Maryland
Moore puts extra pot of cash toward green projects – Maryland Matters
By Kiersten Hacker
Gov. Wes Moore (D) announced plans Friday for spending $90 million on reducing carbon pollution in Maryland, using an unexpected pot of money to fight what he called “environmental injustice.”
The largest portion of the money, $50 million, will go toward decarbonizing community buildings like hospitals, multifamily housing and schools, under the plan Moore outlined. The state will devote $23 million to electric-vehicle charging stations in low- and middle-income neighborhoods and $17 million to building up a fleet of electric school buses for public schools.
Moore and several other state officials characterized the $90 million investment as “a downpayment” toward fulfilling the state’s ambitious climate goals — an undertaking that could cost about $10 billion in the next decade, according to estimates in a report issued by the Maryland Department of the Environment at the end of last year.
Moore emphasized the need for partnership among advocates, lawmakers and his administration, unveiling the new details along with representatives of each, crowded elbow-to-elbow in the Governor’s Reception Room at the State House.
“We’re joined today by members of every single segment of our society, who are all saying with a collective voice that the climate crisis is one of the biggest challenges that we share,” Moore said. The fight to make Maryland the “cleanest and greenest” doesn’t just take words, the governor said, “it takes work.”
The work takes funding, too, and like other issues being discussed this legislative session, future funding solutions are uncertain. Eventually, the administration’s Climate Pollution Reduction Plan will cost the public sector about $1 billion per year, according to the state’s own projections.
At the same time, state officials are obligated by the 2022 Climate Solutions Now Act to decrease greenhouse gas emissions — and in fact to reach net-zero emissions by 2045. This year, the state had an extra accumulation of money in one of its funds, according to state officials, and Moore decided to use it to advance those goals.
The money will come from Maryland’s Strategic Energy Investment Fund, which is replenished with revenue from quarterly pollution credit auctions that the state collects through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. That fund is generally used to provide clean energy grants throughout the state.
Paul Pinsky, director of the Maryland Energy Administration, which administers the fund, told Maryland Matters that the $90 million had been held as a cushion to guard against lower than expected proceeds from the carbon credit sales and the costs of administering the energy investment fund. But by allocating the money now, the Moore administration is “pushing the urgency” of beginning to provide funding to attain the state’s climate goals.
The $90 million allocation will have to be approved by the General Assembly during this year’s budget deliberations, Pinsky said — and it’s unlikely that the strategic investment fund will have anywhere near that level of money in the years ahead, he added.
Maryland Energy Administration Director Paul Pinsky, holding a baseball cap that says “100%,” signifying the state’s goal of using 100% clean energy by 2035. Photo by Bryan P. Sears.
State officials still face difficult fiscal choices in the next few years, with spending projected to outpace revenues by growing margins. Environment Secretary Serena McIlwain acknowledged that creative new funding solutions will be necessary to continue implementing the agency’s plan in the years to come.
Currently, McIlwain said, the agency is still looking for solutions and will work in partnership to find them.
“We don’t have time to play around and waste time,” she said. “We have to do what we need to do to move forward.”
Long-term plans to address climate change and make Maryland a leader in climate action will be fiscally responsible, the governor said.
“If you look at how we have managed this entire budget, we have shown that being fiscally disciplined and being fiscally responsible and also being bold, don’t have to be mutually exclusive ideas, mutually exclusive thoughts,” Moore said.
The governor suggested that future funds for the climate plan would come from the federal government and could be supplemented by philanthropic spending.
Moore’s new proposal requires that a minimum of 50% of the investments go to “historically undervalued, historically under-seen and historically underestimated” communities. The installation of electric-vehicle charging stations will start in low- and moderate-income communities, the governor said.
Those who often come last, Moore said, should come first.
“Climate justice is economic justice,” he said.
Pinsky concurred: “Just as many of the problems that cause climate change are disproportionately affecting the underserved and overburdened, those very same people need to be part of the solution,” he said.
Children must be a part of the solution, too, leaders said. Kim Coble, executive director of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters, stressed the need to take action for the future of children and their health.
She said she is a new grandmother, and she teared up at the podium as she pointed out her son in the audience.
“If we don’t take action for them,” Coble said. “What’s the point?”
Josh Kurtz of Maryland Matters contributed to this report.
One of the most unique ships featured in Sail250 Maryland and Airshow Baltimore can be found docked at the Baltimore Peninsula.
USS Marinette LCS25 is one of the most functional ships in the Navy fleet. At 370 feet long with 80 crew members, the ship has a helicopter landing pad and hangar, two rib boats in the belly of the vessel, and heavy artillery, including a cannon.
The ship has four engines, two of which are like jet engines, meaning it can sprint ahead of other vessels to intercept watercraft. It can also truck side to side and spin 360 degrees with controllable reversing and steering deflector buckets attached to the stern of the jet propulsion system. It can also traverse the littoral zones, water close to shore, and navigate waters as low as 15 feet deep.
“Where we shine is our ability to operate where other ships can’t,” said Cdr. Brian Sims, the ship’s executive officer. “For a 370-foot ship, one of the smallest in the fleet, it packs a punch. We can go 40 plus knots.”
The ship is used in counternarcotics missions primarily on the East Coast and in the Caribbean.
It is based in Jacksonville, Florida, but was built in Marinette, Wisconsin, which is where the ship gets its name. It began operating in 2023 and has yet to deploy. The ship can be out on the water for weeks or even months.
“We go out and find drug trafficking individuals and intercept, and the Coast Guard then takes over and arrests,” Sims said.
The pilot house is where the ship truly shines. An officer and junior officer monitor the radar and navigation, while another sailor sits at the helm and oversees steering the vessel and monitoring the engines.
“This is a very unique design for Navy ships,” Sims added.
The ship also hosts several heavy artillery pieces, including a cannon on the bow with different types of rounds to combat different threats. It can fire 220 rounds in a minute.
With its rich Naval history, Baltimore is playing host to some of the Navy’s finest, and the crews are equally as excited to be here in Maryland, the backbone of the Navy, celebrating 250 years of American history.
“Baltimore is a fantastic city, steeped in maritime tradition. Of course, we have Fort McHenry that we sailed past and rendered honors to when we arrived,” Sims said. “Having the ability to be in this role in this position on board this ship to celebrate the nation’s 250th, it’s an absolute honor, and one that, one that gives us all pause, and lets us reflect on where we’ve come as a nation.”
As Maryland families head into another hot summer, many are about to receive an unpleasant reminder of just how badly some state leaders failed to address Maryland’s growing energy problems this year.
Higher energy bills are not coming by accident. They are the predictable result of years of poor planning and a continued refusal by Democratic leadership in Annapolis to confront the real issue facing our state: Maryland does not produce enough electricity to meet its own growing energy needs.
Instead of seriously addressing that challenge during this year’s legislative session, Democratic leaders celebrated passage of the so-called Utility Relief Act (House Bill 1532), which offers Marylanders roughly $12 in savings per month. At a time when families are facing soaring energy costs driven by a massive shortage of reliable in-state power generation, that is not meaningful relief. It is a political talking point designed to avoid the larger conversation Maryland desperately needs to have.
Our state imports nearly half of the electricity it uses. Nearly half of the power keeping homes cool, businesses operating and communities functioning every day comes from outside our borders. Yet even as demand for electricity continues to rise, Maryland continues falling behind on building the reliable generation capacity needed to support our future.
That is not a serious long-term strategy.
Families across Maryland are already struggling with inflation, rising housing costs and economic uncertainty. Energy bills are becoming another major financial burden for working families, seniors and small businesses. But instead of focusing on increasing reliable power supply, meaning fully lowering consumer costs, and strengthening Maryland’s long-term energy security, Annapolis continues offering temporary fixes that fail to address the underlying problem.
The reality is simple: Maryland needs more power generation, and every responsible energy source should be part of the conversation. Natural gas, nuclear, renewables, battery storage, clean coal and emerging technologies all have a role to play in creating a more reliable and affordable energy future for our state.
Maryland also needs a broader conversation about the role experienced infrastructure providers and utilities can play in strengthening reliability and supporting future generation needs. These are organizations that already manage the systems Marylanders depend on every day and understand the long-term planning required to maintain dependable service.
Reliable and affordable energy is not a partisan issue. It is a basic requirement for economic growth, business investment and everyday quality of life.
As summer begins and air conditioners start running around the clock, Maryland families will once again be reminded that energy policy decisions made in Annapolis have real world consequences.
Unfortunately, they are paying for those consequences every month.
Del. Jason Buckel is the Minority Leader of the Maryland House of Delegates and represents Allegany County in the Maryland General Assembly.
MARYLAND (WBFF) — A group of Republican candidates, a voter, and an election-integrity organization are asking an Anne Arundel County Circuit Court judge to stop the state from certifying primary election results until election officials contact every voter whose original ballot was rejected and allow them to correct the problem.
The lawsuit, filed in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court against the Maryland State Board of Elections, comes a month after state election officials acknowledged that some Maryland voters were mistakenly mailed ballots for the wrong political party and sent replacement ballots to affected voters.
The ballot error affected voters who requested physical mail-in ballots for the June 23 primaries.
The Maryland State Board of Elections said its vendor, Taylor Print and Visual Impressions Inc. (TPVI), mailed some of the voters’ ballots for the wrong political party, but the administrator said the board’s vendor couldn’t identify which voters received erroneous ballots. Over 500,000 Maryland voters had requested mail-in ballots, most of them in Montgomery, Baltimore, Anne Arundel and Prince George’s counties, and Baltimore City.
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