The Maryland General Assembly concluded a productive 2024 legislative session on Monday. One of our top three priority bills passed, and we have reason for optimism for future progress on the other two. Many other excellent bills passed as well, and our Chapter and your support played a part. We submitted written testimony on over 120 bills and provided oral testimony and consultation on many of these.
Session Highlights
Building Electrification and Clean Energy
This year, we helped pass HB864 to update the EmPOWER program. The enacted reforms will help Marylanders lower their energy bills, reduce their exposure to harmful emissions from gas appliances, and move towards our climate goals by reframing the program goals around greenhouse gas emissions, facilitating fuel switching from gas to electric, and adding new incentives for energy efficient electric appliances. Enactment of this priority bill is a big win and reflected work with a large coalition of partners.
We also supported successful bills that will:
- Encourage solar deployment on rooftops and other preferred sites (the Brighter Tomorrow Act).
- Establish pilot projects for networked geothermal energy production (the WARMTH Act).
- Promote time of day pricing for electricity and use of electric vehicle batteries to reduce peak loads (the DRIVE Act).
Unfortunately, the General Assembly weakened climate oversight by the Public Service Commission (PSC) related to the deployment of backup generators at data centers and similar high-demand sites. Through a last-minute budget amendment, the General Assembly also is delaying the development and rollout of building energy performance standards by the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE). The General Assembly also did not address the problematic incentives for incineration in the state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS) nor did it promote building electrification through the Better Buildings Act. We hope to address all of these issues in 2025.
Transportation
Unfortunately, the clock ran out before the Transportation and Climate Alignment Act could pass the General Assembly. The bill passed the House, the Senate committees, and an initial vote on the Senate floor, but didn’t get to the final step before the session ended at midnight. This priority bill would require the State to assess the climate and vehicle traffic impacts of future highway expansion projects to determine if they are in alignment with our climate goals. The bill would also create a workgroup to determine how to offset these impacts with investments in mitigation options such as public transit, transit oriented development, bike, and pedestrian infrastructure. We made a lot of progress and look forward to the bill passing next year.
We also supported successful passage of bills and budget items that will:
- Provide funding to help address WMATA's (D.C. area Metro) operating budget gap.
- Require minimum funding levels for the state's Locally Operated Transit Systems.
- Improve bus service (Better Bus Service Act of 2024).
- Promote transit-oriented development and expand affordable housing (Housing Expansion and Affordability Act of 2024).
- Increase revenue to help address a portion of the state's $3.15 billion imbalance for transportation budget needs including public transit, active transportation, and vehicle electrification programs.
Zero Waste
Our third priority bill, the Maryland bottle bill made substantial progress this year, on which we will build in 2025. It would establish a beverage container deposit-refund program to reduce beverage container litter and plastic pollution. It would also raise Maryland’s beverage container recycling rate from 23% to 90%, remove more than 3 billion beverage containers from the environment every year, provide high-quality recycled materials for new containers, create jobs, and save costs for local governments.
This year, we worked with nearly two dozen other environmental organizations as part of a new Maryland Bottle Bill coalition. Several former opponents of the bill moved to neutral positions. We have broad support from many Delegates, Senators, and voters across the state. We aim to work with MDE over coming months to help develop the Moore Administration’s support. One argument made to postpone action on this program was that the General Assembly should await completion of the Recycling Needs Assessment that was set in motion by legislation last year. The assessment is expected in late October, and we hope the bill will proceed after that.
Following years of effort by the Zero Waste Team, two important zero waste bills are on their way to the Governor’s desk:
- A Paint Stewardship Program will be established to require paint producers to take responsibility for the collection, reuse, recycling, and disposal of leftover house paint.
- Producers and sellers of synthetic turf fields will be required to disclose typical maintenance requirements over the fields’ life cycle and the cost of removal, replacement, and disposal, and MDE will be required to conduct a study of current practices and guidelines on the sale, maintenance, reuse, and disposal of synthetic turf fields, to be delivered by July 2026.
- A bill to require installation of bottle refilling stations in new construction where drinking fountains are mandated nearly passed before time ran out in the Senate. We hope this bill will be enacted in 2025.
Going forward, we hope to advance bills to require increased use of recycled content in plastic beverage, food, and non-food containers, and producer responsibility for the recycling of mattresses and for reduction, redesign, and recycling of packaging. Martha Ainsworth, Chair of the Chapter’s Zero Waste Team, was appointed to serve as an environmental representative on the State’s Advisory Council for producer responsibility for packaging.
Natural Places
We helped lead or supported successful efforts to pass bills to:
- Better control sales of invasive plants in Maryland (the Biodiversity and Agriculture Protection Act).
- Expand pollinator habitat along the state’s roadsides and median strips.
- Strengthen oversight of stream restoration projects and direct funding more effectively to protect the health of the Chesapeake Bay and riparian areas (the Whole Watershed Act).
- Restore protections in Maryland for wetlands that were recently weakened at the Federal level by the U.S. Supreme Court (the Clean Water Justice Act).
- Alleviate park overcrowding by expanding the time horizon and types of public lands the Department of Natural Resources can expend funds for and promote outdoor environmental education in the state.
- Control spreading of food processing sludge on Maryland fields.
- Improve control of PFAS pollution from industrial sources.
Unfortunately, our efforts to strengthen funding for wildlife crossings under or over highways and to better control outdoor light pollution were not successful. However, in both cases we plan to work with Maryland’s Department of Transportation (MDOT) and other relevant state agencies to make progress before the next legislative session.
Elections and Cross-Cutting
The Chapter testified in support of several bills to promote participation and access to voting. The most important bill we supported would require Delegates and Senators appointed to vacant seats that arise early in the legislators' four-year terms to stand for election at a reasonable point. Unfortunately, the General Assembly did not pass this or any other bills to advance participation and access to voting this year.
Finally, on the last day of the session, the General Assembly passed a bill restricting the use of products that contain PFAS or lead as playground surfacing material.
Get Involved!
Join us on May 1st from 6:30- 8PM for a virtual recap and debrief on the 2024 Legislative Session! Hear from team leads on what comes next and learn how you can get involved. Register here.
RSVP here for our legislative victory party on Sunday, June 2nd from 2-4 PM in Annapolis!
Our work on policy initiatives for the 2025 session will begin soon. While we had many successes, there are also important areas for making future progress. To find out how to get involved, view the list of our Chapter committees and issue teams, find one that interests you, and reach out to the contact.
Finally, a big thanks to all of you – legislators, issue teams, Lobby Night attendees, email and letter-writers, rally goers, and financial donors – for your support of the Maryland Sierra Club and the environment.