Currently under debate, Bill 13-22 is a piece of county environmental legislation that would issue all-electric building standards for new construction and major renovations starting Jan. 1, 2024.

This effort was sponsored by Councilmember Hans Riemer and co-sponsored by Councilmember Will Jawando. It does not affect current buildings and would grant extended deadlines for schools and “income-restricted” housing.

“I think that this bill is a really great step in working to reach Montgomery County’s goal of reducing its carbon emissions,” sophomore Niya Bansal, who is knowledgeable about the bill, said. “I read somewhere that about 50 percent of the county’s emissions are from building structures and electricity usage in them. Therefore, I think that requiring newly constructed buildings to be sustainable will be very helpful.”

RM biology teacher Bessy Albaugh has positive thoughts on the bill. “I think it’s the route we want to go through. Even in California now they’re allowing cars to at some point turn all electric, and I think in New York they’re mandating the same thing,” Mrs. Albaugh said.

For now, school buildings like RM would be largely unaffected, as most of the focus is on residential and commercial building sectors in the county. However, the bill will apply to schools still in their design phase, such as Crown High School, which is planned to relieve overcrowding in Quince Orchard High School and RM by 2027. 

As climate change has accelerated within the past decade, many communities, including Montgomery County, have been slow to phase out carbon-releasing fossil fuels. According to a joint memorandum written by Elrich and Reimer, the building sector makes up 50 percent of the County’s emissions. By passing this bill, not only would Montgomery County be the third county on the Atlantic seaboard to adopt such a law, but it would also jumpstart the county’s existing decarbonization initiatives, such as the Building Energy Performance Standards (BEPS) program and the Commercial Property-Assessed Clean Energy (CPACE) program.

Still, Bansal believes that there is room for improvement. “The next step for the county could be to slowly make all public schools run on green energy. Furthermore, the county could work on increasing or creating subsidies for electric cars,” Bansal said.

Mrs. Albaugh also has some concerns. “If the electricity goes out, there are families who can afford generators for when that happens, […] but then you have to think of families who are not as privileged. They won’t have power, and there’s little they can do,” she said. She sees potential in the bill nonetheless, and said, “I could see [Bill 13-22] becoming very effective.”