Imagine having to choose between keeping your child’s medication cold or running the air conditioner during a 100+ degree heatwave. For more than 25 million Americans — including hundreds of thousands of Marylanders — this is daily life. This is energy poverty.

Climate-driven heatwaves, aging housing, and soaring utility bills are colliding with a federal rollback of critical support. HR 1 (One Big Beautiful Bill Act) — signed into law on July 4 — enacted devastating cuts to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), Medicaid, SNAP, and Children’s Health Insurance Program. Now, Marylanders face the erosion of the very safety net that keeps families alive.

LIHEAP, launched 45?years ago, was designed to help low-income households pay utility bills. Yet the crisis it was meant to resolve remains entrenched. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that 17?million Americans received utility shutoff notices last year. When a household spends more than 6% of its income on utilities, it enters “energy poverty.” A national assessment by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy found low-income families spend 8.1% of their income on energy — more than three times the rate for wealthier households — meaning at least a quarter of U.S. households carry an unsustainable energy burden.

The South Atlantic — from Maryland to Florida — bears the greatest share of that burden, yet receives minimal federal relief. In a 2020 analysis published in the journal Nature Energy, researchers Daniel Bednar and Tony Reames show that federal programs fail to address the systemic nature of energy poverty. Instead of modernizing assistance, federal policymakers are cutting programs like the LIHEAP and the Weatherization Assistance Program — the two most important tools available to prevent energy shutoffs and protect public health.

In Maryland, nearly 20% of households spend over 6% of their income on utilities. A 2023 report from the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research found that more than 18% of households were trapped in energy poverty. In 2024, Maryland’s Office of Home Energy Programs received 270,000 applications for assistance.

Under HR?1, Section 10004 restricts the Standard Utility Allowance used to determine SNAP eligibility, limiting automatic access to households with individuals who are elderly or disabled. The Maryland Department of Human Services estimates that more than 684,000 SNAP-dependent residents could lose both food assistance and utility relief. The FY2026 federal budget goes further, proposing to eliminate LIHEAP outright, abandoning over 270,000 Maryland households during heatwaves and bitter cold.

Governor Wes Moore has responded with policy measures intended to bridge gaps. He announced a $19 million energy relief fund and signed the Next Generation Energy Act, which sets targets for new renewable capacity and battery storage while capping ratepayer impacts. He also enacted the Renewable Energy Certainty Act, lifting zoning restrictions for solar development. Moore touts these as Maryland’s “most substantive energy affordability package in decades” and has issued executive orders committing the state to emissions reductions of 60% by 2031 and net zero by 2045.

But the scale doesn’t match the urgency. The $19 million fund breaks down to less than $75 per household — barely a dent in rising utility bills. The Next Generation Energy Act focuses on long-term infrastructure but offers no immediate protection against the rate hikes already forcing working families into disconnection. Meanwhile, Moore vetoed a series of environmental justice and climate study bills, including assessments of utility rate impacts, data center emissions, and reparations for climate harms, undermining the state’s ability to plan equitably and proactively.

Progress under the Clean Energy Jobs Act of 2019, which mandates that 50% of electricity come from Tier I renewables by 2030 — including a 14.5% carveout for solar — has slowed as developers struggle with permitting backlogs and a hostile federal climate. Offshore wind development, anchored by the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard and Offshore Wind Renewable Energy Credits, is now under threat following the Trump administration’s 2025 executive order freezing new leases and stripping tax incentives through HR1. As transportation emissions rise, funding gaps persist, and state investments lag, Moore’s climate agenda risks shifting the burden onto the very communities already hardest hit.

Maryland needs more than ambition — it needs action. This means dramatically scaling financial relief, reforming the LIHEAP formula to reflect climate injustice, targeting support to communities in crisis, and reinstating climate justice research to inform policy. Because this is no longer abstract. Energy poverty is a question of survival: whether a mother in Baltimore City can refrigerate critical medication or a senior in Prince George’s County must choose between groceries and heat.

Now that HR?1 is the law of the land and state responses remain scattered, more Maryland families are being pushed deeper into energy hardship — with no real relief in sight. In a state that ranks among the wealthiest in the nation, no one should be left in the dark — not just without electricity, but without the basic power to live with dignity.

The post Burning the Safety Net: Why Energy Poverty Matters Most in Maryland appeared first on citybiz.

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