From the Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project to Carroll County’s long-standing contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Carroll residents are facing a swath of issues that could surface in Annapolis this winter.
Maryland’s 2026 legislative session begins Jan. 14, and with the state facing a $1.2 billion budget deficit, it’s set to be another contentious General Assembly.
While some Carroll legislators say they have limited power in the Democrat-controlled statehouse, State Sen. Justin Ready and Del. Chris Tomlinson, the heads of Carroll County’s all-Republican delegation, told the Carroll County Times they are hoping to band together with other Republicans across the state and find common ground across the aisle to bring Central Maryland’s challenges to the forefront.
Energy bills
Tomlinson and Ready said rising energy prices are a top issue for them this session. According to a recent executive order signed by Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, to lower energy prices, residential energy bills have increased by 44% since 2020, mainly due to more demand and less supply of energy in the state. Maryland generates only about 60% of its energy in-state, and energy-intensive industries like data centers are driving up demand.
The Carroll delegation thinks Maryland’s investments in renewable energy are part of the problem. Ready said accelerating renewable energy “doesn’t really work” and that Carroll’s legislators will support legislation that speeds up permitting for nuclear and natural gas plants.
Last session, the state legislature passed the Next Generation Energy Act, which all of the delegates and senators representing Carroll County voted against.
Ready supported provisions in the bill that would fast-track fossil fuels and nuclear power — a policy he thinks will help alleviate Maryland’s energy shortage. But the final bill required gas plants to “jump through a bunch of hoops” in order to speed up the permitting process, he said.
“We need to remove those shackles, and we need to continue what was, I think, some positive progress about trying to make it easier to bring more nuclear,” Ready said. “We have a real serious issue where, if Brandon Shores goes offline in Pasadena, we go from importing 40% of our energy, which is already bad enough, to importing almost 80%. … We need to do more to accelerate natural gas production. We also need to investigate new technologies.”
Maryland’s Republican caucuses in both the House and Senate are planning to bring forward legislation to get rid of the EmPOWER surcharge on energy bills, Ready said. The surcharge funds energy efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction programs in the state.
Preserving ICE contracts
In past years, Maryland Democrats have tried and failed to pass the Maryland Values Act, which would ban counties from enacting 287(g) agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The contracts allow local law enforcement officers to be trained in immigration enforcement so that they can check the immigration status of people in county jails and report undocumented individuals to ICE.
Carroll County Sheriff Jim DeWees has defended Carroll’s 287(g) agreement in the past, saying the program is “nondiscriminatory” and allows local law enforcement officials to serve ICE warrants to individuals in local custody who have active warrants without requiring federal agents to come in. Tomlinson and Ready both said they intend to defend the county’s ability to maintain the program.
“We barely were able to keep that [287(g)] program intact this past session,” Tomlinson said. “Unfortunately, with everything that’s going on with the national scene, the Democrats are determined by anything to stop our counties from working with ICE.”
Del. Nicole Williams from Prince George’s County has said she will reintroduce the Maryland Values Act this session, and the act already has the vocal support of Senate President Bill Ferguson. If passed, it would force the state’s eight counties with active 287(g) programs to terminate their contracts and would prevent new counties from joining the program.
Growing support for the Maryland Values Act among Democrats has followed a drastic increase in immigration enforcement activity under Republican President Donald Trump. In a Dec. 19 news release, the Department of Homeland Security reported about 622,000 deportations had been executed since Trump took office in January, up from about 271,000 the year before. The president has said ICE is targeting noncitizens with criminal records, though an analysis of government data by The Guardian shows that the majority of people arrested by ICE have no criminal record.
“There’s no legislation that can pass that will prohibit ICE from coming into our county,” Tomlinson said. “We’re part of the United States, so they are a federal agency and can enforce federal laws, but unfortunately, the state can decide and prohibit our sheriff’s department from cooperating and being a member.”
The Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project
As the legal battle continues over the Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project, a 70-mile transmission line proposed to run across northern Maryland, Tomlinson and Ready said they want to do everything in their power to stop the project from moving forward and to protect Carroll County landowners.
PSEG, the utility company behind the transmission line, has attempted to use eminent domain to access over 400 private properties in Carroll, Baltimore and Frederick counties. Landowners, local lawmakers and the governor have criticized the company for using eminent domain in this way, though a Maryland district judge upheld the company’s ability to do so last month.
Proponents of the MPRP have said it will strengthen Maryland’s electric grid by making it easier to carry electricity across the state. But critics argue that the state could achieve the same outcome by using newer transmission technology along existing power line routes.
As the transmission line awaits a decision on its permit from the state’s Public Service Commission, Ready said Carroll leaders are pursuing all avenues to limit the project’s scope.
“We’ll be supporting bills to try to protect landowners in the MPRP fight as well, like we did last year,” Ready said. “At the very least, if someone loses their land, they should get higher value for it being an agricultural property, even though we hope that we can turn this back at the [Public Service Commission].”
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