2022 Legislative Session Outlook and Priorities

The Maryland Chapter of the Sierra Club, representing over 70,000 members and supporters in Maryland, is looking forward to working with partner groups and legislators to advance important measures to protect our environment and public health, and to promote social equity.

We believe this session offers especially valuable opportunities for progress. We can make major advances in promoting environmental justice, combating climate change, supporting protected lands and urban parks, reducing accumulations of polluting waste, and protecting water quality. In addition to being strong on their intrinsic merits, we believe the bills we are recommending here have broad support across Maryland. 

This session the Maryland Sierra Club’s top campaign priorities are:

• The Environmental Human Rights Amendment. Maryland has the opportunity to enact a constitutional protection for a healthful and sustainable environment for its residents and to make the State and local governments trustees of Maryland’s shared natural resources. In enacting this Environmental Human Rights Amendment (EHRA), Maryland would join other states—including Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Montana, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island—that provide a similar level of environmental protection. New York voters approved its version of the amendment in November 2021, with nearly 69 percent voting in favor. The Amendment has support in Maryland from a wide set of racial and social equity, environmental, public health, and faith-based organizations, including the NAACP, League of Women Voters, League of Conservation Voters, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Maryland Public Health Association, Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church, and Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, to name just a few.

• Climate Change. A bold climate package is emerging in both the Senate and House. It would put the state on a path for a 60 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2045, promote electrification of buildings (building emission performance standards), encourage sales of zero emission trucks (advanced clean truck rule) and adoption of electric school buses, prepare our electric grid for greater use of renewable sources, accelerate movement of the state’s higher education system to carbon neutrality, and promote equity in allocation of climate funding. In addition to the Sierra Club, more than twenty other environmental, community, and social equity organizations support this package.

• Lands and parks. The Senate and House are developing legislation (sponsored by Del. Eric Luedtke and Sen. Sarah Elfreth), which we expect will be titled the Maryland the Beautiful Act, that would set a goal of protecting 30 percent of Maryland’s lands by 2030 and 40 percent by 2040. The legislation would also strengthen support and funding for private land trusts that seek to make the parks more accessible and inclusive, and consider the location of parks, provide green space in underserved and urban areas, and provide funding for stewardship of private forestland, where the majority of Maryland forests are located. Related legislation (the Great Maryland Outdoors Act, HB 727 / SB 541) would increase funding for the state park system to expand access for everyone, including children, seniors, and people with disabilities, target transportation investments to avoid capacity shutdowns, reduce the maintenance backlog and hire more park employees, and address related recommendations of the recent Report of the State Park Investment Commission.

We will also be testifying in support of many other bills. These include: 

• the Maryland Paint Stewardship bill (HB 18/SB 143), which would increase paint reuse and recycling, and offer savings to local governments;
• legislation to require manufacturers and owners of synthetic turf fields to report the chain of custody from installation to disposal of the fields’ turf and infill (HB 131/SB to be filed), amounting to hundreds of tons of difficult-to-manage and often toxic waste per field when they are periodically replaced;
• legislation that would reduce the spread of invasive plant species (HB 15/SB 7);
• legislation that would reduce the use of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), known as “forever chemicals” that bioaccumulate and can create health risks; and
• legislation to be offered by the Attorney General to improve the environmental enforcement tools available to the State.

We look forward to meeting with legislators in the coming weeks and during the Chapter’s Lobby Night (Monday, February 7th) to discuss these campaign bills, as well as the other important environmental protection and justice bills that will be offered this session. Follow along and take action by visiting our Legislation page.