This legislative session has seen huge wins, firm defeats, and promises of good bills in the works. From securing a path to offshore wind to addressing pollution in overburdened communities, we worked to fight for strong climate action for Delaware. Whether you showed up to testify, contacted legislators, attended meetings, or volunteered with us to spread the word, you played a strong role in the victories listed below. Although the legislative session is over, the work continues as we strive to implement what was passed and push for further necessary changes.
Bill Number and Name: HS2 for HB13 Home EV Charging Rebate
Bill Description: Creates a program to help offset the cost of purchasing and installing electric vehicle charging equipment at home, with at least a fourth of the program's awards going to low-income applicants.
Status of Bill: Waiting on Governor's Signature
Strategy Deployed: The Delaware Chapter worked directly with the bill sponsor, the Governor’s Office, DNREC, and the Sustainable Energy Utility (Energize Delaware) to update the bill's language to ensure that low-income families could access this program in a meaningful way. We ensured the program was flexible enough to adapt to changing market conditions and made it clear that the carve-out for low-income families would not impede other applicants. We greatly appreciate everyone who helped in these conversations. We testified in each committee hearing on the bill and spoke with legislators throughout the session to ensure they understood the program's benefits and help answer concerns around funding. Unfortunately, the bill still largely passed along party lines.
Bill Number and Name: SB265 - OSW Bill - The Delaware Energy Solutions Act
Bill Description: This bill outlines the procurement process and safeguards for an offshore wind energy project. It establishes a benchmark price that all projects must fall within to move forward in the bidding process and requires at least two off-takers or buyers of the energy. This legislation also outlines how large, utility-scale renewable energy projects can utilize the right of way (land surrounding and under our roadways, parks, certain trails, and rail systems) to connect to the regional grid.
Status of Bill: Waiting on Governor's Signature
Strategy Deployed: The Sierra Club Delaware Chapter, along with our partners at POWER Delaware, Delaware Nature Society, The Nature Conservancy of Delaware, League of Women Voters, League of Conservation Voters, Mid Atlantic Renewable Energy Coalition, and many others, pushed hard over the last few years to secure clean offshore wind energy for our state. This year, we sent over 400 emails and over 1,000 phone calls to legislators, mailed over 5,000 postcards to constituents, and reached a massive audience of over 790,000 people with our online and digital ads in favor of offshore wind. We also focused our annual lobby day on offshore wind, meeting with over a dozen legislators with over 20 volunteers in attendance. Ultimately, the bill passed along party lines in both chambers and now heads to the Governor for his signature. We expect a signing ceremony in August!
Bill Number and Name: Senate Joint Resolution 5 - Anti-Wind Resolution
Bill Description: This resolution aimed to stop the Maryland US Wind project from being able to onshore in Delaware by requiring restrictive and duplicative securities from the company. The bill exceeded state jurisdiction boundaries and was not allowed to move forward as a result.
Status of Bill: Defeated in Committee
Strategy Deployed: The Delaware Chapter focused on educating legislators about the state's limitations regarding another state’s offshore wind project. We testified to that effect in committee and were able to educate legislators about the misinformation spread by the sponsor.
Bill Number and Name: HB402: Solar Ready Schools & State Buildings
Bill Description: Requires new schools and state buildings over 50,000 square feet to meet certain requirements to ensure that the building's roof can support solar energy infrastructure.
Status of Bill: Waiting on Governor's Signature
Strategy Deployed: This bill was filed late in the session, and the Chapter worked with the sponsors to secure passage by talking with key legislators and testifying in committee. The bill passed unanimously in the Senate but along party lines in the House.
Bill Number and Name: SB237 Comp Plan Bill - The Climate Forward Planning Act
Bill Description: Requires county and qualifying municipality comprehensive plans to increase community resiliency and address and mitigate the impacts of climate change.
Status of Bill: Waiting on Governor's Signature
Strategy Deployed: The Delaware Chapter was thrilled to support this bill as so many of our issues come down to land use decisions made years in advance during Comprehensive Planning. We worked with the Nature Conservancy to provide input on how the bill could help ensure counties aligned with the Climate Action Plan when doing comprehensive planning. This legislation will help build resilient and sustainable communities in Delaware moving forward. We look forward to working with them again to update the regulations to make this the strongest cycle of comprehensive planning in state history.
Bill Number and Name: SB289 The Energy and Stretch Code Bill
Bill Description: Clarifies language in the Delaware Code to require counties and municipalities to meet at least the energy codes adopted by the Delaware Energy Office. It also encourages the Energy Efficiency Advisory Council and Sustainable Energy Utility (Energize Delaware) to design programs to promote energy efficiency programs to alleviate any upfront costs resulting from adopting new energy codes.
Status of Bill: Waiting on Governor's Signature
Strategy Deployed: This was a priority bill for the Delaware Chapter as we know that counties in Delaware are behind in building efficient, electrified homes compared to the rest of our region. This bill requires counties to adopt the base energy code adopted by the state no later than 12 months after the state formally adopts any code update. Currently, some counties are over a decade behind on that process. The bill also clarifies that counties can adopt stretch codes through their normal processes unless they are adopting an entirely different energy code, in which case the energy office has to be consulted. This is vital as the state has had a net zero energy-ready homes mandate since 2009, yet no county has taken action to make that a reality due to the previous language in the state law. We will now work with New Castle County and other counties to start the process of requiring all new residential construction to be net zero energy-ready.
Bill Number and Name: Anti-ACC2 Bills (SB96, HB123, SB271, SB278, and SS1 and 2 for 278)
Bill Description: All these bills, except SS2 for SB278, aimed at attacking the Advanced Clean Cars Program or the EV marketplace at large.
Status of Bill: The bad bills are now considered failed, and the bill we worked on is awaiting the Governor’s signature.
Strategy Deployed:The Delaware Chapter was key in ensuring the adoption of the Advanced Clean Cars 2 program in Delaware, making us the first state to go from no ZEV programs straight to ACC2. However, before we secured the regulatory adoption of that program, Republican legislators filed two bills to prevent DNREC from adopting the program—SB96 and HB123. The latter bill passed by one vote in the House due to last-minute negotiations in 2023 around the Bond and Grant-in-Aid (GIA) bills. The bill then languished in the Senate. We worked with the chair of the Senate Environment Committee to ensure the bill was not brought up for a hearing, and if the sponsor in the Senate requested a hearing, everyone had enough time to prepare. Ultimately, it was not until the last week of the session that the bills came up in negotiations around the Bond and GIA bills. This year, we were prepared and immediately worked with the Senate Democrats to ensure the bill was not on the table for these negotiations. Ultimately, both SB96 and HB123 failed to pass and are now considered dead.
Senate Bill 271 was filed as a technical bill to update the Franchise Act, but the impact would have been a full-scale roll back of the Clean Cars program and prevention of any future regulation around tailpipe pollution. The bill would have allowed Dealership Associations in Delaware to sue the state and intervene in any legal, administrative, or regulatory process, putting up a unilateral blockade on any environmental regulations and allowing them to join an active lawsuit against the state aimed at rolling back the program. We worked with partners in the EV industry and legacy automotive manufacturers, the Governor’s office, and our partners at The Nature Conservancy and Delaware Nature Society to push back on this bill and secured key amendments to prevent the bill from impacting the Advanced Clean Cars program. Senate Substitute 2 for Senate Bill 278 ultimately passed with the language we wrote for the bill sponsor and Governor’s office, effectively removing all provisions that could hurt the EV industry or allow the Associations in Delaware to engage with the state on legal, administrative, or regulatory processes outside of the legally required opportunities open to the general public.
Bill Number and Name: HB9 Electrifying the State Fleet
Bill Description: Requires all passenger and light-duty vehicles owned and operated by the state to be zero-emission by 2040.
Status of Bill: Waiting on Governor's Signature
Strategy Deployed: The Delaware Chapter has been working on this bill since early 2023 when it was first filed. We had the votes to pass it last year, but the budget did not have the necessary funds to pay for the full fleet transition (a requirement under current fiscal policy). This year, we secured the funding to pass the bill. The Chapter testified in committees and worked with the sponsors to secure passage.
Bill Number and Name: SB290 The Wetlands Bill
Bill Description: This bill would have established a state non-tidal wetlands program to cover gaps created by changes in federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act.
Status of Bill: Tabled in Senate Environment Committee
Strategy Deployed: Unfortunately, we were unable to secure the funding needed to develop the state wetlands program under DNREC. On this issue, we were a partner with the Nature Conservancy of Delaware, who was leading the effort, and the Center for Inland Bays, and we will all continue to work with DNREC and stakeholders to bring this back next year.
Bill Number and Name: Low Carbon Fuels Legislation
Bill Description: Would have established the right of fracked gas companies, like Chesapeake Utility (the bill’s primary author), to charge customers for the costs related to producing, transporting, and delivering biogas, carbon, and hydrogen.
Status of Bill: Bill was prevented from being filed
Strategy Deployed:The projects that produce these gases at scale can cost tens of millions of dollars each, and the gas itself is often 4-10 times more expensive than fracked gas. Additionally, all of these gases are greenhouse gases and serve as false solutions. The Sierra Club Delaware Chapter has been part of Senator Hansen’s Energy Stakeholders Group for the past several years. This legislation was proposed in this group, and we worked in a subcommittee with other advocates and representatives from the fossil fuel industries in Delaware. We educated Senator Hansen and other legislators on the dangers and costs of this proposed bill and worked to ensure the legislation did not move forward this year. We know the fight is not over and are gearing up for a rematch in 2025.
Bill Number and Name: HB248 DNREC Community Outreach Bill
Bill Description: New or substantially modified permits (Clean Air permit, Coastal Zone Act permit, Solid waste permit, National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit, and Hazardous waste permit) will go through an enhanced community outreach process undergone by the facility.
Status of Bill: Reported out of House Natural Resources committee, amendment of substitute on the table
Strategy Deployed: This bill originated from the original cumulative impact bill, so we, along with the Delaware Environmental Accountability Coalition, have taken a neutral stance and focused our efforts on HB422, the People’s Anti-Pollution Bill.
Bill Number and Name: HB422 The People’s Anti-Pollution Bill
Bill Description: Requires facilities operating within overburdened communities, identified using linguistic isolation, race, and income data, to submit an environmental justice impact report detailing any current and potential impacts on the community. This report will be considered by the Environmental Justice Board established by the bill, and the Board will give a recommendation decision on the permit. DNREC will consider this recommendation in their decision to approve, deny, or apply conditions to the permit considering factors such as existing pollution, type of permit, or other factors identified.
Status of Bill: Tabled
Strategy Deployed: The Delaware Chapter has been part of the Delaware Environmental Accountability Coalition (DEAC) since 2021, when it was formed. As a group, we worked this year to ensure the bill covers communities that have historically been denied protection under our current permitting process. We conducted extensive community outreach, presenting the bill at several community meetings to get buy-in from communities along the Rt. 9 corridor and in Sussex County. DEAC worked diligently with House attorneys and the bill sponsor, Rep. Kendra Johnson (D-Bear), to introduce the bill and schedule a hearing. We created a phone script and letter campaign for advocates and constituents to contact their legislators and distributed them on social media and community newsletters; held a lobby day to bring people to Dover to meet with legislators; and nearly had the hearing set for early June. Unfortunately, sponsors and House leadership were pressured by industry and special interests in Delaware not to move the bill forward this year. We are committed to doing additional outreach this year, including to those opposed to the legislation, and ensuring the intention and need for this legislation is clear.