The ambition of Maryland’s Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard will not increase after Governor Larry Hogan (R) vetoed a bill Friday which would have ramped up the state’s current standard from a requirement of 20 percent renewable energy generation by 2022 to 25 percent by 2020. The bill, had it been signed into law, would have taken effect on Oct. 1, 2016. “This legislation is a tax increase that will be levied upon every single electricity ratepayer in Maryland and, for that reason alone, I cannot allow it to become law,” Hogan wrote in the veto.
Hogan does not believe that the bill’s aim was wrong, he wrote, but the proposed means to its end was unacceptable. “The goal of [the bill] to increase the State’s Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (RPS) to 25 [percent] by 2020 is laudable, but increasing taxes to achieve this goal is the wrong approach,” he wrote.
