Appropriations Committee approves a package of bills including school solar reviews, transit fare changes and disability fare recertification

The Appropriations Committee held a voting session in which members approved a slate of bills on education, transportation, labor and environmental programs.

The committee voted to pass House Bill 61, which removes a mandate to install solar-support infrastructure at new school parking lots and replaces it with a requirement that construction documents and county boards submit an evaluation of parking-lot solar canopy feasibility. "It will actually just require an evaluation," Delegate Smith said when presenting the bill and its amendments.

Members approved House Bill 84 after amendments that raised the project threshold for required assessments to $100 million, added impact-assessment duties for the Maryland Department of Transportation (as presented), and changed some climate-offset requirements from mandatory to permissive language.

Other measures approved included binding-arbitration limits for state-employee wage arbitration (House Bill 159, exempting institutions of higher education and subjecting awards to state budget limitations); a 42-hour workweek enforcement bill for firefighters that applies prospectively in jurisdictions without existing agreements (House Bill 205); and several program and funding bills ranging from expanded eligibility for veterans' benefits to…