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Delegate Baylor seeks pilot to pay private landowners to preserve forest cover
Summary
Delegate Dylan Baylor urged a favorable report on HB 15-60, which would direct DNR to define an ecological value for private forests and pilot payments or incentives for landowners to preserve forest on voluntary long-term agreements; opponents warned it could subsidize timber extraction and requires careful fiscal review.
Delegate Dylan Baylor told the Environment and Transportation Committee on March 11 that House Bill 15-60 would create two linked reforms to boost private forest conservation in Maryland: require the Department of Natural Resources to develop criteria that quantify the "ecological value" of privately held forest land and fund a pilot program to test incentives for landowners who keep forests intact.
"I would respectfully request a favorable report," Baylor said, arguing the measures would add data-driven guidance to state policy and complement prior work such as the Tree Solutions Now Act and the Forest Conservation Act. He framed the pilot as a way to expand incentives beyond property-tax relief and to test alternative funding mechanisms that would not shift disproportionate burden to county property tax bases.
Gary Allen, president of the Maryland Forestry Foundation, backed the bill as "one of the most innovative forestry bills you've probably seen in several decades," and described a concept in which additional payments would be tied to a generational commitment — for example two decades — by a landowner to protect forest land.
James S. Bardsley Jr., a private forest landowner and acting chair of the Forestry Board of Caroline County, said the bill supports voluntary stewardship rather than imposing permanent easements or taking property rights. "This bill recognizes that good forest stewardship is not automatic,” he said, adding that private owners provide benefits such as nutrient filtration for the Chesapeake Bay and carbon sequestration.
During questioning, committee members pressed whether any state has implemented a similar system (panelists said they were not aware of an existing model), whether DNR had already completed work on property-tax-based incentives, and how any new program would be funded. Panelists said those are the kinds of issues the DNR-led pilot would be expected to study and report back on.
Opponents raised sharper criticisms. Sonia Demery of the Climate Communications Coalition urged an unfavorable report, saying HB 15-60 "is not an environmental bill" and warning the proposal could subsidize expanded timber markets; she noted the bill seeks $10,000,000 as a subsidy in her testimony. Mako representative Dom Butchko said his organization had implementation concerns and would prefer to work with the sponsor to refine practical details.
The committee took public testimony and questions; the hearing record in the transcript ends with the submission of unfavorable testimony and closure of the HB 15-60 hearing. No formal committee vote on the bill appears in the provided transcript.
The next steps described in the hearing were procedural: the sponsor requested a favorable report and opponents asked for additional fiscal and implementation detail. If advanced, the DNR pilot would be expected to return more concrete cost projections and fee‑design options for lawmakers to consider.
