Gov. Wes Moore (D) signed bills into law on Friday that are designed to change how millions of homes and trucks are powered in Maryland, with the goal of reducing the state’s reliance on fossil fuels.
One will, among other things, incentivize private investment to expand offshore wind capacity to 8.5 gigawatts by 2031 — enough to power 3 million homes, according to the governor’s office. Another will require manufacturers to sell an increasing annual percentage of zero-emission trucks and buses beginning in the model year 2027. And a third provides grants to companies that purchase electric trucks.
Moore said the legislation — which drew criticism from Republican state lawmakers — will help the state move closer to its goal of 100 percent clean energy by 2035, positioning Maryland at the forefront of states taking action to blunt the impacts of climate change.
Flanked by Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) and House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore), Moore said the new laws “speak to a future where the air is cleaner, a future where our energy grid is more resilient, a future where power is drawn from nature instead of consistently being in conflict with it.”
Under the offshore wind energy law, the state aims to quadruple the amount of energy produced by offshore wind from about 2 gigawatts to 8.5 gigawatts of power.
The bill signing was held at Tradepoint Atlantic, the former home of Bethlehem Steel, which was once the world’s hub of steelmaking and now hosts dozens of companies, in tandem with an announcement from Orsted. The Denmark-based clean energy company, which specializes in wind turbines, committed to build a staging area at the site for wind energy infrastructure.
The new Clean Truck Act comes on the heels of executive action taken last month to phase out new gas-powered car sales by 2035 and becomes the latest move by Maryland officials to tighten environmental rules.
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