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Green Bank says resilience work will complement clean-energy investments
Summary
Green Bank leadership told the committee its resilience and energy strategies are "symbiotic," citing projects such as battery backups, flood mitigation, high-performance construction and a Climate Smart Agriculture pilot as examples that can advance both resilience and greenhouse-gas goals.
Representatives of the Montgomery County Green Bank told the Transportation and Environment Committee that expanding allowed uses of fuel energy tax revenue to include resilience activities would enable private capital to be mobilized for projects that both reduce emissions and reduce climate risks.
"We have developed a strategy that we call protecting the path to net 0," said Mr. Morrell, a Green Bank representative, explaining the bank's resilience and adaptation strategy. "We feel as though that these are symbiotic activities." He described two coordinated tracks (physical resilience and energy resilience) and four implementation pathways including packaging solutions and piloting programs.
Morrell gave concrete examples: high-performance new construction, sewer-line hardening, EV readiness, cooling towers and new HVAC, battery backup, flood mitigation, rain gardens, green roofs and permeable pavement. He also noted the bank has worked with multifamily buildings and faith institutions in partnership with Habitat for Humanity and cited a Climate Smart Agriculture pilot that provided grant mechanisms to improve resilience and greenhouse-gas mitigation in the agricultural reserve.
The Green Bank framed these efforts as risk-mitigation that can lower the long-term economic cost of disasters by addressing vulnerabilities proactively and leveraging private investment.
