It’s not even law yet, but opponents threaten to take energy reform bill to referendum

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) has yet to sign the legislature’s biggest energy bill into law, but there is already a campaign in the works to challenge the measure at referendum.

A group calling itself the Maryland Environment, Labor, and Industry Coalition filed as a ballot issue committee Tuesday with the State Board of Elections, signaling its intent to begin gathering signatures to get the issue on the ballot in November 2026 if it is not vetoed.

The bill, called the Next Generation Energy Act, includes a variety of provisions aimed at greasing the skids for more in-state power generation and storage, amid soaring energy bills in Maryland. It also nixed a subsidy for trash incinerators that generate energy: Since 2011, Maryland had considered that renewable energy, making incinerator operators eligible to sell millions in credits each year.

Doug Gansler, the former Maryland attorney general now in private practice, said the referendum “has to overturn the entire bill,” but that the waste-to-energy provisions would be a focus for the ballot campaign.

“There’s a lot of good pieces in the bill, but there’s a lot of components of the bill that people are not enamored with — and some that are just bad,” said Gansler, who said he was approached to provide legal services for the group.

Getting on the ballot is no easy task: The coalition will need to collect just over 20,000 verified signatures from supporters by May 31 at 11:59 p.m. It would need to collect about 40,000 more by the end of the day on June 30.

The last time a legislative act was challenged at referendum was in 2012, when voters petitioned to get same-sex marriage on the ballot. Voters approved the measure by a slim margin.

It wasn’t immediately clear Thursday which groups formed the coalition. Campaign filings listed Rebecca Smondrowski as chair and Samir Malhotra as treasurer. Both have Montgomery County addresses.

Smondrowski is a former Montgomery County school board member, and Malhotra described himself as a small business owner frustrated by high energy costs. (He said he is not the former chief of staff to Gov. Larry Hogan (R), who shares the same name.)

Gansler cautioned that the campaign is still in its infancy.

“The hope is that the governor vetoes the bill. That’s what everyone hopes and thinks should happen,” Gansler said. “If and when he does not, then we’ll kind of figure things out.”

Moore has one final bill signing scheduled on May 20. A spokesperson declined to comment on his plans for the legislation, which was part of a three-bill energy package supported by Democratic leadership in the House and Senate.

Republican legislators have argued that the bill does little to curb rising rates, and doesn’t go far enough to incentivize new power generation, including nuclear and natural gas.

Some environmental and consumer advocacy groups considered the Next Generation bill a mixed bag. On one hand, its provisions could streamline a new natural gas-fired power plant in Maryland, despite the state’s push to shift to renewable energy such as wind and solar. But it also included provisions expediting battery energy storage, and curtailing utilities’ spending on natural gas infrastructure, as well as private jets and industry association memberships, using ratepayer dollars.

The bill would also dole out an $80 rebate, on average, to every Maryland ratepayer, to make up for high costs.

The provision cutting trash-burning from the state’s renewable energy portfolio has the support of many high-profile environmental groups, who argue that the state should focus on subsidizing other generation that does not generate air pollution, such as wind and solar power. But it also garnered fierce opposition, including from the state’s two current incinerators.

In 2023, the last year for which data is publicly available, those incinerators — one in Montgomery County and one in Baltimore City — each received funds, as did another incinerator in Virginia. The incinerators accounted for 14.2% of “renewable energy credits” purchased by electricity suppliers, for a total of about $27 million.

The Waste-to-Energy Association, which represents incineration companies nationally, said in a statement Thursday that it is not driving the new ballot campaign, but it supports the effort.

“While Maryland is facing an energy crisis resulting in an unreliable grid and skyrocketing costs, the bill removes support for the dependable energy generated from waste,” wrote Thomas Hogan, the association’s president.

“This bill is reckless and while we did not create the ballot committee, we will happily join this effort,” Hogan wrote. “In the meantime, we urge Governor Moore to veto this bill so that lawmakers can develop real solutions to our energy challenges.”

WIN Waste, which operates the incinerator in South Baltimore, said it was not aware of the ballot committee, but “considered the option” itself, according to spokesperson Mary Urban. 

“The negative impact to the industry, in-state energy generation and Maryland ratepayers cannot be overstated — not to mention the State’s economic and climate goals,” Urban wrote.

The company has argued that burning waste should be subsidized in part because it is more environmentally friendly than landfilling, especially since waste may have to be transported longer distances from the Baltimore region to a dump. WIN Waste has also cited about $45 million in recent facility upgrades to curb air pollution from its smokestack along Interstate 95.

Complicating the already short timeline for gathering signatures is uncertainty about whether electronic signatures can be used to reach the cutoff, in addition to signatures gathered in-person, Gansler said. The total signature requirement is 3% of the voters in the last gubernatorial election, or 60,157, all of whom must be Maryland registered voters.

Since the last ballot referendum in 2012, the state’s reliance on electronic signatures and electronic filings has increased, Gansler said.

“There’s a strong case legally that e-signatures may suffice, and we’re looking into that now,” Gansler said, adding that electronic signatures would “make a challenging deadline far less challenging.”

If the issue reaches the ballot, Gansler said his clients are optimistic that they will succeed. They point to a February poll from the Institute of Politics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. It found a majority of the 800 Maryland voters surveyed supported a variety of energy generation types, with the exception of coal, with 68% in favor of trash incinerators helping to increase the state’s power generation.

“Once the referendum gets on the ballot, it will pass,” Gansler said. “It will get overturned.”