Friday, Feb. 22, 2008
by Sean R. Sedam | Staff Writer
ANNAPOLIS — Environmental and energy legislation is getting lawmakers’ attention during a legislative session that is struggling for an identity as it reaches its midway point today.
Both issues have urgency, with scientists making dire predictions that global warming could raise sea levels, flooding Maryland’s more than 3,000 miles of shoreline, and utility experts warning that the state could face rolling blackouts by 2011 if it does not increase its electricity generation capacity.
‘‘I don’t think you can look at them separate anymore,” said House Majority Leader Kumar P. Barve, who is sponsoring a bill to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. ‘‘We have to look at them as a combined whole.”
That includes looking at global warming and energy efficiency bills that Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) is supporting. The urgency on both fronts has led to targets.
The energy bill — one of O’Malley’s legislative priorities — calls for a 15 percent reduction of the state’s electricity consumption by 2015.
The global warming bill, sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Paul G. Pinsky and discussed this week before the Senate Education, Health and Governmental Affairs Committee, seeks to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions at least 25 percent by 2020 and 90 percent by 2050.
The state has struggled to meet similar environmental targets in the past, most notably on reducing nitrogen levels in the Chesapeake Bay. But environmental advocates say the bill’s goals are attainable.
‘‘We need a clear target on [carbon dioxide] and greenhouse gases or else we’re not going to get there,” said Pinsky (D-Dist. 22) of University Park.
Maryland joined with northeastern states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in 2006, the same year the General Assembly passed the Healthy Air Act to limit power plant emissions. Last year the state passed so-called clean cars legislation, pegging the state’s automobile fuel efficiency standards to California’s and setting up a showdown with the federal government over whether states can set their own rules.
‘‘You start to see a picture that we can start to actually get to that first set of 2020 goals,” said Cindy Schwartz, executive director of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters.
Energy efficiency is part of that picture, Schwartz said.
‘‘I think the energy efficiency stuff is one of the ways we start to get at the goals that are going to be set in the global warming solutions act,” she said.
A report on energy efficiency released last week by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, or ACEEE, found that the energy legislation proposed by O’Malley would cause small increases — about 1 percent — in electricity bills while eventually reducing demand for electricity.
‘‘A clean energy policy suite, beginning with energy efficiency, can meet the state’s growing needs for electricity, making the power system more reliable while reducing consumer bills and cutting global warming pollution,” the report said.
A reduction in demand for electricity would drive down costs of emissions credits that companies could purchase at auction, said Bill Prindle, deputy director for ACEEE. The credits would effectively charge companies for emitting a certain amount of greenhouse gases.
‘‘Essentially what’s going to happen is the allowances under the RGGI program are going to be auctioned for lower cost,” Prindle said.
‘‘While new supply-side investments may well be needed, investing on the demand side now is Maryland’s best energy, economic and environmental strategy,” the report said.
Sen. Brian E. Frosh agreed.
‘‘If we want reliable energy, we have got to reduce consumption,” said Frosh (D-Dist. 16) of Bethesda, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, which passed last year’s clean cars bill.
That approach is not universally accepted. Others are challenging the global warming legislation and the science behind it.
‘‘Maryland contributes a mere one-tenth of one percent of the world’s greenhouse gases,” Robert O. C. Worcester, president of Maryland Business for Responsive Government said in a statement on Tuesday. ‘‘Show how a 90 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions can be achieved by 2090. Show us the costs, feasibilities, and benefits.”
Worcester cited an online petition signed by more than 19,000 American scientists that reads in part: ‘‘There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”
‘‘We’re not going to conserve our way out of these problems, and although [the goals] may be laudable, we need more generating capacity and we need it now,” House Minority Leader Anthony J. O’Donnell said.
O’Malley made campaign promises to appoint a Public Service Commission that would lower electricity rates, said O’Donnell (R-Dist. 29C) of Lusby.
‘‘They seem to be doing just the opposite,” he said.
Barve (D-Dist. 17) of Gaithersburg disagreed.
‘‘The majority of our strategy is based on energy efficiency and renewable energy, two things that are not going to negatively affect consumers in any way shape or form,” he said.
Still, at a time of rising energy costs and sluggish economy, consumers see the bottom line and not the long term, said Sen. Joan Carter Conway, chairwoman of Senate, Education, Health and Environmental Matters Committee.
‘‘They can more readily relate to that upfront expense,” said Conway (D-Dist. 43) of Baltimore.
Sacrifices need to be made now so that the state can reduce demand while it constructs more transmission lines and builds its renewable energy portfolio, Sen. Robert J. Garagiola said.
Garagiola (D-Dist. 15) of Germantown has sponsored legislation to increase the use of alternative energy sources, such as solar power and biodiesel fuel.
‘‘We need to reduce our energy consumption to buy us time,” he said.
Staff Writer Alan Brody contributed to this report.
