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Majority‑leader bill would require annual EV‑charging adequacy plan to meet greenhouse‑gas targets
Summary
House Bill 897 would require Maryland to produce recurring assessments of electric‑vehicle charging needs tied to the state's greenhouse‑gas reduction goals, aiming to measure ‘adequacy’ of public and private charging networks and inform future investments.
At a Feb. 20 Environment and Transportation Committee hearing, the House Majority Leader introduced House Bill 897 to require Maryland to assess annually how much electric‑vehicle charging infrastructure the state would need to meet its statutory greenhouse‑gas reduction targets, including a 60 percent reduction benchmark cited by the sponsor.
The sponsor said the bill is not itself a funding authorization but an “adequacy and needs” planning requirement: an annual accounting of where the state stands in provisioning charger capacity and what is needed to meet long‑range climate and clean‑vehicle targets. He described personal observations driving an EV across Maryland and on a test trip to Florida, and cited polling showing owner dissatisfaction tied to public‑charging adequacy; he also said current planning largely focuses on federal grant spending rather than a comprehensive statewide needs analysis.
Committee members asked whether the bill would duplicate work already done under federal programs such as the NEVI (National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure) program and how it should account for private‑sector deployment and charging at residences. The sponsor said his intent was to make an annual planning requirement that could be aligned with existing MDOT work and to minimize a fiscal note by tailoring the bill to ongoing agency analyses. Delegate Bruce and others asked whether suspended federal programs and funding gaps affect the plan; the sponsor said the bill should be independent of federal funding and focus on identifying the state’s gap to meet statutory goals.
Witnesses, including transportation and civic‑planning advocates, generally supported the idea of an adequacy plan. Ben Ross offered Montgomery County data the committee might use; committee members requested that the sponsor and witnesses share the cited Montgomery County reports and other underlying materials.
The sponsor said he expects to work with MDOT and other stakeholders to refine the bill’s language and align it with agency work so the assessment can be produced without a large new fiscal cost. No vote was taken at the hearing.
