirement was 5-10% at best and 25% may be unrealistic. More to come on this in the future.