Maryland's global warming action plan

Commission investigates steps on climate change

The Maryland Climate Change Commission has met several times in recent months to decide on actions to address global warming in the state—an important step to passing comprehensive global warming legislation. During this year’s legislative session, Environment Maryland and our allies introduced the Global Warming Solutions Act. The bill would commit the state to science-based reductions in global warming pollution.

Scientists tell us we need to reduce emissions at least 20 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050 to avoid the worst impacts of global warming. This bill would create a binding commitment to those levels of reductions at the same time that the state rolls out the first measures to cut pollution.

The bill received serious consideration and is on course to be a major multi-year effort that is a priority for a range of policy advocates, but it did not come to a vote this year. It did, however, receive a potential boost soon after the legislative session when Gov. O’Malley signed an executive order on April 20 creating the Climate Change Commission.

The commission is charged with creating a roadmap for Maryland’s commitments and actions on global warming. Its first report is due in November. Environment Maryland State Director Brad Heavner was appointed to the commission workgroup that will create a detailed plan to reduce global warming pollution.

As the commission was getting underway, Environment Maryland released a report on June 6 demonstrating that science-based reductions are entirely feasible. “A Blueprint for Action: Policy Options to Reduce Maryland’s Contribution to Global Warming” describes the benefits of policies that address global warming. Four policies the state has already taken and nine new policies would reduce global warming pollution in Maryland by 23 percent by 2020.

This issue has been the top priority for Environment Maryland this summer. We distributed literature at 50,000 homes and got people throughout the state involved in the effort.

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The California Solar Initiative

A giant step towards a million solar roofs

Headline style H1. Subhead style H3. Body style paragraph. Photo size: 350 x 250. If the nation is, as President Bush has said, “addicted to oil,” then California may have found a cure.

On Jan. 12, the state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) approved the California Solar Initiative, authorizing the state to put $3.2 billion into solar power over the next 11 years. The amount is by far the largest investment  of any state in solar power, and rivals that of any nation.

Environment California staff worked closely with PUC officials and others to develop the program, earning praise from Sen. Kevin Murray, who said, “Environment California was a great help in the fight to build 1 million solar roofs and establishing solar as a viable and reliable source of power in California.”

Here’s how the program will work:

• Over the next 11 years, the California Solar Initiative will offer homeowners, businesses, farmers and others up to $3.2 billion in rebates for new rooftop solar systems, reducing global warming pollution by one ton for every new solar roof.

• By spurring growth in the solar industry, the program will cut the cost of solar power in half within a decade and create an estimated 15,000 new jobs in California.

• Funding will come from monies already earmarked for solar power and a small surcharge that the PUC says can be absorbed into existing rates.

The program is modeled closely on the Million Solar Roofs Initiative, which came close to passage in the Legislature last fall. Environment California’s Bernadette Del Chiaro helped craft that measure as well as the new California Solar Initiative.

“This is a giant step toward global warming solutions and real energy independence,” says Del Chiaro. “But there’s more for all of us—lawmakers, municipalities and California residents included—to do. Pushing past the politics and powerful interests that stand in the way of a bright future for solar power remains a top priority.”

Over the next 11 years, California will put $3.2 billion into solar power.