What are the policies?
- The Climate Solutions Now Act called for large buildings to reduce emissions by 20% by 2030, and reach net zero by 2040. Since then, Maryland’s new Building Energy Performance Standards have faced pushback from building groups. The state legislature modified them this session, exempting hospitals, factories and emergency power to buildings like data centers. It also set up a study to help the legislature decide where to take the standards in future years and added an annual fee to cover costs associated with the program. Building owners in Montgomery County, which has its own building standards, do not have to comply with the state framework.
- New homes have to either have an EV charger or be ready to have EV chargers installed.
- Utility companies are required to provide energy efficiency programs and incentives to their customers under the EmPOWER Maryland Program. Companies have to meet energy savings goals, and recent updates also called for emissions reduction goals.
- New rules suggested by the 2023 climate plan would seek to reduce emissions that come from heating buildings, in part by requiring new building heating systems to be zero emissions.
Who’s paying for it?
- EmPOWER Maryland is funded by a charge on Marylanders’ electricity and gas bills. Marylanders paid a surcharge between about $7 and $11 for EmPOWER in 2024.
- Building owners and developers would have to pay for changes required under the state’s new Building Energy Performance Standards.
What progress has been made so far?
- The Building Energy Performance Standards were adopted in December 2024 and updated in the spring of 2025. Right now, the regulations cover emissions from the buildings themselves (“net direct” emissions), with final energy use standards expected to come around 2027.
- The EmPOWER Maryland Program has been around since 2008, and was updated in recent years to take greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals into account.
- The Maryland Department of the Environment is working on the clean heat rules.
Sources for this Q&A: 5 Million Trees for Maryland; Apartment and Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington; CalMatters; Chesapeake Climate Action Network; Dr. Donald Boesch (president emeritus of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science); Industry Dive; Inside Climate News; International Energy Agency; Maryland Department of Agriculture; Maryland Department of the Environment; Maryland Department of Legislative Services; Maryland Department of Natural Resources; Maryland Department of Planning; Maryland Department of Transportation; Maryland Department of Transportation Motor Vehicle Administration; Maryland Energy Administration; Maryland General Assembly; Maryland Matters; Maryland Office of People’s Counsel; Maryland Public Service Commission; Maryland Register (Maryland Division of State Documents); Montgomery Community Media; NPR; Office of Gov. Wes Moore; Office of the Attorney General of California; Politico; Reuters; S&P Global; The Baltimore Sun; The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (rggi.org); The White House; U.S. Department of Energy Alternative Fuels Data Center; U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration; U.S. Energy Information Administration; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; U.S. Rep. Sarah Elfreth.