The Memo will be posted here after the email version has been sent.

We have to sympathize with members of the General Assembly, even the ones whose stances and votes we generally don't like. How do you take a role in keeping the State of Maryland afloat and surviving when the national "leadership" keeps the engines of the economy in a high state of uncertainty, grinding out a war of choice that persistently has a vanishing off-ramp, and (in the case of Trump) keeps the planet off-balance with his bizarre behavior and mood changes. Nevertheless, the last full week of the session of the session is upon us (and them, too, the legislators) and the lack of certainty about expectations of revenue and costs of running a state leave everyone in a state of confusion.

The Memo will be posted here when the email version has been sent.

General Assembly members appear to have wrestled Maryland's budget deficit to a draw though maybe only a temporary respite. But as April and the mad rush to adjournment approaches, patches are still being applied and injured constituency groups still in full cry. Meanwhile, Marylanders took up the No Kings cause with anger and enthusiasm, along with an estimated 8 million Americans nationwide, protesting the Iran conflict-of-choice, the often lethal misbehavior of poorly trained ICE goons in disfavored Blue cities around the nation, and the general violation of constitutional rights and the balance-of-power system by Trump's reckless misuse of presidential power. Federal and district judges are sharpening the language in their opinions about the flood of cases rising from Trump's hyper-aggressive seizure of authority, the New York Times suggesting this is a symptom of " a growing sense among district-court judges that President Trump’s second term is an all-hands-on-deck constitutional emergency." No Kings, indeed. It's News You Can Use.

While all sorts of warlike behavior is going on outside US borders -- including those of Maryland -- more contained struggles continue in Annapolis, as we see below. Some high-profile bills are getting high-level attention, in many cases because they don't cost much. Others, more costly, are simmering in committees as we arrive at Crossover Day, a symbolic moment when bills must emerge from one chamber in order to be (more or less) guaranteed full rather than hasty consideration in the other chamber. Longtime observers can already see the first bubbles in the boiling stew that is the last week or two of the session, when the toughest (and often most expensive) legislation gets pummeled and massaged in hopes of achieving passage before that wonderful, unpronouncible moment called sine die, which your Latin teacher would probably have told you should be rendered as "see-nay dee-ay." Oh, well.

On Capitol Hill, Trump has time despite his war to keep a Homeland Security funding compromise hostage, insisting that the tag-end budget bill include his favorite new form of oppression, the SAVE Act -- devoted to making voting proportionally harder for lower-income voters with multiple jobs and little time to stand in line for a passport or birth certificate. To add to the burden, the Supreme Court conservatives appear ready to kick a hole in mail-in voting. Mississippi's law counts votes that are postmarked by Election Day even if they arrive as late as five days later. The Supremes' first argument on that was not confidence-inspiring if you think voting should not be accidentally curtailed by a short-staffed USPS. Speaking of accidents, we keep our fingers crossed as ICE agents try to behave themselves while (hopefully) shortening lines at the TSA checkpoints in major airports. Better use up your miles before the jet fuel runs out.

It's News You Can Use for this Monday.

The Memo will be posted here after the email has been sent.

One of the fastest growing and most tempting funds in Maryland's range of budget options is fattening for quite the wrong reason: Utilities are paying into it to avoid increasing the renewable energy share in their power portfolio. The Strategic Energy Investment Fund is a big enough bundle of cash to tempt hard-pressed budget-makers, whether the governor (who proposes a budget) or the General Assembly (which passes the final version).

The SEIF was designed to boost the state's resilience and build in-state renewable sources that will help decarbonize the electricity we use. Our public (alas, corporate-owned) utilities have found it more convenient to pay penalties on their inability to add renewables to their sources -- including wind power, more plentiful across the Appalachians than on Maryland's own soil (as you may recall, a very promising offshore wind project was held up in court by the Ocean City boardwalk moguls until Trump was back and able to pick it off (for a delusional windbag he has developed a remarkable hatred for wind power).

The Sierra Club has a fine explainer on how the SEIF should be used (rather than as an ATM for budget-makers). And the Assembly seems to be trying to remedy an error they made that, in the name of keeping scam artists out of the energy market, cut off consumers from readily demanding renewables as a portion of their power, therefore squeezing the utilities' corporate barons to add more renewables to their portfolios. The state's core membership in the multistate Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) sets the standard utilities have to meet, and when they fail to do so, the SEIF swells with their contributions. Still, it seems likely that the utilities' compliance with RGGI needs to be re-examined if it's cheaper for them to pay into SEIF rather than actually try to add renewables to what they offer. Maybe they should pay enough to make it hurt and make adding renewables look like the better idea. Having a convenient cash stash for solving budget problems is nice, but cleaner air and less climate change would be even nicer. Here and everywhere.