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Committee advances solar siting bill after contentious debate over farmland carve‑outs and 5% threshold
Summary
House Bill 1036, setting statewide siting rules for solar and storage and enabling up to 5% of certain priority preservation land for solar without local approval, passed the Economic Matters Committee after prolonged debate about impacts on Eastern Shore agriculture and preserved lands.
The Economic Matters Committee advanced House Bill 1036, which establishes standardized siting requirements for solar energy generating stations and storage devices, creates a distributed‑generation CPCN path, and tasks the Maryland Department of Labor with creating a special solar contractor license. The bill, as amended and approved by the committee, also directs the Department of Natural Resources to identify state lands suitable for solar development and includes provisions limiting solar development on certain preserved lands.
Why it matters: Delegates from Eastern Shore counties strongly opposed portions of the bill, arguing that even a 5% threshold applied to priority preservation areas would convert thousands of acres of farmland to solar and fundamentally alter agricultural…
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