Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Renewable Energy and the 2012 Maryland General Assembly

The Maryland General Assembly will be in session from January 11 to April 9. Now is the time to do a little studying and understand what the energy issues are and how our legislators will act upon them. One good way to do that is to have a look at the Office of Legislative Services’ Issue Papers document for the 2012 session. This document, over 200 pages long, contains analyses of a myriad of issues; those of interest renewable energy advocates include: Offshore Wind; and Energy and the Environment. The document is online at this address: http://dls.state.md.us/data/tabs/wha/Issue-Papers---2012-Legislative-Session-for-web.pdf.  

The issue paper on Offshore Wind is detailed and even includes information about offshore wind generation in other countries and states, with a detailed discussion of New Jersey’s Offshore Wind Renewable Energy Credit (OREC) plan.

There are many public sources of information on this topic including Wind Works for Maryland at http://www.marylandoffshorewind.org/, the Maryland League of Conservation Voters at http://www.marylandconservation.org/issues/offshorewindpowergoodjobscleanenergy and the Chesapeake Climate Action Network at http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org/campaigns/maryland/maryland-offshore-wind. The last link includes an additional list of information resources.

The issue paper on renewable energy discusses:

• Efforts to reach the renewable energy and energy efficiency goals under the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (RPS) and the EmPower Maryland Program.

• Maryland Energy Administration’s (MEA) clean energy grant and loan programs, which have experienced a reduction in funding

• Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)

• Marcellus Shale Safe Drilling Initiative, established by executive order in June 2011

Analysts say legislation addressing long-term contracts for SRECs and sustainable energy utilities considered last session may be reintroduced.

So stay alert and informed. It’s bound to be an interesting ride.

by Elvia Thompson

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