County Campaigns

Across Maryland, our organizations, in partnership with Chesapeake Climate Action Network, and many grassroots partners, are coming together to advocate for electrification policies in several Maryland counties.

Baltimore County - Coalition convened by CCAN forming now with an August 10, 2023 kickoff event at Pearlstone Center in Reisterstown. Contact Jamie DeMarco at jamie@chesapeakeclimate.org for more information.

Frederick County - Campaign forming, contact CCAN for more information.

Howard County - In March 2023 the Howard County Council passed a law to study what it would take to implement an all-electric building code.

Montgomery County - The Montgomery County Council passed an all-electric building code for new construction in 2022.

Natural Gas in homes is risky. When I heard that an apartment explosion in Gaithersburg had destroyed homes in two buildings and injured a dozen people on Wednesday morning, my heart sank. Just the day before, as director of the local Interfaith Power & Light, I was sitting in the chambers of the Montgomery County Council as Baltimore Gas and Electric's director for governmental affairs argued that the council should postpone passage of even a modest measure to require new buildings to be built without gas lines. "None of us knows" what a few all-electric buildings a year in the county would do to our infrastructure, he argued, and "we think that's really risky." This is the third gas-related explosion in Montgomery County in just the past few years. We now know that gas-burning stoves pollute: with nitrogen oxide when they're on and with benzene when they're off. The gas in buildings such as Potomac Gardens is brought by miles of leaking pipes that course all the way back to drill sites where massive methane plumes can be mapped from space. And: As I write this, my devastated neighbors have lost their homes. What could be riskier than that? - Joelle G. Novey, Silver Spring

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