The Energy and Policy Institute published a detailed account this week of Maryland utilities’ abusing their ratepayers' funds to pay for political activities.
Maryland utilities Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) and Washington Gas wielded their influence over county officials in recent months in an attempt to halt the implementation of local electrification policies requiring all-electric buildings in new development.
In Howard County, records highlight BGE’s involvement in providing testimony and talking points for county council members for Council Bill 5, which recommends changes to county building codes to implement all-electric buildings.
In an email to BGE’s external affairs manager, Marche Taylor Templeton, Howard County Councilman David Yungmann praised the testimony submitted by BGE, saying he believed it “would dispel lots of myths being promoted by the climate change crowd” including the system’s “ability to handle the demand, the immense cost to increase capacity, the relationship between gas and electric costs and how federal policy drives that, or the efficiency of gas furnaces versus heat pumps.”
The BGE testimony provided cost estimates for electrification based on BGE’s own projections without providing citations for where the estimates came from. After the hearing on the bill, Yungmann thanked Templeton for letting him “plagiarize” BGE’s testimony. Two days later, Yungmann’s district aide reached out to Templeton leading up to the Howard County council work session on Council Bill 5 to ask a BGE representative to join, calling BGE’s testimony “really compelling.”
In February, Yungmann proposed several amendments to weaken Council Bill 5, including removing the language “for all new construction, major renovations, and additions,” adding language to protect certain gas appliances, and including considerations regarding “system capacity” for recommendations to the building code. In addition to prioritizing gas appliances in an electrification bill, the amendments cut back the number of projects that would require electrification in future developments and use phrasing to falsely imply deficiencies electrification imposes on the reliability of the county’s power supply. Yungmann told EPI that he “doesn’t remember” if he asked for input from BGE for his amendments to weaken electrification in the bill.
In Montgomery County, records highlight utility involvement in proposing amendments to an building electrification bill and the relationship between BGE, Washington Gas, and County Councilmembers.
Bill 13–22, entitled “Comprehensive Building Decarbonization,” requires the County Executive to issue new building codes with “all-electric building” standards for new construction by the end of 2026.
In late November 2022, BGE emailed the Montgomery County Council President and staff with proposed amendments to Bill 13-22. The amendments focused on extending the timeline for the transition to electric buildings and establishing the same timeline for commercial and large, multi-family buildings. The utility also sent a memo to the county council mischaracterizing the bill as a “ban” on methane gas and warning that passing the bill could remove the county from consideration for future hydrogen projects under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
Washington Gas also seized the opportunity to include input on the bill, using recent news of a plane colliding with a power line in the county to address the council president, stating, “in light of the power outages across Montgomery County, it’s important for me to reemphasize the resilience benefits of the gas system.” Washington Gas lobbyist Manuel Geraldo further criticized the bill and cited two studies from the American Gas Association, the gas industry’s trade association with a long history of undermining electrification and promoting doubt on climate.
The article “Maryland utilities lobbying against adoption of local electrification policies” first appeared in the Energy and Policy Institute.