State Legislation Marks Major Step Toward Environmental Justice in Baltimore and Beyond

Annapolis, MD—After years of grassroots organizing and community-led advocacy, Progressive Maryland members are celebrating a significant milestone for environmental justice and clean energy advocacy with the Maryland General Assembly's decision to end subsidies for trash incineration. Trash incineration will be officially removed from Maryland’s Renewable Portfolio Standard, marking a pivotal moment in the fight for cleaner air and healthier communities across the state. This means that ratepayer money will no longer be used to subsidize trash burning, which has long polluted the air in majority-Black neighborhoods.

“South Baltimore has been in this fight for a long time, and we are just relieved to see the removal of subsidies for trash incineration,” said Jennifer Mendes Dwyer, Deputy Executive Director of Progressive Maryland. “This is undeniably a victory for public health and ending environmental racism in our state.”

This achievement is a result of our persistent advocacy in which we began ramping up our environmental justice campaign in 2022 with the formation of a community-based task force in Southwest Baltimore focused on ending government support for incineration. Our Environmental Justice Task Force leaders have spent years knocking doors, educating neighbors, organizing town halls, building coalitions and submitting legislative testimony. We’ve been organizing with and for the communities who’ve suffered the worst impacts of toxic air pollution and decades of environmental racism and neglect. 

This week, Marylanders' eyes shuttle back and forth between weighing the work (and failures) of the just-completed General Assembly session and the outrages of the latest Trump follies and lawlessness. The Orange Menace has bypassed Congress's role in setting tariffs, recklessly setting and unsetting tariff rates to the great disadvantage of US economic standing as well as perceptions here and overseas about the sanity and stability of national leadership. Trump and others' behavior during the wild gyrations of tariff-setting has raised questions about market manipulation and insider trading. Even more lawlessly, having kidnapped a legal Maryland resident and dumped him in a notoriously brutal prison in El Salvador, Trump and his minions claim they have no duty to seek his return.

The General Assembly appears to have preserved the Blueprint plan for the state's education system more or less intact and delivered a balanced budget despite a revenue deficit, but there were many failures of nerve and succumbing to the blandishments of lobbyists as well. Next year the Assembly members face election or re-election (many were appointed to vacancies but have not yet faced the voters) and they are dodging any appearance of the burning of bridges with potential donors.

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Maryland General Assembly Falls Short in Advancing Measures to Keep Families Housed and Hold Landlords Accountable

Despite Overwhelming Support from Local Officials and Advocates, Senate Leadership Caves to Landlord Lobbyists and Blocks Protections for Renters

Annapolis, MD- Amid a growing housing crisis and a looming recession, the Maryland Senate refused to pass Good Cause Eviction – the one housing bill pending that has been proven in other jurisdictions to reduce evictions and displacement while holding corporate landlords accountable. Good Cause Eviction (SB 651/HB 709), which was passed by the House of Delegates last year and has passed in 8 other states and 23 localities, would have allowed counties to require that corporate landlords provide renting families a legitimate reason for any eviction. The General Assembly also cut the budget for eviction prevention funds by 50% at a time when renting families need this support the most. Despite this resistance, Renters United Maryland (RUM) and legislative allies passed key policies that advance housing justice, including a measure that will provide tenants with advance notice of any scheduled eviction date so that tenants can plan and prepare to lessen the catastrophic effects of eviction.

As the General Assembly tries to wrap up its work today, known as Sine Die, news comes that a federal appeals court has upheld a ruling that the Salvadoran Maryland resident was wrongly deported to a notorious mass-incarceration facility in El Salvador and must be returned tonight. Definitely a stay-tuned day as worldwide stock markets crash for a third day, more DOGE firings loom and the prez plays golf (while charging the Secret Service for their lodging at... Mar-a-Lago) and many thousands rallied Saturday all over the US in what was called a "THE RESISTANCE ARRIVES" moment.

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Tough times are upon us, as Maryland and other DMV areas lose federal civil service  jobs by the hundreds, daily. For (and from) those who spend some time on history, the rest of us have learned how Trump-style oligarchy is built – by dividing the ordinary working folks who are most affected. Solidarity among billionaires is welcomed and encouraged, including with invitations to the stately pleasure dome at Mar-a-Lago. But not solidarity for working folks, for whom the oligarchs’ goal is isolation and that alone, must-be-my-fault feeling. When we let that isolated feeling overtake us, Trump and his domestic terrorists win – the result, as has always been true of post-industrial capitalism, is blaming yourself for what is actually the greed-riddled economy’s failure to sustain community. Under these conditions it is harder than usual for folks to push themselves to solidarity and resistance. But we must. Here and there, as we see in this week’s News You Can Use, patches of solidarity are emerging and pushing back. We need many more.