MARYLAND (WBFF) — Days away from the end of the legislative session, top lawmakers announced they have reached an agreement on a sweeping piece of energy legislation, known as the Utility RELIEF Act.
The bill aims to lower energy bills, strengthen the grid, increase supply and manage data center growth. Early projections estimated it would save customers at least $150 annually, or roughly $12.50 a month, but many lawmakers argued the cost savings would be even higher. With differing versions of the bill passing in the House and Senate, lawmakers have been working to find common ground.
Wednesday afternoon, Senate President Bill Ferguson and House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk released a joint statement saying, “We are pleased to announce that the Senate and House of Delegates have reached an agreement on comprehensive legislation to lower energy costs for Maryland families.”
“Over the past several weeks, the House and Senate have worked collaboratively to advance the Utility RELIEF Act as a balanced, statewide approach to deliver meaningful savings, strengthen our energy grid, and protect ratepayers. While each chamber had advanced slightly different versions of the bill, we are aligned on the core goal: lowering costs and increasing reliability for Marylanders,” the statement continued to read. “As we enter the final days of the legislative session, our teams are working together to finalize the precise legislative language that reflects this shared framework. We are confident that this agreement will deliver real, immediate relief while making long-term investments in Maryland’s energy future.”
However, it is not yet clear what compromises were made. Lawmakers will still have to approve the legislation before it can head to Governor Wes Moore’s desk.
Some of the key differences in the roughly 100-page bill were related to the energy efficiency program EmPOWER Maryland, utility multi-year rate plans and policies surrounding data centers, which Sen. Ferguson said will be a helpful tool for reducing energy costs.
“The House’s version was, at best, a placeholder. The Senate has a fully thought through and detailed plan for how to address data centers,” Sen. Ferguson said Tuesday.
“Some of the decisions in, in the House’s plan create significant challenges, and uncertainty for increasing generation in the state of Maryland, which would be hugely problematic for the long term,” Ferguson later added.
“So the Senate essentially accepted three, what I would call sort of Republican amendments,” said House Minority Leader Delegate Jason Buckel. “They’re not Republican ideas, energy should really be very bipartisan, but they were ideas including an idea that I had, a bill that I have about what’s called line extension allowances that helps communities extend natural gas, if natural gas is more appropriate for them. It’s less expensive. Natural gas costs less money than electric and it strains our grid less. And so the Senate took not only that amendment, but they took other amendments about a study of the costs of energy that we think will be helpful going forward and planning how we do our energy grid and how we production. They took some other Republican ideas about transmission lines and other issues.”
However, consumer groups like Maryland PIRG were quick to speak out against the Senate’s version of the bill.
“We’re deeply disappointed the Senate voted to increase gas customer bills in order to incentivize gas utilities’ highly profitable pipeline system expansion,” said Emily Scarr, senior advisor at Maryland PIRG. “Instead of following the House’s lead to rein in excessive utility profits, the Senate added an unappetizing smorgasbord of bad amendments that reward the utility companies that are driving our high bills.”
“We want the Maryland public to win,” Buckel said. “And we’ll continue to push for that. Every opportunity we have, to try to push more savings into the final product, we’ll do that,” Buckel said.