Last night the Maryland legislature passed a world-class solar program -- 1,400 MW of solar on rooftops over the next 15 years, putting Maryland in the upper echelon of solar-supporting states. Kudos, congrats, and thanks to the Maryland advocates that made this happen.
That this passed is a good thing. But how it passed is a lesson that bears wider dissemination.
After the bill passed out of both the House and Senate by commanding majorities (Senate 30-17, and House 128-7) a small cabal of Senators took it upon themselves to do whatever it took to kill it -- including parliamentary maneuvers to delay action until the session ended.
Ahh, democracy.
So over the weekend, Maryland citizens sent hundreds of emails, and phone calls lit up the switchboards Monday morning -- all demanding that the Maryland Senate stand firm and not allow last-minute shenanigans to kill the solar bill. And when State Senator EJ Pipkin stood up Monday night to filibuster ... his cabal had evaporated.
Ahh, democracy.
The lesson here is that people want to see solar happen, and when that popular desire is harnessed effectively ... well, we win. The will of the people cannot be forever denied.
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GreenEngineer Posted 2:02 pm
10 Apr 2007
There was already a rebate program in place, but it was unsteady, because it required reauthorization of funds every year or two. Then there was a bill called SB-1, which would have created a 10-year declining-schedule rebate program. It had great public support, and the Governator was prepared to sign it. But the IBEW (electrician's union) decided that it had to die (for reasons that are still unclear to me). They arranged for the 11-hour insertion of a "poison pill" measure, requiring union labor on PV installations (union rate is about 3x the standard, non-union PV installer's rate, and significantly more than I make per hour as an engineer). The bill would have killed the economics of solar, had it passed, so it died in the legislature.
But the popular support for solar was so strong that the Public Utilities Commission, essentially by fiat, created a 10 year rebate program on the SB-1 model and called it the California Solar Initiative. This is something they would not have dared do, except that everyone wanted SB-1 to pass except for a few special interests.
(As an afterword, the bill was reintroduced in the next session, with the objectionable measure removed, and it passed cleanly. This was necessary because the CSI was able to implement most, but not all, of SB-1's features, due to limits on the power of the PUC.)
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xss500 Posted 10:58 pm
18 Aug 2008
Maryland Drug Treatment
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