More than a year after state lawmakers began work on measures to give legal force to Delaware’s plan to respond to climate change, the legislature resoundingly approved a bill that will require the state to make zero net additions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere by 2050.
The Delaware Climate Change Solutions Act of 2023, which received final legislative approval in the Senate on June 27, set a more ambitious target for cutting emissions over the next 27 years than was planned in another, failed, bill a year ago, and requires emissions to be calculated on a net basis rather than the gross basis that would have been directed by the earlier bill.
That means the new bill allows for so-called offsets such as tree planting, changes in land use, or carbon sequestration to be counted against emissions from sources including cars, power plants or buildings, to arrive at a net number. And the new target of ‘net zero’ by 2050 represents a more rigorous standard than the 90 percent reduction in greenhouse gases previously planned by that time.
The net basis for emissions brings Delaware into line with international standards, and with that led by the Biden administration, said State Rep. Debra Heffernan, (D-Brandywine Hundred), chief sponsor of the new bill, HB99. “This is more in keeping with where the rest of the world is going,” she said.
Heffernan called the bill a “giant step” for Delaware in doing its part to curb global climate change, a task that the bill recognizes is especially urgent in the nation’s lowest-lying state given its vulnerability to sea-level rise.
Heffernan, chair of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee, argued that the bill is stronger than its predecessor because it sets a tougher target for emissions cuts by 2050, and because it is backed by a wide cross-section of the Delaware community, notably including business.
“What makes this bill even stronger is that it has the wide support of so many stakeholders – environmentalists, businesses and those in the agricultural field – to make sure that we really are prepared and setting the stage for us to meet net-zero by 2050,” she said.
"What makes this bill even stronger is that it has the wide support of so many stakeholders... to make sure that we really are prepared and setting the stage for us to meet net-zero by 2050."State Rep. Debra Heffernan, chief sponsor of bill HB99 and chair of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee
Even though she rejected calls by some stakeholders to make changes that would have made the bill less demanding – such as reducing the net-zero requirement – Heffernan said she listened to all voices, and forged a consensus that resulted in a stronger bill.
“Everybody wants to be heard, and everybody wants to have their comments taken into account,” she said. “There were changes I wasn’t willing to make, and that’s because I didn’t want to water down or compromise. There wasn’t any argument on the goals; it was more on how we could get there.”
Stakeholders included the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce, whose policy director, Tyler Micik, said the business group supports the bill because it provides clarity to the business community, unlike last year’s version.
“We recognize the bill’s intent as a framework for addressing climate change and implementing the governor’s climate action plan,” he said. “It’s a great step in the right direction in creating a path forward to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the short and long term.”
The bill passed the Democrat-controlled House on June 6 by 27 votes in favor to 13 against and 1 absent. It passed the Senate by 15 votes in favor, 5 against, and 1 absent.
Last year’s climate bill, SB305, failed because it was introduced too late in the session to allow all stakeholders to give it full consideration, and because the Carney administration withdrew its support shortly before the end of the session on June 30, 2022.
Environmentalists, too, welcomed the new bill as a long-awaited upgrade to Delaware’s plans for fighting climate change.
Dustyn Thompson, director of the Delaware Sierra Club, rejected a suggestion that the bill’s acceptance of offsets to greenhouse gas emissions represented any dilution of its environmental benefits.
“This is certainly not any kind of giveaway,” he said. “It is certainly not a bill written and produced by business interests.”
The Sierra Club is “never happy” about offsets but was comfortable about agreeing to them this time because they are subject to DNREC review, and because they were a condition of approval by business groups including the DSCC and the New Castle County Chamber of Commerce, Thompson said. And he doubted whether the bill would have been passed by the Legislature without the change from ‘gross’ to ‘net’ emissions.
Talks were slow, laborious and sometimes frustrating, Thompson said, but were ultimately successful.
“It was a lot of drafts going back and forth for a number of months, and there were certain times when both sides were pretty frustrated, but we kept at it and made it work,” he said.
In the end, the Sierra Club and its environmental allies agreed to compromises that allowed the bill to be approved by a range of stakeholders, Thompson said.
“It was one of those give and takes with the business community where they wanted to know: ‘Before you tell us that we have to ratchet down our emissions, you have to tell us what offsets we can do and what we can’t do.' We thought that was fair."Dustyn Thompson, director of the Delaware Sierra Club
“It was one of those give and takes with the business community where they wanted to know: ‘Before you tell us that we have to ratchet down our emissions, you have to tell us what offsets we can do and what we can’t do,’” Thompson said. “We thought that was fair.”
En route to achieving net zero emissions of greenhouse gasses including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxides by 2050, the bill requires a 50 percent cut in those emissions by 2030, the same as proposed in last year’s bill. It directs DNREC to consider whether a proposed offset would result in a "direct and additional” reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and whether the offset would be enduring and verifiable.
The main legislation was accompanied by nine bills designed to help the state curb emissions, six of which were also passed in recent weeks. They included HB11, which will require new commercial buildings to be constructed with the capacity to take solar panels; SB103, which will require new homes to be built with charging infrastructure for electric vehicles, and SB170, which will require DNREC to complete by Dec. 31 its current analysis of whether the state should commit to buying a certain quantity of electricity from the nascent offshore wind industry.
In addition to sea-level rise, the bill says climate change will have a range of economic, social and natural impacts including saltwater intrusion into drinking water supplies; loss of wetlands, erosion, beach loss, and bigger and more frequent storms.
The threat posed by climate change demands legislative action, the bill says, and justifies the creation of a legal framework to the Climate Action Plan, an administrative initiative to cut emissions and prepare Delaware for the effects of climate change, that has been in effect at DNREC since being introduced by Gov. John Carney in November 2021.
“Significant additional action is necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state and to increase the resilience of the state to the effects of climate change,” the bill says.
A spokesman for Gov. Carney said no date had been set for the governor to sign any of the climate bills.
DNREC Secretary Shawn Garvin, whose agency will implement the bill’s requirements, welcomed it as a sign that the Legislature is joining an initiative that is already being pursued by the executive through the Climate Action Plan.
“The Climate Action Plan really is the playbook, both on the mitigation side and the adaptation side, to focus on the impacts that we are already seeing and will continue to see in the future,” he said in an interview. “So this legislation – we worked very closely with the sponsors – is consistent with all of that.”
Asked whether the bill just gives a legislative endorsement to a process that is already underway at his agency, Garvin said it helps to ensure that state action on climate change will survive future changes in state government.
“Recognizing that future administrations could change the Climate Action Plan and do something different, this gets that foundation moving forward. It gives a little bit more certainty."Shawn Garvin, DNREC Secretary
“Recognizing that future administrations could change the Climate Action Plan and do something different, this gets that foundation moving forward. It gives a little bit more certainty,” he said.
Garvin called the bill’s emissions targets “certainly attainable” and said the state has already cut GHGs by 27 percent between 2005 and 2018. “So we’re not starting from scratch,” he said.
But he said there is still a lot of work to do in making further cuts to meet the bill’s goals. That includes in the transportation sector, where DNREC has proposed to adopt California’s Clean Cars II rule, which would phase out the sale of new gasoline-powered cars from model years 2027 to 2035.
That plan stirred a storm of protest among some 4,000 public commenters, some of whom argued falsely that the rule would stop drivers buying any gas-powered cars; in fact, there will be no restriction on the sale of used cars, and DNREC predicts that 70 percent of the state’s car fleet will still be gasoline powered by 2035. It’s going to be at least a couple of months before DNREC proposes its final rule, given the volume of comments, Garvin said.
While legislative actions do not always help the executive process, this one did, Garvin said.
“We’re very appreciative of the members of both chambers going through this process, and working with us, and us working with a lot of different stakeholders to come up with something that actually was helpful,” he said.
