Next Generation Energy Act: Powerless Policy, Costly Consequences by Clayton Mitchell

Maryland’s Democratic leadership, ever intoxicated with the heady vapors of their own ideological ambitions, has once again foisted upon the citizenry an energy proposal that, far from alleviating the plight of ratepayers, ensconces them deeper in the clutches of spiraling costs and bureaucratic folly. In their obstinate commitment to so-called renewable energy, they have demonstrated a devotion to fantasy that would be charming were it not so ruinous.

The essence of this latest foray into energy policy is a three-part legislative package purportedly designed to curb soaring electricity costs and bolster in-state production. Senate President Bill Ferguson and House Speaker Adrienne Jones have trotted out the Next Generation Energy Act, a high-minded but ultimately ineffectual measure that flirts with the notion of new energy generation so long as it conforms to the whims of hydrogen conversion and carbon capture—a concession to reality so minuscule as to be imperceptible.

With a rhetorical flourish, Ferguson intones that more energy production in Maryland will diminish reliance on imported power and reduce the need for transmission lines disrupting private property. And yet, at its core, this proposal lacks the audacity to commit to the one remedy that might actually yield results: the immediate and unabashed construction of reliable, fossil-fuel-based and nuclear power plants.

Republican leaders, to their credit, have called out this exercise in futility. Senate Minority Leader Steve Hershey rightly characterized the announcement as “underwhelming at best,” a sentiment that should resonate with any Marylander whose electric bill has become a source of financial distress. Senator Justin Ready, with a biting accuracy, laid blame squarely at the feet of the Democratic supermajority’s decade-long infatuation with green energy mandates—an infatuation that has left the state’s power grid in a precarious state.

Meanwhile, the Democrats, in a moment of near-comical self-contradiction, decry the state’s growing energy crisis while simultaneously championing the very policies that have exacerbated it. Their plan to deregulate solar and battery storage—heralded as a means of “spurring growth”—amounts to little more than removing local safeguards to fast-track projects that will do precious little to meet actual demand.

The most egregious element of this misbegotten initiative is the push for artificial rate caps. Economic history, for those inclined to consult it, is littered with examples of such measures producing consequences diametrically opposed to their intent. Price controls inevitably distort markets, suppress investment, and precipitate shortages. If Maryland Democrats wish to test this economic axiom firsthand, they are certainly poised to do so—at the expense of their constituents.

As Republican leaders have astutely noted, the truly pragmatic path forward necessitates a revival of nuclear energy and a sober reassessment of Maryland’s ill-advised retreat from fossil fuels. The Democratic insistence that “it’s never acceptable to build another fossil fuel power plant” is not merely wrong—it is recklessly ignorant of the pressing realities of modern energy consumption.

In their zeal to achieve a net-zero utopia, Maryland’s Democratic lawmakers have conjured a policy that offers neither immediate relief nor a viable long-term strategy. This is not governance; it is dogma masquerading as pragmatism. The citizens of Maryland deserve an energy policy grounded in logic, not delusion – one that acknowledges that, for the foreseeable future, the most reliable means of keeping the lights on is not an expansion of wishful thinking, but the embrace of energy sources that have actually proven their efficacy.

If Maryland’s Democratic leadership insists on enshrining this folly into law, then so be it—but let them be assured that every time Marylanders open their electric bills and recoil at the cost, they will know precisely whom to thank.

Clayton A. Mitchell, Sr. is a life-long Eastern Shoreman, an attorney, and former Chairman of the Maryland Department of Labor’s Board of Appeals.  He is co-host of the Gonzales/Mitchell Show podcast that discusses politics, business, and cultural issues.