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Two key committees in the House of Delegates voted back to back on Friday to approve an amended version of a sweeping climate bill that would accelerate the statewide goal to achieve carbon neutral emissions by 2045.
The Environment and Transportation Committee and the Economic Matters Committee approved eleven amendments to the聽, which is slated to be debated on the House floor on Monday.
The biggest changes include delaying an interim greenhouse gas reduction goal by a year, requiring newly constructed buildings to be prepared to switch to electric power and removing all provisions relating to net-zero school buildings.
鈥淭his isn鈥檛 just about global climate change in my opinion, this is also about public health and safety,鈥� Del. Kumar Barve (D-Montgomery) told the committee on Friday. He said that his committee has been talking 鈥渧ery extensively for nearly seven months鈥� with Sen. Paul Pinsky (D-Prince George鈥檚), the lead sponsor on Climate Solutions Now Act.
This marked a shift from the 2021 version of the climate legislation that聽聽due to irreconcilable differences between the two chambers.
Both House committees approved an amendment that extended the date by which an interim greenhouse gas reduction goal 鈥� to reduce emissions to 60% of 2006 levels 鈥� must be met, from 2030 to 2031. The House鈥檚聽聽had initially proposed to reduce emissions by 2032, but delegates compromised with Senate leaders to delay the target date by one year instead of two years.
Amid intense opposition from utility companies and commercial property owners earlier this legislative session, the Senate removed a provision that would have banned all newly constructed buildings from using fossil fuels to provide space and water heating by 2024. But the House committees strengthened this part of the bill by approving an amendment to require all newly constructed buildings to be 鈥渆lectric ready鈥� starting in January 2023.
In other words, new buildings must have enough electrical capacity and infrastructure to replace fossil fuel appliances and switch to an all-electric building standard in the future relatively easily.
However, some delegates expressed concern for building owners who have been in the planning stages for a long time and may have to scrap plans to ensure a project is 鈥渆lectric ready.鈥�
The House committees also changed the bill so that fewer buildings would have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. More specifically, the measure now requires commercial buildings or multifamily residential buildings that are 35,000 square feet or larger to reduce emissions by 20% below 2025 levels by 2035 and to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040. The House also exempted 鈥渕anufacturing buildings鈥� from the proposed building emissions standards.
The Senate had proposed requiring buildings 25,000 square feet or larger to reduce emissions by 30% below 2025 levels by 2035, while large buildings owned by the state would have had to reduce emissions by 50% below 2025 levels by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2035. The House committees removed the different requirements for large buildings owned by the state.
The House committees also cut all provisions requiring local school districts to build net-zero schools. The Senate鈥檚 version of the bill would have established a grant fund of up to $3 million from fiscal year 2024 through 2032 and required at least one school building built in each local school system to have carbon free emissions, if funding is available.
鈥淭hat doesn鈥檛 mean we鈥檙e going to stop working on it in future years,鈥� Barve said.
Del. Mary Lehman (D-Anne Arundel) said that the state would be 鈥渕issing an opportunity鈥� if it did not require new school buildings to achieve net-zero emissions within the near future. 鈥淭here are thousands of school buildings across the state, and we鈥檒l continue to build those of course, so we can鈥檛 leave those out,鈥� she said.
Although striking new net-zero school buildings from the bill would probably not have immediate greenhouse gas impacts, it would have been a good signal 鈥渢o have our schools and public buildings lead the way and have our children be in the best, environmentally sound cutting edge environment,鈥� said Josh Tulkin, the executive director of the Maryland Sierra Club.
In place of an all-electric new building code, the Senate proposed a study completed by the Public Service Commission to evaluate the impact of electrifying more buildings.
As a result of requests from environmental advocates, the House committees added more parameters to the study, including a provision that would require the commission to consider the impacts of energy efficiency. The House also removed a provision requiring gas companies to determine investments the state needs to make to take on an additional load of electrification from buildings and retiring gas facilities, which advocates worried would be biased in favor of the utility companies.
鈥淭he study [by the Public Service Commission] plus the intent language in the study, plus the building energy performance standards鈥re all really, really strong signals that Maryland wants to be a leader in moving off of gas,鈥� Tulkin said. 鈥淭he writing is very very clearly on the wall,鈥� and it would be surprising if building developers were not anticipating an all-electric building standard in the future, he continued.
The amended bill also now explicitly addresses the potential role of nuclear power in the clean energy transition by adding three representatives of the nuclear energy industry to a working group that would study ways for the state to improve its electricity grid and the viability of nuclear generating facilities as a part of the clean energy transition.
Representatives of the nuclear industry had been urging lawmakers to recognize the potential role of carbon-free nuclear energy in meeting the state鈥檚 ambitious climate goals.
Del. Gerald Clark (R-Calvert) decided to vote in favor of the bill because he had promised to do so if nuclear energy was acknowledged in the bill. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 guarantee that I will vote yes for it on the floor,鈥� Clark said.
Del. Melissa Wells (D-Baltimore City) said she was 鈥渞eluctantly鈥� voting in favor of the bill because she felt it did not do enough to ensure strong labor standards during the energy transition.
鈥淢y challenge with this is that we often put [labor standards] on the back burner,鈥� Wells said. 鈥淎 lot of workers and my constituents really want to see us move something that is meaningful, not only in making their communities cleaner and more beautiful but also to provide jobs that will sustain them.鈥�
The bill would establish a 鈥淛ust Transition鈥� working group that would study workforce development and training opportunities related to energy efficiency and clean energy technology with a focus on dislocated workers in fossil fuel industries.
After some committee members raised concerns about how the bill鈥檚 proposed building standards would affect specific industries, Del. C.T. Wilson (D-Charles), the chair of the Economic Matters Committee, said that there will be plenty of opportunities in the future to make changes to the state climate policies.
鈥淏etween now and 2040, we will have a multitude of sessions to come back and continue to address this. This is merely getting the ball rolling and pointing the direction in which we are rolling 鈥� which is to try to be as electrified as possible and reduce our greenhouse gasses,鈥� Wilson said.
