Utility RELIEF Act Update
Maryland Just Power Alliance leaders hold up their utility bills during an action in Annapolis.
The Utility Relief Act (HB1532) passed this legislative session with the goal of reducing Maryland residents’ energy bills by $150 per year. We support some of the provisions in the final bill which aim to make energy cleaner and more affordable. While we opposed the bill’s cuts to the EmPOWER energy efficiency program, we successfully advocated to reduce these cuts and ensure the final bill held corporate utilities accountable.
The cost of energy bills—driven by exorbitant corporate profit—was one of the major issues in the Maryland Just Power Alliance’s listening sessions with over 3,000 people in 2025. We believe that Maryland should be prioritizing clean, efficient, affordable energy, not allowing utility companies to continue raising our utility bills and making bigger profits.
We are glad that several provisions in the Utility RELIEF Act lower costs and encourage clean, efficient energy, like cutting red tape for solar energy and capping how much customers pay for the salaries of utility executives.
However, we opposed the bill’s proposed cuts to EmPOWER—Maryland's program that helps families and businesses upgrade their appliances and shift from dirty gas to clean, affordable electric energy. We organized for EmPOWER in previous years.
Our members sent over 300 emails to their State Senators and Delegates asking them to preserve EmPOWER funding and hold utilities accountable.
Thanks in part to our advocacy, the final bill minimized harm to EmPOWER while not giving handouts to corporate utilities. In the final version of the bill, EmPOWER’s greenhouse gas emissions goals were temporarily reduced and funding was lowered but will revert back in 2036; this was an improvement from an earlier version of the bill.
The bill also requires one administrator of the program (rather than the several that currently exist) which we hope will improve oversight. In the future, we hope our legislators will improve EmPOWER and help it live up to its promise of helping low- and middle-income Marylanders transition to clean energy.
Finally, we also supported the bill’s prohibition on forecasted rates. This harmful practice allows corporations to charge customers based on predicted spending instead of actual spending, leading to wasteful spending and higher corporate profits. The Utility RELIEF Act holds a one-year moratorium on this exploitative measure until the Public Service Commission has an opportunity to analyze results from a pilot study.
We want to thank all of our members who advocated to lower energy bills, preserve EmPOWER funding, and hold corporate utilities accountable in the Utility RELIEF Act.
Read more about the Utility RELIEF Act in this press release from our partners at Maryland PIRG:
