In Historic Move, Maryland Public Service Commission Approves Two Offshore Wind Farms

The Maryland Public Service Commission today awarded offshore wind renewable energy credits (ORECs) to two projects, bringing what will become the nation’s largest offshore wind farms to Maryland’s shores. The two projects will bring 368 megawatts of wind energy capacity, together yielding over $1.8 billion of in-state spending, spurring the creation of almost 9,700 new direct and indirect jobs and contributing $74 million in state tax revenues over 20 years, according to the PSC.

Mike Tidwell, Executive Director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, stated:

“After years of visionary advocacy from citizens and businesses across Maryland, the state’s Public Service Commission today approved two major offshore wind farms off the coast of Ocean City, Maryland. These wind farms will be truly pioneering facilities, leading Maryland and the nation toward a 21st century economy that combats climate change and creates jobs in droves at the same time.

The Chesapeake Climate Action Network commends the PSC for correctly assessing the economic, health, and environmental gains integral to these projects. Major thanks must also go to the Maryland General Assembly for passing landmark legislation in 2013, which created incentives and guidelines for offshore wind development. And major credit must go to former Governor Martin O’Malley (D) and his staff who, for years, lead this fight with a vision filled with climate urgency, a sense of social justice, and a devotion to sustainable and vibrant economic growth. This major move toward offshore wind power would not have happened without Governor O’Malley.

Now CCAN is optimistic that the PSC approval today will quickly lead to near-term construction of nearly 400 megawatts of offshore wind. This marks the real start toward an extensive offshore wind industry that will one day soon stretch from Cape Cod, MA to Cape Hatteras, NC and provide as much as a third of the East Coast’s electricity

CONTACT:

Denise Robbins; Chesapeake Climate Action Network; denise@chesapeakeclimate.org; 608-620-8819

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Baltimore City Council Takes a Stand for Offshore Wind and Onshore Jobs

On May 8th, the Baltimore City Council resoundingly passed a resolution in support of offshore wind development in Maryland. Baltimore City Councilwoman Sharon Middleton introduced the resolution, which was co-sponsored by 14 of the 15 City Councilmembers, urging the Public Service Commission to approve one or both of the offshore wind farm proposals currently under consideration.
Before Monday’s vote, over 20 Baltimore residents, local elected officials, and environmental advocates rallied in front of City Hall to show support for offshore wind development and the Baltimore City Council resolution. Supporters displayed art created by local artists and activists for the Peoples Climate March, which many attended the previous weekend in Washington, DC.
 

Councilwoman Sharon Green Middleton, lead sponsor of the resolution and Vice-President of the Baltimore City Council, spoke at Monday’s rally: “It's important for Maryland, and more specifically, Baltimore, to get on board with organizations such as Clean Water Action and Chesapeake Climate Action Network to join other cities, states, and countries in the delivery of renewable wind energy projects. The health benefits, manufacturing careers, and resources are essential to the growth of our city. We have the components and now is the time!”
Councilwoman Sharon Green Middleton, lead sponsor of the resolution and Vice-President of the Baltimore City Council, spoke at Monday’s rally: “It’s important for Maryland, and more specifically, Baltimore, to get on board with organizations such as Clean Water Action and Chesapeake Climate Action Network to join other cities, states, and countries in the delivery of renewable wind energy projects. The health benefits, manufacturing careers, and resources are essential to the growth of our city. We have the components and now is the time!”

 
The Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) is currently reviewing two proposals for offshore wind projects off Ocean City, Maryland. These two proposals present Maryland, and Baltimore in particular, with the opportunity to become a hub for the growing offshore wind industry. US Wind plans to build a 748-megawatt offshore wind farm, and Skipjack Offshore Wind proposes a 120-megawatt project. Both applicants have named Sparrows Point in Baltimore County as the site of a future assembly and manufacturing plant for their operations.
The Public Service Commission found that development, construction, and operation of the first phase of the US Wind project (248 megawatts) would create 7,050 jobs over 20 years and generate an estimated $1,354 million in economic activity for the state. The Public Service Commission also found that development, construction, and operation of the Skipjack project would create 2,635 jobs over 20 years and generate an estimated $536.4 million in economic activity for the state. Much of the economic activity created by both projects would take place in Baltimore City and Baltimore County.
 
Laqeisha Greene, a young activist and lifelong resident of Baltimore City who is a member of the United Workers Leadership Council, the Westside Human Rights committee, and the Baltimore Housing Roundtable, proclaimed, "Baltimore needs offshore wind energy! Why? Because for too long this city has stood on feeble legs with the stance that trickle down development works, and it doesn't. It's time for the city government to invest in green energy and companies that will offer skilled tradework that's marketable and life sustaining."
Laqeisha Greene, a young activist and lifelong resident of Baltimore City who is a member of the United Workers Leadership Council, the Westside Human Rights committee, and the Baltimore Housing Roundtable, proclaimed, “Baltimore needs offshore wind energy! Why? Because for too long this city has stood on feeble legs with the stance that trickle down development works, and it doesn’t. It’s time for the city government to invest in green energy and companies that will offer skilled tradework that’s marketable and life sustaining.”

 
Not only would offshore wind projects create jobs and economic activity in Maryland and in Baltimore, a commitment to offshore wind energy would also displace polluting sources of energy, many of which are located in and around Baltimore, improving air quality across the state and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
As an urban center and a port city, Baltimore has high potential for being heavily impacted by climate change. State and local efforts to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and invest in clean, renewable energy like offshore wind are important contributions to overall emissions reductions. 
 
“The Maryland Environmental Health Network supports offshore wind in Maryland because it is a real opportunity to displace pollution that increases poor health outcomes for Marylanders,” said MdEHN’s Executive Director Tamara Toles O'Laughlin. “We rank fifth in the nation in adult asthma and have some of the worst ground level ozone pollution in our region. Installed turbines generate no pollution. It is time to act on climate, and embrace renewable energy for cleaner air and better health for all.”
“The Maryland Environmental Health Network supports offshore wind in Maryland because it is a real opportunity to displace pollution that increases poor health outcomes for Marylanders,” said MdEHN’s Executive Director Tamara Toles O’Laughlin. “We rank fifth in the nation in adult asthma and have some of the worst ground level ozone pollution in our region. Installed turbines generate no pollution. It is time to act on climate, and embrace renewable energy for cleaner air and better health for all.”

 
The Public Service Commission must decide by May 17th whether or not to approve the proposals. If approved, these offshore wind projects could bring thousands of family-sustaining jobs to the Baltimore area, reduce Maryland’s reliance on fossil fuels, and limit air pollution.
 
Larry Bannerman, a resident of the Turner Station neighborhood near Sparrow’s Point and member of the Turner Station Conservation Teams, with 38 years of experience in High Voltage test, maintenance and repair, stated, “Fortunately for us, there is a tried and tested source of clean energy that is bringing with it, jobs and skills for the future. That source of energy is offshore wind. I support the U.S. Wind project.”
Larry Bannerman, a resident of the Turner Station neighborhood near Sparrow’s Point and member of the Turner Station Conservation Teams, with 38 years of experience in High Voltage test, maintenance and repair, stated, “Fortunately for us, there is a tried and tested source of clean energy that is bringing with it, jobs and skills for the future. That source of energy is offshore wind. I support the U.S. Wind project.”

 
By passing this resolution on Monday, Baltimore City took a stand in support of offshore wind, family-sustaining jobs, and a stable climate. Now it’s up to the PSC to approve offshore wind in Maryland. Stay tuned! 

Offshore Wind Is A Fair Development Opportunity In Baltimore

For far too long, Baltimore has been forced to bear the burden of failed development that pollutes the city, causes disproportionate health impacts, and forces residents out of their communities. But now, offshore wind presents the city with an opportunity to become a manufacturing hub for clean energy.
South Baltimore is host to a slew of polluting and dangerous developments, including a 200-acre coal pier, medical waste incinerator, and numerous chemical and pesticide plants. It is also home to a crude oil shipping terminal. “Bomb trains” carrying explosive crude oil from North Dakota travel through the city, and many stop at the NuStar Energy Storage Terminal in Fairfield to transfer oil from rail to barge in order to ship it to refineries in the Northeast.
From 2013 to 2014, over 100 million gallons of crude oil were transported into Baltimore by rail to be offloaded and shipped to refineries. Transporting crude by rail puts 165,000 people in the “blast zone” in Baltimore – the area that could be directly impacted if a train were to derail and explode. Bakken crude oil is highly volatile and transporting it by rail has had devastating consequences, most notably the 2013 derailment and explosion in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec that killed 47 people and leveled the town.
There have been close calls in Baltimore in recent years. Last June, a train carrying acetone derailed in the Howard Street Tunnel right next to the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) — my alma mater. A school parking lot was filled with emergency vehicles for over a week while the derailment was contained. Last month, eight cars on a CSX freight train derailed on a sharp curve in Frederick County. While nothing spilled, the train was carrying hazardous materials and was traveling the same route that crude oil trains have been known to take to reach Baltimore.
And two weeks ago, a fire broke out in a scrap yard in Fairfield just across the street from the oil train shipping terminal there. The fire was contained, but once again, Baltimoreans were faced with a terrifying “what if” scenario had the fire reached the terminal.
These close calls, along with the string of derailments, fires, and explosions caused by oil trains across the country, demonstrate that transporting crude by rail is an unacceptable gamble that endangers people who live, work, and go to school near the tracks.
Meanwhile, it is clear that Marylanders are ready for clean energy.
Last month, the state held two public hearings in Berlin and Annapolis where residents showed up in droves to voice their support for offshore wind farm proposals.
Throughout the three-hour hearing in Berlin, person after person got up in front of the packed auditorium to speak about how offshore wind will help clean Maryland’s air, provide a reliable source of renewable energy, and create thousands of jobs across the state. Union members were a strong presence at the hearing, from piledrivers to carpenters, all of whom stand to benefit from the potential manufacturing and construction jobs across the state. And as a Baltimorean, talk of repurposing Sparrows Point into a wind turbine manufacturing hub was particularly exciting.
Instead of continuing to invest in failed development that brings polluting and dangerous materials like explosive crude oil into the heart of the city, Baltimore has an opportunity to become a central hub for clean energy jobs and fair development. Offshore wind offers one exciting pathway for a just transition in Baltimore where the city can move away from the polluting, dangerous fossil fuel industries of the past and become a clean energy powerhouse.
Tell the Public Service Commission to approve offshore wind in Maryland to help make this fair development future a reality in Baltimore.

 
 
Image at top from Sandia National Laboratories.

VIRGINIA SEEKS PUBLIC COMMENT ON EPA’S CARBON REDUCTION PLAN

Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has just wrapped up a series of listening sessions last week, eliciting public feedback on the EPA’s new draft rules for carbon reductions for existing power plants. These rules, known as the Clean Power Plan, or “111(d)” as policy wonks call them, are the signature components of the President’s Climate Action Plan and are designed to make America the leader in the fight against climate change by reducing the nation’s CO2 by 30% by 2030. (In case you’re wondering, 111(d) is the code section of the Clean Air Act which gives the EPA the authority to regulate CO2). Virginia’s specific carbon reduction target is 38% below 2012 levels by 2030.
The DEQ listening session took place in Henrico on Thursday night. Four speakers representing various co-operatives and the VA Chamber of Commerce spoke in opposition of the draft rules, a modest effort and fine showing if it were not dwarfed by the 24 citizens and environmental representatives speaking passionately about the need to support the rules and fight against climate change.
As expected, the dirty polluters spouted the familiar tired arguments: efforts designed to cut carbon pollution would increase rates, reduce jobs, and stymie economic productivity. These arguments fly in the face of numerous studies suggesting that smart investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency can actually provide a cool billion dollars in energy savings for Virginia customers, while adding 21st century jobs and providing a spark to the clean energy economy.
Further, reducing harmful carbon pollution from our environment has the added benefit of improving the public health of the commonwealth’s 8.2 million residents. While Virginia has much to be proud of, its capital city of Richmond winning the Asthma and Allergy Foundation’s “Asthma Capital” award not once but TWICE should be enough to give rule-makers pause.
If that weren’t enough, coal’s pollution has a well-documented disproportionate effect on many minority and other low-income communities. In fact, the NAACP recently released a stunning report highlighting that 68% of blacks in America live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant. Our friends at Virginia New Majority provided much-needed and oft-overlooked testimony to this disparity during the Henrico hearing on Thursday.
And oh by the way, rising seas, devastating storms, punishing droughts, and other climate disruptions will be mitigated by reducing carbon pollution in the environment. Added all up and the benefits v. harms of the Clean Power Plan are as lopsided as the 24-4 representation DEQ witnessed at its listening session in Henrico.
DETAILS ON THE CLEAN POWER PLAN
EPA outlined four “building blocks” for states to use in order to meet the carbon reduction goals. These four options are available for states to use and experiment with, allowing each state maximum flexibility in determining which mechanism, and to what extent, the state should use to achieve its goal. The building blocks are:
1)      Heat rate improvements at coal-fired power plants,
2)      Shifting dispatch from coal to natural gas,
3)      Increasing renewable and nuclear generation, and
4)      Increasing demand-side energy efficiency
Building block number two for the state’s consideration, swapping coal for natural gas, is akin to a Vicodin addict swapping the pills for a steady diet of Jack Daniels. Gone is the Vicodin addiction, as well as the pain temporarily, but the long-term effects of severe alcoholism can be equally as damaging, if not more-so, than the initial problem.
Our nation’s longtime dependence on coal has been a danger to climate stability. But a fast switch to natural gas as the solution to the coal dependency is not the answer. Methane leakage from the production, transport, and usage of natural gas accounts for nearly 10% of U.S. greenhouse gas pollution, ranking 2nd behind CO2. Over a 100 year period, methane emissions are more than 20 times more potent of a climate change pollutant than CO2, which makes a switch from coal to gas seem more like a dodge than a direct attempt to solve the climate problem.
Virginia has incredible untapped potential for efficiency, solar, and particularly offshore wind. These resources need to be fully tapped before other options are considered.
TIMELINE FOR IMPLEMENTATION
The draft EPA rules were first announced on June 2, 2014 and made official on June 18, 2014. Since then, DEQ has organized listening sessions to provide feedback on the rules. EPA asks that all entities (citizens, businesses, government agencies like DEQ, etc.) to submit comments back to EPA by October 16, 2014.
Thereafter, EPA will develop its final and binding carbon reduction rules to be released in June of 2015. Virginia will have one year, until June 30, 2016, to provide EPA with a detailed State Implementation Plan, outlining how the commonwealth will achieve its carbon reduction goals.
Virginia has the option of achieving the goals on its own, or by joining a multi-state collaboration like the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). If Virginia decides to join RGGI, a collaborative with proven success and one in which CCAN steadfastly urges the state to join, it will have until June 30, 2018 to do so and outline its intention to achieve the goals under the final rules proposed by EPA.
All states have until 2030 to achieve its state-specific carbon reduction goals – until 2032 to ensure the carbon reduction goals are met under three years averages for 2030, 2031, and 2032. CCAN will be there every step of the way to ensure Virginia makes the right decisions for our climate.

Governor O’Malley announces 2013 offshore wind bill with 24 Senate co-sponsors

For Immediate Release
January 22, 2013

Contact:
Mike Tidwell, (240) 460-5838, mtidwell@chesapeakeclimate.org
Tom Carlson, (651) 587-0730, tom@chesapeakeclimate.org

Announcement follows release of a new poll showing 72% of Maryland voters support investment in offshore wind development

ANNAPOLIS—Governor Martin O’Malley was joined by members of the General Assembly and advocates from across the state today to announce the introduction of a bill to spur development of Maryland’s offshore wind energy resource.

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Sandy Reminds Us to Harness Winds and Mitigate Their Wrath

Maryland was just hit by Hurricane Sandy, the largest storm ever recorded to hit the East Coast, but not as hard as states like New Jersey and New York:

“We all dodged a bullet on this one,” Anne Arundel County Fire Battalion Chief Steve Thompson said Tuesday from the county’s emergency operations center. “If that storm would have wiggled a little bit south, with those winds, it would have been a doozie.”

Yet, 300,000 people from Virginia to Baltimore remained without power Tuesday evening and many areas of the state experienced extensive flooding.  The fishing pier on Ocean City’s iconic boardwalk is now half-gone.  Sadly there were also a couple storm related deaths in Maryland as well as a number of injuries.

As we begin to rebuild, the first thing we must do is make sure everyone is safe and has what they need to survive in our state and across the country.  Please donate if you can to the American Red Cross as they most certainly will need more robust funding in the coming years and decades.

Once we get back on our feet, with the metro running in DC and the subways back on track in New York City, we must immediately focus on what we can do to lessen the wrath of ever-worsening storms like Sandy.  Perhaps Stephen Lacey and Joe Romm put it best when describing the link between human-caused climate change and these new super-storms: 

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Minority Business Leaders Urge Passage of MD Wind Bill

 

Annapolis, 4/6/12
By James McGarry

With time running out in the Maryland General Assembly, a group of minority business and civic leaders from across the state gathered Friday in Annapolis to urge immediate passage of the Offshore Wind Energy Act (SB 237) in the Senate Finance Committee. Leaders highlighted the health and environmental benefits of the bill, as well as the fact that tens of millions of dollars in minority business funds will be lost if the Senate Finance Committee fails to act.

In attendance representing Maryland businesses were Lance Lucas, President of the Greater Baltimore Black Chamber of Commerce, Vernon Wade, President/CEO of Wade Enterprises, Inc. and chair of the Prince George’s County Chamber of Commerce, and Shawn Young of the Prince George’s Electrical Association. In addition to the thousands of jobs that would be created over the next five years and the more than $100 million in economic opportunities for minority businesses, the speakers emphasized the environmental and health benefits that would result from the bill, citing that African American children are disproportionately affected by asthma.

“If Maryland doesn’t act now, this opportunity could pass us by,” said Wade, before adding that, “we can consider this a game changer.”

The bill must clear the Senate Finance Committee to reach the Senate floor for a vote by Monday, April 9, before the end of the legislative session. It cleared the House of Delegates on March 30 by a margin of 88-47. Supporters are currently working hard to secure a sixth vote in the eleven member panel. Committee Chairman Thomas “Mac” Middleton said the panel will not vote until after the bill has firm majority support within the committee.

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