Fortunately, our state legislators can directly address climate change's rising costs — and in the process expand business opportunities that create high-paying Maryland jobs — by passing the Maryland Clean Energy Advancement Act this year.
Moving forward with this legislation would increase our state's clean electricity requirement, also known as a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS). Increasing the standard to 25 percent by 2020, then to 40 percent by 2025, would grow our economy by sending a clear market signal to the private sector that Maryland wants to seize clean energy leadership in the region.
This competitive advantage would attract more innovative, job-creating energy efficiency and renewable energy companies. These companies would crank up more clean, homegrown electricity from abundant renewable resources like wind and sunshine. In the process, they'd also create more jobs.
Maryland's current RPS was signed into law a decade ago by Republican Gov. Bob Ehrlich. By stipulating that our state generate a fifth of our electricity from renewables by 2022, the RPS currently on the books has helped Maryland's clean energy industry get off the ground. Maryland's solar industry, for example, already employs about 2,000 workers at more than 130 companies, according to The Solar Foundation.
If we continue to enact common-sense energy policies like the Maryland Clean Energy Advancement Act, this would just be the beginning of our job growth.
According to Environmental Entrepreneurs, the national nonpartisan business group where I work, nearly a quarter-million clean energy jobs have been announced across the country the last three years alone. Doubling Maryland's RPS could create 18,000 direct new jobs in the region's wind energy supply chain, and this is on top of the 1,700 solar jobs that would be added to Maryland's economy annually.
Meanwhile, choosing to increase our investments in energy efficiency would save us all money and create thousands of additional middle-income jobs.
So what do clean energy and energy efficiency jobs look like?
They're construction jobs weatherizing school districts so tightly that superintendents use energy savings to hire additional teachers.
They're jobs manufacturing metal racks for solar panels, trucking them cross-country and installing them on homes sheltering families who live on military bases throughout the Mid-Atlantic.
They're jobs in Cambridge, where OneEnergy Renewables CEO Bryce Smith, a Seattle-based E2 member and Maryland native, worked with a farmer to lease 20 acres of his least productive land to develop a commercial-scale solar project.
The farmer had experimented with other ways to profit off the 20 acres, including a nine-hole golf course. Solar made the most sense.
Through a 25-year agreement with Constellation Energy, this project will generate income for the farmer, create dozens of Eastern Shore construction jobs and sell predictably priced electricity to Baltimore's National Aquarium for decades to come.
Setting the region's highest clean energy goals would establish Maryland as the Mid-Atlantic's premier hub for clean energy jobs and investments. It would prove we're acting on climate-related economic warnings sounded by business leaders like former Bechtel President George Schultz and former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson in their "Risky Business" report.
Acting on climate empowers us to grow and protect our economy. While no policy on its own turns back the Chesapeake's rising tide, we must call upon our legislators — right now — to do all they can.
For the good of Maryland's economy, our lawmakers must pass the Maryland Clean Energy Advancement Act.
Eastport resident Jeff Benzak is the press secretary for Environmental Entrepreneurs, a national nonpartisan business group that advocates for policies that grow the economy and protect the environment. Contact him at jeff@e2.org.
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