On April 13, Maryland’s General Assembly passed what its House Speaker called the crown jewel of the 2026 session. The Utility RELIEF Act, its supporters tout, will save the average household at least $150 a year on electricity bills — a number that Democratic leaders in Annapolis were careful to describe as a floor, not a ceiling. Governor Wes Moore signed it the same day.
That $150 in savings come almost entirely from cutting EmPOWER Maryland, the state’s flagship energy efficiency program. The new law will lower the greenhouse gas reduction targets utilities must meet from 2.5% annually to 1.75% through 2029. Those targets don’t return to current levels until 2036, and the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy estimated that weakening them will cost ratepayers $592 million in net increased electricity costs in the interim. The announced savings and the real accounting pull in opposite directions — which is quite the complicated political choice in an era where affordability is top of mind for voters.
Maryland is not alone. Massachusetts passed a $1 billion cut to Mass Save, its own efficiency program, in February — a bill that cleared the House 128 to 27 during a blizzard that had left thousands without power. Rhode Island’s governor requested efficiency budget reductions at the state Public Utilities Commission that dropped its own efficiency program from $117 million to $96 million annually, with a proposal to cap it further to $75 million going forward. Three Democratic trifectas, three flagship efficiency programs, the same political logic.
To understand why legislators keep reaching for this lever, you have to understand what they can and can’t do to help affordability concerns. Electricity prices rose 27% between 2019 and end of 2025, hitting a national average of 19 cents per kilowatt-hour with further increases projected through 2030. And in PJM, data center demand drove 63% of a roughly tenfold capacity price spike over two consecutive auctions. Utilities requested more than $29 billion in rate increases in the first half of 2025 alone, more than double the prior year. Those cost drivers sit behind walls that state legislators cannot breach, as transmission rates are set by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, capacity market prices are governed by regional ISOs and RTOs, and utility capital expenditure plans are anchored in federal interconnection requirements that no statehouse can rewrite…