August 8 – Maryland Climate Pathway is bringing a listening session to discuss the state’s climate change report tonight at 6 p.m. at Hagerstown Community College.
There will also be a chance for feedback from those in attendance, so YOU can have your say in how these regulations would affect your life.
Pat Ryan of NewsTalk 103.7FM pointed out, “We’re seeing appliance owners having to talk to customers about these crackdowns when it comes to the greeniacs out there. Washing machines are not getting clothes as clean as before. If you’re a business owner or you’re a builder in Maryland, you have to be heard with the overreach out of the left hand side when it comes to a building and keeping people warm and lit up in Maryland.”
Attorney Clint Barkdoll said, “I think we all agree there’s things people individually can do to help in various regards. I think everyone wants to help with the environment and energy conservation, but my word of caution would be to look at what some of these states like California have done in these areas. It has really backfired. All of these building code updates they’ve done in California, for example, with low flow toilets and washing machines and things related to gas hookups that they’re now not allowed to do. It has really backfired. It has greatly escalated the cost of construction. We know that California lost population for the first time ever in this last census. I think if you’re another state you need to be looking at that like hey, it’s great if you have all these goals, but at some point, you can get past that critical tipping point where you may actually be doing more damage than good if you implement a lot of these initiatives in a very aggressive way.”
Michele Jansen of NewsTalk 103.7FM added, “And Maryland seems to be wanting to do that, at least from the new administration. They want to follow in California’s footsteps. Montgomery County being the first county I think in the northeast to enact these bans on gas for any of the new construction happening in 2027. They very much tout the fact that this is what California did and we’re doing it too, but they’re not paying attention to all the problems California is having. Not to mention, one of the reasons the employment level is the way it is in Maryland, which sounds like a great number is because so many people have actually left the state. So their workforce is down. Meaning it makes unemployment lower, but not for a good reason.”
Barkdoll said, “In California, another one that was on that list out there as I recall, all new construction had to have EV plugin stations, and that added thousands of dollars per housing unit, but then they were even requiring it on office and commercial buildings. And if you look at a lot of the surveys that were done, those people that were relocating, think of like Tesla, or just all of the citizens that went to Texas and Nevada and other states. They would cite the regulatory environment in California, that it just got too much for them. It got too expensive for them to live or to operate as a business. Every time someone leaves like that, or certainly if it’s a big business that leaves, in the aggregate, you’re costing the state billions of dollars in lost tax revenue. So again, if I’m on that committee in Maryland, I think you’ve really got to strike a balance between common sense things that might be environmentally friendly versus actually forcing businesses and people to possibly leave the state.”
