Sierra Club: Hogan Administration’s Delayed Climate Plan Needs Major Work

ANNAPOLIS -- Yesterday, after months of pressure from Sierra Club and other climate action groups, Governor Larry Hogan’s administration released their much delayed plan to reduce Maryland’s greenhouse gas emissions. State law set the deadline for the draft plan to be formalized and released in 2018. 

The plan suggests further investment in solar and regional cooperation to reduce climate pollution from motor fuels. However, the plan fails to chart a pathway off coal that supports workers, falsely labels fracked gas as “clean” and “renewable,” and sets the state up for failure in meeting internationally recognized climate goals by mid-century. 

In response, Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign representative David Smedick released the following statement: 

“While proclaiming ‘bold’ solutions, the administration’s badly delayed plan to reduce climate polluting emissions is extremely thin on details and actions. For reasons unknown, this proposal says little about how the state will move off our very worst carbon polluting power source in Maryland’s six remaining coal plants. Avoiding this obvious target for meeting the goals outlined in the governor’s very own CARES proposal, and insisting that building more highways for more vehicles will reduce carbon emissions, shows that this plan is just not very serious. It prefers modeling assumptions to concrete mechanisms for carbon reduction and deepens the state’s investment in imported fracked gas. It is many days late and dollars short.”