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