Attorney General J.B. McCuskey is urging Maryland House and Senate leaders to table a bill that targets out-of-state coal producers.
West Virginia continues to push other states to protect its coal industry.
Attorney General J.B. McCuskey is urging Maryland House and Senate leaders to table a bill that targets out-of-state coal producers. McCuskey says the proposed legislation drives up prices and could be unconstitutional.
“A state cannot fill its coffers at the expense of hard-working Americans miles away in other states who work to keep our lights on and houses warm,” McCuskey wrote in a letter to Maryland’s Senate President Bill Ferguson, D-Baltimore City, and House Speaker Adrienne Jones, D-Baltimore County. “The bill inappropriately targets and extracts large sums of money from energy suppliers to bankroll Maryland’s budget.”
McCuskey wrote a similar letter to lawmakers in New York.
McCuskey said Maryland does not produce much of its own coal, but the Port of Baltimore is the second-largest coal exporting port in the country. Coal passing through the port would be subject to a fee, hurting coal-producing states.
West Virginia is second in the nation in coal production, trailing only Wyoming.