The 2025 Maryland legislature, at the behest of the solar industry, is loading up to pass the greatest land grab in the state’s 247-year history, leading to a permanent destruction of Maryland’s farming lands.

Let’s not mince words. Right now, Maryland House and Senate leaders under pressure from Senate President Bill Ferguson (a solar company insider and legal counsel for CI Renewables), are laying out a campaign to replace the State’s largest economic sector — agriculture — with a new industry: solar power. The collateral damage to Maryland’s counties, small-town economies, its rural communities, and most importantly, its farming lands, will be enormous.

Recently, Sen. Brian Feldman of Montgomery County introduced SB-0931, a bill aimed at bringing solar sprawl to Maryland’s agricultural lands. As written, “solar” bills like SB-0931 are part of a Wall Street-backed scheme to give solar developers a free pass to bulldoze forests, take over farmland, and nullify local decision making. Make no mistake: These greenwashing solar companies are not about helping the environment, they’re land speculators out for profit and control.

Large-scale solar projects — as a business model — are a giant failure and cannot stand on their own without massive state and federal subsidies and cheap land to make them work. But Maryland’s productive farms are too important as a food-producing asset to be used as a reward for solar industry donors’ contributions to the Democratic Party and ‘environmental’ organizations.

These bills open the door to unchecked industrial solar sprawl, ignoring the long-term consequences for water quality, wildlife and natural landscapes. Meanwhile, safety and environmental concerns tied to large-scale battery storage remain unresolved, leaving communities at risk with little say in the matter.

This is not progress. It is short-sighted and destructive policymaking. Annapolis is choosing well-connected corporate interests over the future of Maryland’s open spaces, farmland, and environmental integrity. We cannot let that happen.

Legislatively powered solar “sprawl” is NOT what Maryland needs and SB-0931 should be composted without delay.

— Jay Falstad, Millington

The writer is the executive director of the Queen Anne’s Conservation Association.