Climate Pathway Stakeholder Input
Engaging stakeholders remains a priority throughout the development and implementation of Maryland's climate action plans. MDE actively sought robust public input to help shape Maryland's Climate Pollution Reduction Plan over an extensive six-month outreach period in 2023. Interested parties provided feedback through multiple channels, including online comment forms, letters, phone calls, and direct conversations with MDE staff at public events. The Maryland Commission on Climate Change was instrumental in providing input from its working groups, building on its long-standing engagement in previous emissions reduction efforts.
Between July and September 2023, MDE and UMD hosted a series of statewide public stakeholder meetings to present the Maryland’s Climate Pathway report and gather feedback. These sessions took place at Bowie State University, Hagerstown Community College, Salisbury University, Morgan State University, and the College of Southern Maryland. The team hosted two virtual sessions as well to maximize access for busy Marylanders who could not attend an in-person session.
Finally, MDE compiled all the feedback received through this extensive outreach into an outreach results webpage. Thousands of Marylanders provided comments at the outreach sessions or submitted written comments. Opportunities for public and organizational input will continue as legislation is introduced to implement the plan, as well as through the regulatory hearing processes.
Executive Action Stakeholder Input
MDE's regulatory function occurs through a coordinated effort with the public and private sectors. The review process helps to ensure participation from stakeholders, other agencies, the general public, and other entities affected by regulations. Draft air regulations are also brought before the Air Quality Control Advisory Council for advice and recommendations.
Proposed regulations are published in the Maryland Register. Each listing describes how and when to submit comments and provides additional information including budget impacts on agencies, industries, and small businesses. Proposed regulations are subject to a public hearing after publication in the Register. Formal adoption of new regulations occurs only after a hearing is held and necessary changes are made.
Legislative Action Stakeholder Input
As part of the legislative process, standing committees meet during the legislative session to receive testimony and take action on bills that are referred to the committee. Bill sponsors and citizens supporting or opposing the proposed legislation have an opportunity to provide input on a bill through oral and/or written testimony. Marylanders are encouraged to discuss policy matters with their elected representatives.
CPRG: From Planning to Implementation
While Maryland passed the CSNA in 2022, the federal government’s passage of the BIL in 2021 and the IRA in the same year provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Maryland to leverage the federal government’s funding and programs to spur state action. One such program is EPA’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grant (CPRG). MDE is the lead agency for Maryland’s CPRG Planning Grant and is working in close coordination with the Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) within the state and the counties not covered by a CPRG MSA Planning Grant (Figure 16).
Figure 16: Maryland CPRG Planning Areas.
Under the CPRG for Planning, MDE will expand its GHG emission reduction planning activities and deliverables to publish the following plans and reports required by EPA.
Maryland’s Priority Climate Action Plan
A Priority Climate Action Plan (PCAP), due March 1, 2024, aims to identify near-term, high-priority, and implementation-ready measures to reduce climate pollution. The PCAP will prepare Maryland’s eligible entities to compete in the transformative federal funding from the BIL of 2021 and IRA of 2022, including the $4.6 billion EPA CPRG competition.
Maryland’s Comprehensive Climate Action Plan
A Comprehensive Climate Action Plan (CCAP) is due two years after the award of the planning grant. This plan will focus on all significant GHG sources/sinks and sectors present in Maryland and establish near-term and long-term emission reduction goals. Measures and strategies will be identified to achieve those goals, including recent changes in technologies and market forces, potential leveraging of other funding opportunities (e.g., under the IRA of 2022, BIL of 2021, or other sources), new program areas and opportunities for regional collaboration, or inclusion of analyses to estimate benefits including those flowing to low income and disadvantaged communities. The plan as a whole is required to include:
Maryland’s GHG inventory;
GHG emissions projections;
GHG reduction targets;
Quantified GHG reduction measures;
A benefits analysis for the full geographic scope and population of Maryland;
A low-income and disadvantaged communities benefit analysis;
A review of authority to implement;
A plan to leverage other federal funding; and
A workforce planning analysis.
Maryland’s Status Report
A status report is due at the end of the four-year planning grant period in the summer to fall of 2027. This report will include the implementation status of the quantified GHG reduction measures included in Maryland’s CCAP, along with any relevant updated analyses or projections supporting implementation and next steps and future budget/staffing needs to continue that implementation. MDE will deliver a series of GHG emission reduction plans and inventories with an increasing emphasis on implementation planning and tracking.
CPRG Stakeholder Engagement
MDE is committed to providing inclusive, accessible, and transparent public and stakeholder engagement processes to inform the development of upcoming CPRG plans and competitive implementation grants that may develop from these plans. MDE will lead three concurrent stakeholder engagement processes in the development of the PCAP, CCAP, and status report:
Ongoing public and stakeholder engagement through existing climate-action and environmental justice commissions, task forces, and working groups with over 250 cross-sectoral members, with most groups meeting either monthly or quarterly. To ensure representatives of low-income and disadvantaged communities that may be affected by or benefit from plan development are included in the process, Maryland’s CPRG for Planning will align directly with best practices for engagement offered by MDE’s new Office of Environmental Justice and the Maryland Commission of Environmental Justice and Sustainable Communities (CEJSC). Ongoing monthly and quarterly meetings of these advisory groups are open to the public and materials from these meetings are available on the MDE website.
Public outreach to compile near-term, high-priority, implementation-ready projects from covered agencies, jurisdictions, and stakeholders to include in the PCAP. This process will include leveraging existing plans, or for counties without their own plans, MDE is leading the Maryland CPRG Local Support Program to facilitate the process of identifying qualifying projects. MDE launched a webpage for this effort which will include details, webinar links and recordings, and a comment submission form.
Environmental Justice Listening Sessions led by the MDE Secretary, MDE EJ Office Director, and MDE Secretary’s EJ Advisory Council. MDE is conducting listening sessions in communities with EJ concerns. MDE has and will continue to identify top communities with EJ concerns and will use the MDE EJ Screening Tool to develop a report on the key permitted facilities in the area, identify the communities' socioeconomic demographics, and review existing community feedback and concerns about permitted facilities. MDE will schedule and conduct listening sessions with citizens in the community to identify and discuss concerns and opportunities and key actions MDE and other state agencies can undertake to address inequities and ensure direct benefits to communities. Direct citizen feedback from these sessions will help to identify priorities for Maryland’s PCAP and inform methods for how to assess community benefits.
The CPRG for Planning will deliver the following benefits by driving climate pollution reduction planning into implementation and action:
Tackle damaging climate pollution - while supporting the creation of good jobs and lowering energy costs for families.
Accelerate work to address environmental injustice - and empower community-driven solutions in overburdened neighborhoods.
Deliver cleaner air - by reducing harmful air pollution in places where people live, work, play, and go to school.
Ensure Maryland is competitive for federal implementation funds - from the BIL of 2021 and IRA of 2022.
Drive successful local-level implementation - for high-priority GHG emission reduction programs and projects.
Progress Tracking and Reporting
MDE bears an enormous responsibility to Maryland’s citizens following the publication of this plan to ensure that the state’s GHG reduction goals are fully achieved. Implementation and tracking of the policies and initiatives contained within will require both monitoring and annual reporting on status and success. Facilitated through such analyses, MDE will adopt a final plan that achieves net-zero statewide GHG emissions by 2045 on or before December 31, 2030. MDE will continue to analyze the success of these policies and initiatives through review and revision of the final plan on or before December 31, 2035.
Coordination among Maryland’s state agencies is essential to ensure proper implementation and function of the plan. State agencies, many of which have a prominent role in the implementation of the policies and initiatives in this plan, are required to report annually on the status of programs that support the state’s GHG reduction efforts or address climate change to the Maryland Commission on Climate Change. The law requires annual reports from the following Maryland state agencies:
The Department of the Environment
The Department of Agriculture
The Department of General Services
The Department of Housing and Community Development
The Department of Natural Resources
The Department of Planning
The Department of Transportation
The Maryland Energy Administration
The Maryland Insurance Administration
The Public Service Commission
The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science
These annual reports must include program descriptions and objectives; implementation milestones and whether or not they have been met; enhancement opportunities; funding; challenges; estimated GHG reductions by program for the prior calendar year; and any other information that the agency considers relevant. Additionally, when reviewing planning, regulatory, and fiscal programs, each agency is required to identify and recommend actions to more fully integrate the consideration of Maryland’s GHG reduction goal and the impacts of climate change. Such considerations include sea level rise, storm surges and flooding, increased precipitation and temperature, and extreme weather events. Specific policies, planning, regulatory, and fiscal changes to existing programs that do not currently support Maryland’s GHG reduction efforts or address climate change must also be accounted for.
In conjunction with the aforementioned annual report, MDE is required to include in the Maryland Commission on Climate Change’s Annual Report the status of the state’s efforts to mitigate the causes of, prepare for, and adapt to the consequences of climate change, including future plans and recommendations for legislation to be considered by the General Assembly as well as an accounting of state money spent on measures to reduce GHGs and co-pollutants and the percentage of funding that benefited disproportionately affected communities.
If it becomes clear that Maryland could fall short of achieving an implementation milestone, such as the number of EVs registered, heat pumps installed, or homes weatherized, the GHG impact will be evaluated to help determine if other actions must be scaled up to make up for any shortfall to achieve an equivalent amount of GHG emissions reductions.
