Gov. Martin O?Malley kept up the Earth Day theme he?s been advocating this week by signing more than 20 new laws that are designed to protect the Chesapeake Bay, curb development of its shoreline, reduce energy consumption, encourage conservation and promote the construction of environmentally friendly buildings.
“This is a huge, huge, huge year for the environment, and some of these bills were two, three years in the works,” said House Environmental Matters Committee Chairwoman Maggie McIntosh, who was credited with shepherding much of this legislation to passage.
The measures, most of them introduced at O?Malley?s request, were among more than 200 bills he signed into law on Thursday.
Among the Bay bills was legislation specifying how $25 million in the new 2010 Trust Fund will be used to reduce runoff pollution from farms and commercial development.
That is only half of what was originally proposed, but Natural Resources Secretary John Griffin said, “I doubt if we could have spent it all” in the first year of the new effort.
Lawmakers made major changes in the Critical Areas law regulating development on the shores of the Bay and its tributaries.
While some of the proposed changes were watered down, Attorney General Doug Gansler said, “It was a huge step forward,” including the increases in fines that he has promised to enforce more strictly.
The statute of limitations for prosecution of environmental violations has also been extended from one year to three years from the point at which the infraction is first noticed.
After several years of trying to make the state construct more energy- and water-saving buildings, two delegates were happy to see the governor adopt their proposal.
The law will now require most buildings constructed or renovated with state funds to meet environmental standards, including new schools. Del. Dan Morhaim, D-Baltimore County, said the private sector was already ahead of the government in such buildings.
Another bill allocated fees utility companies will pay for carbon emissions to promote energy conservation, including providing such services to low-income people.
Utilities will also have to get more of their electricity from renewable resources, such as wind or solar power.
Senate Republican Whip Allan Kittleman of Howard County complained that those bills “will cause ratepayers to pay more money.”
The energy bills included the enabling legislation resolving the lawsuit between the state and Constellation Energy.
