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Climate Notes: A Leader for Anne Arundel/Annapolis Resilience Authority, Pressuring Utilities on LED Lights and More

Dramatic flooding in downtown Annapolis in October 2021. Photo by Alexandra Radovic/Capital News Service.

Anne Arundel County and the City of Annapolis took one step closer to setting up their joint resilience authority Tuesday, tabbing a veteran environmentalist and finance expert to run the new organization on an interim basis.

Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman (D) and Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley (D) announced that Dan Nees would serve as interim executive director of the recently established Resilience Authority of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County.

The two governments began a nationwide search for a director to lead the authority shortly after County Council legislation created it in June 2021. The county and city partnered to establish the authority as a quasi-governmental organization to identify and finance the construction of projects that address the impacts of climate change.

Nees has over 20 years of experience working with communities and organizations throughout the Mid-Atlantic region and nationally to finance and implement environmental and sustainable development initiatives. He currently serves as director for Policy and Finance at Throwe Environmental, LLC, an environmental services organization that works with governments, businesses, nonprofits and educational institutions. He is also a senior fellow with the Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland.

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“Getting this Resilience Authority operating is possibly the most important contribution that my administration is making to the future of our county,” said Pittman, who is running for a second term this year. “Bringing Dan Nees and Throwe Environmental on board to establish the foundation for this organization will ensure that we create the model for jurisdictions who will follow our lead in the coming years.”

Buckley noted that the idea of creating a Resilience Authority grew out of community meetings, and he and Pittman said Nees and his team will work with government officials to establish governing, administrative and leadership structures at the organization. Nees will also develop a strategic plan to set an organizational structure in place and chart the authority’s approach to identifying and implementing resiliency projects — and figuring out how to pay for them.

One possible model, officials have said, is the way Annapolis is paying for reconstruction of City Dock, which has been ravaged by global warming and rising tides. The firms rebuilding and redeveloping Hillman Garage in downtown Annapolis will operate the garage and collect revenues, but will pay the city a “concession payment” that will be used for the resiliency project.

Nees’ work as interim director will be conducted in partnership with a team of climate resilience policy and finance experts at his company, Throwe Environmental. That firm is led by Joanne Throwe, a former deputy secretary of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and one-time director of the University of Maryland Environmental Finance Center.

Nees said he views the new authority as “a uniquely important and impactful organization” and a “groundbreaking institution.”

“The Resilience Authority will be an invaluable tool for protecting the region’s economy, culture, and natural resources from the impacts of climate change,” he said.

Getting the LED on

More than 40 state lawmakers and local officials from Montgomery and Prince George’s counties are urging the Maryland Public Service Commission to use an upcoming rate case involving Pepco’s maintenance of street lights to force the electric utility to make it easier for municipal governments to own street lights — and to pressure Pepco to convert more lights to energy efficient LED lighting.

The policymakers have signed on to a letter written by Del. Alfred C. Carr Jr. (D-Montgomery), urging the PSC, which regulates utilities, to look at certain Pepco policies when it hears a case next week involving tariffs the utility imposes on customers.

The lawmakers’ letter argues that Pepco is far behind other utilities in the state and region when it comes to converting street lights to LED. They cite statistics from a 2020 Maryland Energy Administration report showing that of the 354,352 street lights in Maryland, 30% had been converted, by then, to LED. But BG&E, the Baltimore-based utility, had converted 70% of its lights, whereas Pepco, which serves most of Prince George’s and Montgomery, had converted just 4%.

Carr also suggests that Pepco has been slow to offer to sell its street lights to local governments, an option enabled by a 2007 state law. Only two of the 40 municipalities in Montgomery and Prince George’s, Takoma Park and Martin’s Addition, own their street lights. Carr argues that once municipal governments own street lights, consumers only pay for the energy the lights burn, which creates a cost savings, and that municipal governments will move to convert the lights to LED faster than the utility will.

“The Maryland Public Service Commission has an opportunity to bring Montgomery and Prince George’s counties into the mainstream for modern street lighting,” he said. “By embracing best practices that are working well in D.C. and in other states, they can have an immediate, direct and positive impact.”

Infrastructure funds and utility customers

Speaking of utilities, the Public Service Commission and climate change, the Office of People’s Counsel, the state agency that represents consumer interests on utility matters, wants the PSC to find out whether Maryland’s utilities are applying to receive newly available federal infrastructure funding.

The federal funds, said People’s Counsel David S. Lapp, could aid the state’s ability to fight climate change — and could save ratepayers money.

The state’s utilities, he said, are eligible to apply for federal funds under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). Among others, programs from the bipartisan federal infrastructure law make $42.8 billion available to support delivering clean power and developing clean energy, over $50 billion to improve grid resilience against threats, and $6.5 billion for energy efficiency projects.

Many of these programs enable utilities to obtain funding directly for costs that utility customers might pay for otherwise. Lapp cast these potential federal grants as a way to stave off rate increases for utility customers.

“The IIJA makes substantial grant funding available to the state’s utilities to support system resiliency, promote innovative technologies, and help the state meets its greenhouse gas reduction goals,” he said. “Federal grant money can replace customer funding for the same investments, but the funding is limited, making it critical that utilities diligently pursue these grants.”

A formal PSC proceeding on the utilities’ plans would also “promote transparency, create important opportunities for public input, and help ensure a diligent and thorough consideration of time-limited federal funding,” Lapp said.

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Climate Notes: A Leader for Anne Arundel/Annapolis Resilience Authority, Pressuring Utilities on LED Lights and More