With soaring energy bills a prime concern for voters in an election year, House and Senate leadership want to unite around a single energy package. But when they’ll do so, and what the package will look like, remains a mystery more than halfway through the 2026 legislative session.
Only one major energy bill has advanced so far: House Bill 1, which passed the House in early February but is sitting in a Senate committee, would require that investor-owned utilities use shareholder dollars — not ratepayers’ — for supervisor compensation above about $285,000 annually.
In the meantime, differing energy bills are pending from the House and Senate leaders and the Moore administration, along with dozens of proposals from rank-and-file lawmakers.
“If I could show you my calendar, we are meeting with absolutely everybody,” said Del. Marc Korman (D-Montgomery), chair of the House Environment and Transportation Committee, at a news conference Tuesday. “And yes, certainly we’re working very closely with the Senate to have a cohesive position, as we take on the really important task of making energy bills more affordable.”
The story seems likely to play out like last year, when lawmakers wove a variety of energy provisions into a Frankenstein’s monster of a bill in late March, the Next Generation Energy Act, which aimed to speed permitting for new energy projects from batteries to natural gas, and curb utility spending, among other provisions.
During a news conference Friday, Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) said a comprehensive package for this session could be announced in the next “week or two.”
“Here’s the issue: It’s complex and it’s challenging,” Ferguson said. “I would say it’s not about disagreement. It’s about trying to maximize our impact and trying to really make sure that we are lifting up every stone to find policies that will reduce costs for ratepayers.”
Bills from leadership and the governor use differing strategies to foster the development of new solar projects, more closely regulate utilities and place greater scrutiny on power transmission lines. Legislation from House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk (D-Prince George’s and Anne Arundel) also trims the cost of EmPOWER Maryland, the state’s main program that sponsors energy efficiency upgrades in homes and businesses, which customers pay for through a surcharge on electric bills.
Top lawmakers also have competing ideas when it comes to spending the hundreds of millions in ratepayer dollars that have accumulated in a state clean energy fund, the Strategic Energy Investment Fund. The SEIF is booming because utilities have increasingly paid into it rather than buying renewable energy credits, which were often more expensive and harder to come by.
Gov. Wes Moore (D) has proposed pulling about $725 million from the SEIF this year: Nearly $300 million to help balance the state’s budget and another $100 million to give residential ratepayers a bill credit averaging $40. The rest would be spent on programs mostly related to climate change and solar energy.
It isn’t clear yet to what extent legislators want to use the SEIF to balance the budget. A Senate committee is expected to release its version of the budget this week.
Some kind of solar energy proposal appears likely to rise above the fray. Ferguson, along with environmental committee Chair Sen. Brian Feldman (D-Montgomery), has introduced a bill that would pull some of the money from the SEIF into a competitive auction for solar energy.
Another bill, pushed by climate advocates, called the Affordable Solar Act, creates a similar mechanism.
There’s a lot of synergy between the two ideas, said Brittany Baker, Maryland director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.
“We’re seeing a huge win with both of these proposals, and that is the commitment by legislators to directly reinvest alternative compliance payments, which are investments the ratepayers give to the state, because ratepayers want to see clean energy be built,” Baker said.
Feldman agreed that the bills are similar, and both could be considered for inclusion in the final package.
“That’s part of the conversation we’re going to be having with the House of Delegates to ultimately come up with something that makes sense that we’re passing with the House and Senate,” Feldman said.
Baker believes that the Affordable Solar bill reworks the state’s solar program more comprehensively, and stimulates smaller-scale solar as well as large-scale.
“It’s a full reworking of the solar renewable energy credit program to ensure that at all levels, whether that’s the largest projects or the tiniest rooftop projects, each type of project has a process for getting its appropriate incentive,” Baker said.
In testimony about his bill late last month, Feldman expressed concern that the Affordable Solar bill allows a surcharge on customer bills for the procurement of solar energy credits.
“If we don’t make the goals — the targets — we’re not going to go back to ratepayers for more money to fund the shortfalls,” Feldman said.
Moore’s proposal would also employ SEIF dollars to stimulate solar, with a $70 million “gap financing” initiative meant to make up for the loss of federal tax credits for solar projects, which is expected to hit in July.
Peña-Melnyk’s main bill requires a controversial cost-effectiveness test for EmPOWER Maryland, the state’s signature energy efficiency program, funded by a surcharge on electric bills. It would also decrease the program’s greenhouse gas emissions goals for future years, lowering the program’s cost for ratepayers.
The bill, called the Continuing the Next Generation Energy Act, also ropes more data centers into a tariff created last year for large energy customers, and sets more restrictions on utilities’ usage of multiyear rate increases, which consumer advocates have pointed to as one reason for surging rates.
Another Peña-Melnyk bill makes adjustments to the state’s net energy metering program, which allows individuals solar panels or other energy-generating technologies on their properties, to receive a bill credit for the energy they generate. It would raise a cap that the program is expected to hit thanks to growth in community solar farms, among other changes.
“We pass all these programs, and we have a responsibility to go back and look at it and look and see if it is working. Is it not working? And where can we make changes?” Peña-Melnyk said.
She has touted her legislation as a cost savings for ratepayers, pointing to a report from legislative analysts that deemed the Next Generation bill likely to lower bills and reduce future rate hikes.
“Together, these provisions put ratepayers first by strengthening protections against unnecessary rate increases, ensuring the large corporate energy users bear the costs they create, and improving the efficiency and accountability of state energy programs,” Peña-Melnyk said during testimony on one of her bills.
A number of Republican proposals, meanwhile, envision further rollbacks of EmPOWER and the state’s climate commitments, with the goal of trimming surcharges on customer bills and bolstering energy supply.
“Mailing out a one-time $40 rebate — essentially giving Marylanders back a small portion of what they were overcharged — is not progress,” Senate Minority Whip Justin Ready (R-Frederick) said in a February statement. “Real relief means lowering the monthly bill, not issuing a refund after the damage is done. Families don’t want temporary credits, they want lower monthly bills. That means fixing the policies that are driving up costs in the first place.”
Emily Scarr, senior adviser with Maryland PIRG, said her group is “glad our leaders in Annapolis are considering so many proposals to help rising energy costs.” But she said they should resist ideas that are “penny-wise and pound-foolish, like weakening or eliminating investments in energy efficiency.”
EmPOWER cost ratepayers an average of $15 to $20 per month, depending on their utility and their power usage, as of December 2025. It provides homes and businesses free or discounted energy efficiency upgrades such as new appliances and home weatherization. For every dollar invested in energy efficiency and conservation programs, EmPOWER returned $2.21 in savings, according to 2023 data from the Maryland Public Service Commission.
Several proposals also touch on transmission. Moore’s would establish a fast-track permitting process at the PSC for power projects that upgrade existing lines, rather than building new ones. It comes amid concern that utilities are overspending on infrastructure, because they receive reimbursement, on top of a guaranteed profit, for approved projects.
Ferguson has said he’s proposing a bill that would allow the Maryland Public Service Commission to scrutinize the siting plans for more types of power lines, bringing underground and underwater lines under their purview for the first time. It was inspired by an underground project proposed by Baltimore Gas & Electric in his district, which has increased in cost from about $100 million to about $400 million. On Wednesday, shortly after Ferguson spoke out, the utility announced a temporary pause on the project.
That project, which will connect a substation downtown with one in Baltimore Peninsula, actually occupies a few different loopholes. It’s an underground line, for one thing.
But the project is also among numerous supplemental transmission projects — also called local transmission projects — that are not overseen by the PSC, and have become a more popular choice for investor-owned utilities in recent years, according to the Office of People’s Counsel.
The local utilities choose the projects, meaning there is no competitive process, and propose them to the regional electric grid, PJM Interconnection. But PJM mainly reviews the projects to ensure they “do no harm,” and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission doesn’t review them until after they’re built.
During a hearing that Ferguson called Friday, the utilities argued that the existing process, with public filings at PJM, is “transparent.”
Ferguson pushed back.
“I heard a lot about transparency in the process around supplement [projects], and I just have to say it is very difficult to hear that,” Ferguson said. “As we have talked through this supplemental process, I have been truly flabbergasted by how many people have heard of supplemental transmission projects for the first time — even within the organizations that are represented here today.”