It seemed that a bill aiming to address injustices in environmental permitting was on its way to Senate passage, after lawmakers designated $1.2 million for the effort in their budget proposal.
But on Monday, as the legislative “crossover” deadline came and went, the bill remained stuck in committee, with environmental and community advocates raising a red flag about a new version of the legislation.
The bill, called the CHERISH Our Communities Act, would add new procedures for the Maryland Department of the Environment when it is considering environmental permits for certain new industrial facilities in areas that are already burdened by pollution.
As introduced, the bill required extra analysis for certain facilities proposed in “at-risk Census tracts,” including areas close to a high quantity of polluting power plants, mining operations, hazardous waste landfills and animal feeding operations.
And if the Maryland Department of the Environment determined that a new facility would add pollution to an already overburdened area, it would have to deny the permit, unless it determined there was a “compelling public interest” for the facility.
But a coalition of environmental justice, or EJ, advocates, representing various communities around the state, feared that amendments weakened the bill too dramatically, including by exempting a seemingly large amount of industrial lands targeted for redevelopment.
“Is Maryland going to have an EJ cumulative impacts bill that actually functions when it comes to adding additional protections for overburdened communities — or not?” asked Greg Sawtell, of the nonprofit South Baltimore Community Land Trust, a member of the coalition. “Right now, we don’t have that bill that will function. But we’re hopeful.”
Missing the crossover deadline, which requires bills to pass at least one chamber, isn’t necessarily a death sentence. But the bill’s Senate sponsor, Sen. Benjamin Brooks (D- Baltimore County) said Tuesday that the window for passing the bill this year has closed.
“That ship has sailed,” he said.
Neither the Senate nor the House version of the bill has yet to get out of committee. Brooks said that he felt advocates were overly ambitious, because he said their decision to withdraw support sank the bill.
“You build a house one brick at a time,” Brooks said. “We knew it had to be meaningful, but it had to be deliverable.”
MDE, which supported the bill as filed, said at the beginning of the session that it could designate $700,000 internally to implement the bill. It sought an additional $560,000, and the Senate’s budget proposal granted more than double that amount.
As a result of the bill’s likely failure, Brooks said that the funding, which was to be pulled from a state clean energy fund and given to MDE to implement the bill’s requirements, will probably be allocated to a different purpose.
The advocates, whose coalition is called the Mid-Atlantic Justice Coalition, said that one problem with the new version of the bill is that it would likely exempt sites involved in the state’s Voluntary Clean-Up Program, which encourages developers to remediate properties contaminated with hazardous substances. A state map shows hundreds, if not thousands, of sites, including those in and near residential communities burdened by industrial pollution — the very areas the bill is meant to serve.
Walkiria Pool, president of the Centro de Apoyo Familiar, a nonprofit in Prince George’s County that assists families with housing and environmental health matters, said that the EJ coalition did make concessions along the way.
The bill was limited to new facilities only, rather than permit renewals or facility expansions. The group of advocates also agreed to eliminate concentrated animal feeding operations, among other concessions, Pool said. The group was OK with “baby steps,” she said. But they worried that amendments added uncertainty, and watered down the bill.
“Even if we get 10 or 20% of the bill that we introduced — we’re fine with that,” Pool said.
Jennifer Kunze, another coalition member, from the nonprofit Clean Water Action, said she believes that pressure from some industry groups affected by the bill led to the amendments that concerned advocates.
“This coalition was really, really, really working hard to compromise while staying true to our values and true to the change that we’re working to make,” Kunze said. “We were willing to move a small foundation forward. But the industry pressure was such — they’re working really powerfully against even that small foundation.”
