Climate Coalition Montgomery County met with County Executive and staff members in December 2024
- Liisi Fidler
- Jan 13
- 2 min read
Members of Climate Coalition Montgomery County met with County Executive Marc Elrich, Climate Change Officer Sarah Kogel-Smucker and staff members on December 23, 2024, to request items for FY26 budget:
Solar Strategic Planner with technical expertise to accelerate building out the County's solar energy infrastructure. This is an investment that will reduce future energy costs and reduce greenhouse gases.
Parks and Planning Policy planner: this position is needed to augment staff with climate expertise to improve their ability to assess and quantify options for reducing GHG emissions and improving resilience through appropriate land use practices throughout the County. A person filling this role would also enhance the County’s movement toward our greenhouse gas reduction goals.
Green Bank: We agree that the 10% fuel-energy tax allocation to the Green Bank is protected by law and cannot be reduced or redirected in response to budget constraints. The Green Bank has proven effective in expanding solar and increasing energy efficiency for private, non-profit and commercial buildings including for the low income community.
Coalition members also discussed the following topics that are not necessarily budget items, yet are important policy directions:
Data Centers: ensure environmental guard rails are put in place during the permitting process for data centers.
Transportation: continue to install public charging stations, include stations to support medium and heavy duty trucks. In addition, we urge a Green Bank financing program or county tax incentives to induce larger businesses to install private charging stations for their fleets.
Waste Management to accelerate closure of incinerator: our analysis shows that it is safer and more economical to pivot to out-of-state landfilling as soon as possible.
Synthetic Turf on County Properties: we will take our request for a ban on synthetic turf on county properties to the County Council.
Agricultural Food Production: ensure adequate funding in FY26 for food resource programs for residents in need who must all too often choose among rent, utilities, or food. In addition, to promote food resiliency at the local level, we ask that County continue to fund programs and services in the Department of Agriculture that either directly or through partnerships support new farmers, small farmers, urban farmers and BIPOC farmers.
Coalition plans to meet again with the County Executive in March 2025.
