While MCA has working hard to balance solar and farming here in Montgomery County, our Climate Legislative Liaison, board member Joyce Bailey, has been busy supporting climate bills on our behalf in Annapolis. There are several environmental bills being considered this year, with the legislature still in session so we will be submitting additional written testimony in the weeks ahead.
A brief look at what she has been up to with links to our testimony:
A brief look at what she has been up to with links to our testimony:
- SB0076 Climate Crisis and Education Act
The act would put a gradual tax on CO2 with the proceeds benefiting renewable energy generation and education. - SB414 - “Climate Solutions Now”
The act has provisions for worker justice and green job creation
We wrote to Del. Fraser-Hidalgo to advocate for keeping the bill strong.
Favorable testimony 3/21
- HB0264 “Solid Waste Management--Organics Waste Management and Waste Diversion--Food Residuals”
A bill that seeks to reduce food waste and compost food that is otherwise unusable - creating hunger solutions, reducing methane from landfills and creating waste recycling job opportunities. - Testimony for HB0332 “Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards -- Eligible Sources”
A bill that seeks to take trash inceration out of the renewable portfolio standard. Burning trash is not renewable energy and has many health impacts. - HB0295 “Water Pollution-Stormwater Management Regulations and Watershed Implementation Plans-Review and Update”
The bill will increase community resilience and mitigate urban and coastal
flooding and water pollution impacts by adapting Maryland’s stormwater design
standards to increased precipitation due to climate change and by imposing
climate-smart criteria on private-sector development to help the state meet
pollution load requirements by 2025. - SB0483 “Solid Waste Management--Organics Waste Management and Waste Diversion--Food Residuals”
The bill will serve to reduce methane and other greenhouse gasses and toxic pollutants emitted by landfills, incinerators, and agriculture; reduce run off to our waterways and the Chesapeake Bay; rebuild healthy soils; and create jobs. - Energy Supplier Reform Bill SB31/HB397
This bill is meant to bring some regulations to the entirely de-regulated third party energy supplier market. Maryland residents are being offered cheaper introductory energy rates which then increase high above the regulated utility rates. Some of these suppliers are engaging in predatory practices and targeting low income and elderly residents who in then turn to public funds to cover their energy bills. Abell Foundation report here. AARP opinion here.
- HB 768 - Community Choice Energy
Delegate Lorig Charkoudian (D-20) has introduced a bill (HB768) that would allow Community Choice Energy in Maryland, starting with a pilot program in Montgomery County. This legislation would enable municipalities to negotiate on behalf of residents and businesses for lower rates and a more rapid transition to renewable energy. - HB 991 “Natural Resources--Forest Mitigation Banks--Qualified
Preservation” Montgomery Countryside Alliance strongly opposes HB 991. The Forest Conservation Act (FCA) has significant fundamental problems and loopholes that allow nearly a dozen acres of forests to be lost every day in the state. This bill further undercuts the FCA by protecting fewer forests, and leads to faster loss of forests. Additionally, this legislation would reverse the recent opinion of the Attorney General (AG) that clarified the parameters for how counties use forest mitigation banks. In effect, this bill would save only half (or fewer) of the forests that were being preserved last year. It also undercuts one of the major benefits of the Climate Solutions Now bill which requires the planting of 5 million trees.
