It’s that time of year again—the 447th Maryland Legislative Session is underway, running from January 8 through April 7, 2025!

We’ve been gearing up to advocate for legislation that will have a lasting, positive impact on the Chesapeake Bay and communities within the watershed. This year, Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake and Interfaith Power and Light (DC.MD.NoVA) reached out to our network of Advocacy Members to solicit their input regarding what the most important environmental issues are to our network. As we discussed our policy priorities for the 2025 session, we took this feedback into consideration and determined the three bills that we’ll be advocating for this session:

The Bottle Bill:

Beverage container deposit programs are a proven, highly effective policy for recovering used beverage containers and reducing litter. Ten U.S. states, covering about 90 million people, have longstanding, successful beverage container deposit programs, and they are spreading globally in response to the plastic pollution crisis. A small deposit is added to the purchase of beverage containers that is refunded to customers when the containers are returned for recycling. States with a 10-cent deposit have achieved beverage container recycling rates of 90%. 

The Program would place a 10- to 15-cent refundable deposit (depending on container size) on plastic, glass, and aluminum beverage containers. The deposit would be refunded when consumers return the container at a retailer or other redemption point for recycling. The retailers and conveniently located redemption facilities would be equipped with reverse vending machines, bag drops, and high-speed counting and sorting technology to expedite processing and prevent fraud.

Better Buildings Act:

This bill will add a requirement for new buildings and major renovations to meet all water and space heating demands without the use of fossil fuels, effectively mandating building electrification for new construction. It will also require new buildings over 25,000 square feet to meet energy conservation standards that would become more stringent every three years, culminating in net-zero energy by 2035.

The Better Buildings Act had a strong advocacy coalition, led last session by the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and was supported by the U.S. Green Building Council. Despite significant efforts, the bill did not pass either the House or the Senate.

CHERISH Act:

In the past five years, a number of states across the country have made significant leaps forward in environmental justice permitting reform to address the cumulative impacts of multiple polluters in overburdened communities, led by experienced grassroots leaders in overburdened communities themselves. Inspired by this recent progress, especially in New York, Minnesota, and New Jersey, the South Baltimore Community Land Trust has worked with the Mid-Atlantic Justice Coalition to develop the CHERISH Our Communities Act to finally bring cumulative impacts reform to Maryland.

This bill will apply new permitting requirements to a list of facilities and permit types of greatest concern to overburdened communities across Maryland. If a permit would increase the burden of pollution on an overburdened community, it would not be granted without meaningful conditions imposed and a Community Benefits Agreement.

Want to learn more about these bills and how to make your voice heard? 

Please join us virtually at 2 p.m. on February 2nd as we discuss how your community can advocate for legislation that promotes clean air, clean water, and environmental justice. We’ll hear from experts about priority legislation, why it’s important for Maryland, and how, as people of faith, we can be advocates from a moral and religious perspective.

We’re glad to be able to provide a forum for our network of faithful, green stewards to discuss and learn about these important bills! You can register for the 2025 Maryland Legislative Session Briefing here!