The smokestack of incinerator in south Baltimore that converts trash into energy. (Photo by Joe Ryan/Capital News Service)
A bill that would end Maryland’s practice of allocating renewable energy subsidies to trash incinerators is stalled in committee but not dead yet, despite missing the “crossover” deadline that would be the death of most bills.
Supporters say there’s a plan in the works to salvage the incinerator bill, which picked up a powerful backer in Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City), by integrating it into the larger Next Generation Energy Act. That bill, sponsored by House and Senate leadership, was always expected to move after crossover, a spokesman for Ferguson said Monday.
“It was always planned to be after crossover, just like the budget,” said David Schuhlein, the spokesman. “Energy was top priority — like the budget — so of course you expect it to be a little bit more effort.”
The bill, called the Reclaim Renewable Energy Act, has had hearings in both Senate and House committees, but it has yet to receive a vote in either. House Economic Matters Committee Chair C.T. Wilson (D-Charles) said the two chambers are “still in negotiations,” but agreed that if the incineration bill passes this year, it will likely be via the larger energy package.
“If it’s in, it will be in the leadership bill,” Wilson said Monday.
Environmental advocacy groups have pushed similar bills for years without success, aiming to cut millions in incentive payments for incinerators that generate energy by burning waste.
In 2021, legislators did remove another energy source from the renewable subsidy list: black liquor, a byproduct of the paper-making process.
With the OK from Ferguson, whose district includes an incinerator, anti-incineration groups thought victory was near. Now, they aren’t so sure, said Neka Duckett-Randolph, of Out for Justice, a Baltimore-based nonprofit.
The group was frustrated to learn that the incineration bill was likely to be integrated into a bill they find problematic, Duckett-Randolph said. They fear that the Next Generation Energy Act, which aims to expedite new energy generation in the state and eventually lower energy costs for Marylanders, will grease the wheels for polluting power plants to be placed in disadvantaged communities.
“This clean incinerator bill is being lumped into this polluter package,” Duckett-Randolph said.
Recently, Progressive Maryland debuted a music video pushing for the incineration bill’s passage as is. “Our legislators won’t vote on the bill,” read a caption for the video. “So we made a song. To go along with their dance around this critical legislation.”
“Burning trash has got to go,” the song continued, to the tune of Chapell Roan’s “Hot to go!”
In 2023, 14% of the renewable energy credits in “Tier 1” of the state’s system went to trash incinerators. Tier 1 also includes wind and solar energy.
About two-thirds of those credits went to the two incinerators in Maryland, and one third went to Virginia. One of Maryland’s incinerators is the privately owned WIN Waste facility in Baltimore City, while the other is owned by Montgomery County.
Environmental advocates have argued that eliminating subsidies for incineration would make way for greater payments to wind and solar projects.
In 2024, the Montgomery County received about $12 million from the sale of renewable energy credits, according to the bill’s fiscal note. The county’s incinerator likely accounts for the majority of that tally.
Mary Randall, of Baltimore’s Westport neighborhood, said she has lived close to the city’s trash incinerator for more than 60 years. She traveled to Annapolis on Monday to push for the bill’s passage.
Randall said she fears that pollutants emitted by the incinerator’s smokestack along Interstate 95 have contributed to an increased risk of cancer in her community.
“My two best girlfriends died from cancer,” Randall said. “I was able to take [one of them] for treatments. And one day we went down, and it was five people from the neighborhood getting chemo.”
In recent years, the WIN Waste facility has advertised millions of dollars in upgrades meant to tamp down air pollution. The facility has been vocally opposed to ending the subsidy in the past, arguing that the credits support a Maryland business and dozens of Maryland jobs.
WIN Waste officials have also argued that burning waste could be better for the climate than transporting it longer distances to a landfill.
“Waste to energy (WTE), like nuclear, utilizes resources that are plentiful, creating a renewable baseload energy source as demand for reliable energy increases,” WIN Waste spokesperson Mary Urban wrote in a previous statement to Maryland Matters.