Environmental leaders, representing the Maryland Commission on Climate Change, are seeking to implement studies on how to fund climate mandates in Maryland. The projected cost for the State to meet the government’s ambitious climate mandates is approximately $10 billion. The commission adopted amendments to their initial recommendation, which call for studies on exactly how the proposals for generating revenue could be implemented.
With the state of Maryland approaching the start of the General Assembly Session in January 2025, and a looming budget crisis on the horizon, legislators are seeking out ways to grow the state’s economy without increasing taxes for Marylanders. As the commission began to prepare their year-end report, there were three stand out recommendations from an internal workgroup geared at generating revenue for the state’s climate plan. Of those recommendations “One would have created a cap-and-invest program to make the transportation and building sectors pay for carbon emissions; another would have established a fossil fuel transportation fee and mitigation fund, aimed mostly at freight railroads that move coal through the state; and the third would have assessed huge fines on 40 large fossil fuel companies to compensate the state for historic climate emissions and associated environmental damage.” These three measures were previously introduced as bills during the last legislative session, but were unable to move forward.
Maryland Environment Secretary Serena McIlwain testifying on Capitol Hill earlier this year. Maryland Department of the Environment photo.
California, New York, and Washington state have aimed to make carbon emitters pay for their greenhouse gas emissions by auctioning off pollution credits through a cap-and-invest program. This cap-and-invest program is similar to the multi-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which Maryland is a part of. However, instead of immediately mirroring the other state’s cap-and-invest program, last Thursday climate commissioners unanimously accepted an amendment proposed by Maryland Environment Secretary Serena McIlwain. Secretary McIlwain’s amendment presses the legislature to authorize a study of how a cap-and-invest program could be implemented in Maryland. This study would also tackle the challenges of how much revenue the program may generate and the impact on Maryland consumers.
Kim Coble, executive director of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters and a co-chair of the climate commission, said “these amendments do reflect a compromise,” and noted that they would encourage policymakers to “design and move to implement an equitable strategy” in which the state could sell carbon credits across sectors of our state economy. Additionally, the commission voted 21-2 to amend the initial proposal that would have required the biggest fossil fuel companies pay for their environmental degradation. Instead of imposing fines, the commission adopted a recommendation to work to identify how much climate change is costing and assessing how much each company should compensate the state.
State panel votes to study, rather than recommend, ways to pay for climate plan – Maryland Matters
Maryland Commission on Climate Change Annual Report 2023
