The Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) late last year estimated that the state needs about $10 billion to meet its ambitious climate mandates. But as the Maryland Commission on Climate Change worked through several items during a meeting Tuesday, MDE Secretary Serena McIlwain, who chairs the panel, moved to table the debate on the revenue measures until next month. A working draft of the report includes recommendations that the state adopt three complicated and potentially controversial measures to pay for climate programs that include a cap-and-invest scheme to make the transportation and building sectors pay for carbon emissions, the establishment of a fossil fuel transport fee, and a mandate that 40 large fossil fuel companies compensate the state for historic climate emissions.
Tracking progress: A study released last week found that Maryland cut carbon emissions by 36 percent between 2005 and 2022 and by 42 percent per capita, making it the leader when it came to states reducing greenhouse gas emissions over that 17-year period. However, the Climate Solutions Now Act, passed by Maryland in 2022, ambitiously mandates the state reduce its carbon emissions by 60 percent by 2031 and be carbon-neutral by 2040.
