On July 14 MD-AEP President Peter Gourlay joined several hundred Maryland green industry leaders in Baltimore for a discussion with Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley on a sustainable future for Maryland. MD-AEP was pleased to attend and looks forward to playing an active role as the State looks to provide a green leadership role to help grow the economy and serve as a model for the nation.
Governor O’Malley chaired a roundtable with industry leaders with expertise in finance, clean energy, ecosystems and governance. Key points focused on the imperative for Maryland to make the right policy decisions to ensure an investment climate to allow private sector innovation to take off. Task force members sited the importance of policy decision like the Renewal Portfolio Standard (RPS). The standards measure requires that a percentage of Maryland’s electricity supply come from renewable sources. Such policies as RPS will help to create investor confidence, but task force members stressed that more needs to be done to address financial risks and to get financiers more comfortable with dependable revenue streams for renewable investments. These points were highlighted as key to help to ramp up investments in clean energy business within the state. MD-AEP supports this effort led by the Governor to reach across state agencies and to business. Gourlay had an opportunity to share MD-AEP’s mission and the activities with the Governor highlighting the recent trade mission to Vietnam (http://www.enn.com/press_releases/3379) and MD-AEP’s upcoming clean energy forums in partnership with the Maryland Clean Energy Center (http://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?eventid=875682).
©2010 Maryland-Asia Environmental Partnership, LLC