Clean is Clean
Renewable is Renewable
Waste Incineration is Neither
Maryland’s Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (RPS) is an important environmental law and one of the state’s most important clean energy laws. That essential law is now just a signature away from being badly weakened, and the man holding the pen, the person who will decide the fate of this tool in Maryland’s efforts to fight global warming and promote clean, renewable energy, is Governor Martin O’Malley.
The RPS requires companies that supply electricity to Maryland residences, businesses, and public and private institutions to get at least 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by the year 2022. It requires the percentage to increase gradually from 2006 to 2022. Suppliers can either generate their own renewable energy or they can purchase Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) from other generators.
Senate Bill 690 inappropriately elevate waste incineration to top tier of Maryland’s RPS, on par with wind, solar, geothermal, and other legitimate renewable energy resources. This could flood Maryland’s energy market with dirty RECs, and crowd out legitimate renewable energy.
After sailing under the radar at first, this bill ran into increasingly stiff opposition in the Maryland House and Senate as more and more legislators and nonprofit organizations became aware of their damaging impacts.
SB 690 passed by just one vote in the Senate in the closing hours of the General Assembly’s 2011 session.
Governor O’Malley supports incineration, and he supported SB 690 during the 2011 General Assembly session.
But a growing alliance of environmental, public health and sustainability nonprofits is urging Governor O’Malley to veto SB 690.
State legislators are, too. So are businesses that develop and deploy recycling, composting and legitimate renewable energy. And three Maryland newspapers – the Baltimore Sun, the Carroll County Times, and the Frederick News-Post – now urge Governor O’Malley to veto SB 690.
Rather than lay out detailed arguments against promoting incineration to Tier 1 of Maryland’s RPS here, we invite you to read the letters, editorials and fact sheets shared on this site.
And we invite you to act.
