Amid the focus on energy and budget debates, a largely overlooked transportation measure is beginning to make its way through the Maryland General Assembly.
The Transportation Climate Alignment Act (HB 437 / SB 59) would establish new regulatory hurdles for major highway capacity projects and direct the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) to align its spending with assumptions in the state’s Climate Pollution Reduction Plan.
In testimony submitted on February 6, NAIOP Maryland urged the House Appropriations Committee not to approve the bill. NAIOP warned that HB 437 would impose “project‑blocking conditions” and tie transportation investments to outdated climate modeling assumptions.
Under the bill, large highway expansion projects would be required to achieve net‑zero or negative greenhouse gas emissions. To meet that standard, MDOT would be forced to fund multimodal “offsets” – such as transit, bike, or pedestrian infrastructure – before or simultaneously with major road construction.
NAIOP argued that this requirement is not feasible. Achieving net‑zero emissions on a single highway project would require “massive and sustained” shifts away from car travel to other modes — changes that are expensive to support and unlikely to occur at the scale needed.
The testimony also emphasized that Colorado’s transportation law, which is often cited by supporters, does not impose project‑level net‑zero mandates. Instead, it relies on land‑use reforms, including mandating locally designated, high‑density, transit‑oriented development zones. This element is missing from the Maryland bill.
Additionally, NAIOP warned that binding the state’s transportation capital spending to climate‑modeling assumptions could distort MDOT’s ability to respond to current transportation needs. The modeling assumes minimal growth in vehicle miles traveled (VMT), high electric vehicle adoption, and expanded high-speed rail options that do not yet exist. As a result, the bill could drive misallocation of public funds toward multimodal projects without an integrated land-use strategy, while delaying or cancelling critical highway improvements.