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Gov. Wes Moore (D) will announce Friday that he is allocating nearly $500,000 to study the costs of climate change in the state — just months after he cited cost concerns as he vetoed a bill to spend almost the same amount of money for the same study.
Friday’s expected announcement comes just days before a special legislative session Tuesday, when lawmakers are expected to consider overriding Moore’s veto of the RENEW Act — for Responding to Emergency Needs From Extreme Weather — which included the climate study.
“While the federal government has spent the past year rolling back climate protections and driving up energy costs, Maryland is taking a responsible step toward understanding the true price tag of climate damage,” Moore wrote in a news release Friday.
The bill was part of a larger effort by climate activists in Maryland and across the country to eventually require large fossil fuel companies to compensate states for the effects of climate change, including flooding and extreme heat.
The study Moore is funding, which will be administered by the comptroller’s office, will also evaluate any potential impact to taxpayers if fossil fuel companies are compelled to make compensatory payments to the state. A final report is due by Dec. 1, 2026 — the same deadline as in the vetoed legislation.
It is not clear whether legislators will still pursue an override of the RENEW Act veto, bill sponsor David Fraser-Hidalgo (D-Montgomery) said.
“At the end of the day, I’m just excited to get going on the study,” Fraser-Hidalgo said. “I’ve been working on a version of this bill for five, going on six, years so I’m just excited to move the ball forward.”
Maryland isn’t alone in considering so-called “Make Polluters Pay,” or “climate Superfund” legislation. New York and Vermont have already passed legislation that will ultimately charge fossil fuel firms for a portion of climate damages. In New York, the tab is $75 billion over the next 25 years. Earlier this year, the Trump administration sued both states, challenging the laws, and those cases are ongoing.
In May, Moore shocked lawmakers when he vetoed a variety of studies, including one evaluating slavery reparations for African American Marylanders and another looking into the potential impacts of large-scale data centers in the state.
“Our current budget situation requires us to reconsider bills that create expensive and labor intensive studies,” Moore wrote in a veto letter about the climate study. “While such bills can be a first step to addressing complex issues and allow the signaling of support for an issue, the practice has become so commonplace that it is now a significant financial and staff burden on the state government.”
Since May, when the bill was vetoed, the administration has been able to secure a $30,000 grant from the Rockefeller Family Fund for the climate study. The remaining $470,000 will come from the state’s Strategic Energy Investment Fund over this fiscal year and the next, according to the governor’s office. The vetoed bill would have pulled all $500,000 from the SEIF in fiscal 2026.
“Governor Moore has maintained that Maryland doesn’t have to choose between a green economy and a growing economy,” said Moore spokesperson Rhyan Lake. “By leveraging both philanthropic funding and existing state funding sources over two fiscal years to fully fund this study at no expense to Maryland taxpayers, Governor Moore is continuing to take action on climate and build a more sustainable Maryland.”
When Moore vetoed the RENEW bill, climate advocates were shocked, noting that the administration had not previously voiced opposition to the bill. Mike Tidwell, founder of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, called the move “unforgivable.”
But it’s possible that Moore’s about-face will help him to make amends, as Annapolis gears up for its next full legislative session on Jan. 14.
“Maryland suffered devastating losses this summer due to climate change. From extreme flooding to heat deaths, the impacts of climate change are costing Marylanders now,” said Brittany Baker, Maryland director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network Action Fund. “We appreciate Governor Moore’s commitment to moving the climate costs study forward.”
Rockefeller Family Fund Director Lee Wasserman said the charity — which focuses on climate change, democracy and economic justice for women — supported the RENEW bill and others like it around the country, and was stunned by Moore’s veto.
“These costs are going to be landing on states including Maryland whether they figure out what they look like ahead of time or not, so it’s hard for me to imagine how achieving a greater understanding of the parameters of those costs could possibly be seen as negative,” Wasserman said. “To the contrary, it seems like good governance 101.”
“I’m less surprised that the governor has decided to backtrack, appropriately so, and give the state the opportunity to really practice good governance,” Wasserman said.
Prior studies have endeavored to tabulate bits and pieces of Maryland’s costs from climate change.
In 2024, the Maryland Department of the Environment estimated that it would take $1 billion per year to meet the state’s emissions reduction goals and transition to 100% clean energy. Amid historic budget shortfalls, the state has not allocated that amount to the effort, even though some programs are underway. Under state law, Maryland must reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions 60% from 2006 levels, by 2031.
An April report from the comptroller’s office indicated that Maryland experienced 85 natural disasters between 1980 and 2024, at a cost to the state of $10 billion to $20 billion.
“Although extreme weather events have always occurred, scientists can now quantify how much more intense and frequent they have become due to climate change,” read the report. “Maryland can use this emerging science to assess the additional expenditures the state is spending due to anthropogenic climate change.”
That report also cited research from the Center for Climate Integrity, which supports climate Superfund bills, that said trying to build a seawall to protect Maryland’s coastlines from rising seas would cost the state $27.4 billion by 2040.
The RENEW study will be done under a memorandum of understanding between the Maryland Energy Administration and the comptroller’s office, the governor’s news release said. Comptroller Brooke Lierman said the report “will build a roadmap for financial resilience in Maryland amid the challenges of climate change.”
Lawmakers raided the SEIF fund for other uses during this year’s legislative session. The fund — which is supposed to be used on energy projects such as solar panels, EV chargers and energy efficiency upgrades for low-income households — was used to fund a roughly $80 energy bill refund for all of the state’s residential customers, and to help correct a massive state budget deficit.
The SEIF is funded in part by “alternative compliance payments” from electricity suppliers who do not meet the state’s renewable energy mandates. It had ballooned in recent years because it was cheaper for suppliers to make the alternative compliance payments than to buy the required renewable energy credits from clean energy generators.
SEIF revenues went from $52,240 in alternative compliance payments in fiscal 2021 to $318 million by fiscal 2024, according to the fund’s most recent annual report.
— This story was updated on Friday, Dec. 12, to correct the fiscal years for which state SEIF funds will be used for the study. The money will come from fiscal 2026 and 2027.
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