2025 Legislative Session — Bills that Passed:

•  Next Generation Energy Act (SB937/HB1035) with both good and bad provisions. It still has fast track gas and nuclear, but better provisions for the CPCN review. It also included many other good bills we supported.

• Ratepayer Protection Act (HB419/SB998) to reform the STRIDE law and address the impacts of multi-year rate plans on escalating utility costs.
• Abundant Affordable Clean Energy Act (SB316/HB398) battery storage provisions to support procurement of 1,600 MW of transmission-level battery storage and 150MW of distribution level storage.
• Ratepayer Freedom Act (HB960) to disallow trade associations dues and corporate jets from rates.
• Reclaim Renewables Act (SB10/HB220) to remove trash incineration from the RPS.
• Data Centers Rate Schedule and Requirements (HB900) bill to require utilities to set unique rates for new large load customers like data centers and prohibit co-location with an electric generator.
• Housing and Community Development – Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reductions – Issuance of Loans and Achievement of Targets (SB247/HB155), to allow the Department of Housing and Community Development to issue loans in addition to grants for low-income energy efficiency improvements.
•  Renewable Energy Certainty Act (HB1036/SB0931) – The bill is a compromise between the urgency of the full deployment of clean energy and the importance of protecting farmland in the state. The bill standardizes siting requirements for large scale solar and battery storage projects across the state, requires rooftop solar companies to follow best practices to protect customers from bad actors, and requires the state to identify state-owned land suitable for solar energy development. The bill codifies language that keeps ground mounted solar development to 5% of priority preservation areas and allows counties to create more strict regulations for large solar after that threshold is met. The bill also incorporates Solar Energy- Distributed Generation Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity, Ground-Mounted Solar, and Small Solar Siting Workgroup (HB827) which fast-tracks a DGCPCN process for solar projects from 2MW to 5MW.
• Energy Resource Adequacy and Planning Act (HB1037/SB0909) – The bill creates the Strategic Energy Planning Office to ensure legislators have non-partisan, state-led information and planning resources to consider when making critical energy decisions. 
• RENEW Act Study Bill (HB0128/SB0149) – This is the first step of ‘Making Polluters Pay’ by requiring the state Comptroller’s Office to lead a study to quantify the cost-impacts of climate change in the state. Maryland will be the third state, after Vermont and New York, to pass legislation supporting the climate superfund principle. The report is due in 2026 and we can push legislators to enact a bill to levy fees on the biggest polluters.
• Data Center Impact Analysis and Report (HB270/SB116) – The bill requires the MDE and the Univ. of MD School of Business, in coordination with the Department of Legislative Services (DLS), to conduct an analysis of the likely environmental and economic impacts of data center development in the State. DLS must synthesize the respective assessments completed by MDE and UMD Maryland into a final report and submit it to the Governor and General Assembly by September 1, 2026.
• Utility Transparency and Accountability Act (HB121/SB037) – The bill requires each electric company, other than a municipal electric utility, to submit a report to the PSC by February 1 each year containing information related to recent votes cast at a meeting of PJM. The report must include (1) all recorded votes cast by the electric company, regardless of whether the vote is otherwise disclosed and (2) all votes cast by a State affiliate of the electric company if the electric company itself does not vote on the matter.
• BEPS Alterations (HB049/SB256) – The Maryland Department of the Environment introduced a bill to make tweaks to the BEPS program and help them better implement it. The final bill weakens the program slightly, but leaves the vast majority of BEPS regulations in place. 
• Water Bottle Filling Stations  (HB277/SB096) – The bill requires, beginning Oct. 1, 2025, that at least one “water bottle filling station” or a combined water bottle filling station and drinking fountain must (1) be installed in all new construction where a drinking fountain is required under the current version of the International Plumbing Code (IPC) adopted by the State or State or local law or regulation; (2) be installed in any building undergoing a renovation if the installation is required under the current version of IPC; and (3) replace a drinking fountain in a building undergoing a renovation if a drinking fountain is replaced. The bill takes effect July 1, 2025.

2025 Legislative Session — Bills That Didn’t Pass:

• Fortunately, HB505 Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard – Renaming and Alterations (formerly Gov. Moore’s ENERGIZE Act) did not pass. The bill would have renamed the “renewable energy portfolio standard” to the “clean energy portfolio standard;” add a nuclear energy generating station, including SMR connected with the electric distribution grid serving the state as clean energy to be counted; and alter the minimum required percentage of energy that must be derived from clean energy sources.