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Lawmakers weigh bill requiring Maryland to plan EV charging needs to meet greenhouse‑gas goals
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Summary
House Bill 897 would require Maryland to annually assess and report on EV charging infrastructure needs for state greenhouse‑gas reduction targets; sponsor said current federal funding and decentralized planning are insufficient to ensure adequate statewide charging networks.
House Bill 897, introduced to the House Environment and Transportation Committee on Feb. 20, would require the Maryland Department of Transportation and related agencies to analyze and report on the state’s electric vehicle charging needs in order to meet statutory greenhouse‑gas reduction targets.
House Majority Leader (sponsor) said the bill codifies a planning requirement he characterized as missing from existing state law. "We need some sort of bill like this that would codify a requirement that we actually understand how far we are from how many EV charging stations we need," he told the committee, citing both his own long‑range trips and polling showing owner concerns about public charging availability.
The sponsor framed HB897 as an "adequacy and needs analysis" rather than a funding bill. He said federal grants such as NEVI (National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure formula funding) provide money for sites but do not by themselves create a statewide adequacy plan for a usable public charging network. Committee members asked whether the bill would replace or supplement federal programs; the sponsor said the bill should "ride independent" of federal programs and would aim to align with work already underway at MDOT to avoid duplicative fiscal impacts.
Delegates and witnesses discussed several planning questions: how to account for private charging (home, workplace), whether planning should explicitly include heavy‑duty truck charging, and whether charging infrastructure should be required in new construction. Representative testimony from other delegates and witnesses noted that public perception of charging availability affects adoption: the sponsor cited polling in which roughly 40% of EV owners said they would not repurchase, and cited 35% who said the public network was inadequate.
The committee heard that MDOT and other agencies already perform some planning tied to state fleet electrification, building codes and federal grant spending, but no consolidated, statewide adequacy analysis for general consumer EV adoption. The sponsor said he planned to limit the bill’s fiscal effect by aligning statutory requirements with existing administrative work to produce annual or periodic adequacy reports.
Ending: Committee members expressed interest in the bill’s planning approach and encouraged coordination with MDOT. No vote was taken at the hearing; sponsors and administration staff were invited to refine the bill’s scope and reporting schedule.
