As you may recall, I co-authored a report that was published last fall which examined the risk that climate change poses to the Maryland state retirement and pension system. The findings from that report led to the introduction of new legislation in the state of Maryland, MD HB993, earlier this year.
I'm pleased to report that HB993 passed the Maryland House and Senate in April, was approved by the Governor on May 15th, and officially becomes a law on July 1st of this year!
The new law will require the State Retirement and Pension System (SRPS) Board of Trustees to adopt new policies regarding the management of risk to SRPS (including climate risk), and requires them to submit annual risk assessment reports. It also provides the State Retirement Agency (SRA) with up to $400,000 of additional funding annually to expand its existing risk management system to hire consultants with expertise in assessing climate risk.
While I was initially disheartened to see that the word 'climate' was struck from much of the final bill, after reading over the final marked up version, I believe the enacted law may be stronger than the one that was initially proposed. It still requires analysis of climate risk, but now requires it annually, instead of every four years, and as mentioned above, provides annual funding for a climate risk expert.
You can see the final (marked up) bill here:
http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2018RS/Chapters_noln/CH_769_hb0993e.pdfA more easily understandable fiscal and policy note describing the bill can be found here:
http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2018RS/fnotes/bil_0003/hb0993.pdfAnd in case you didn't see it before, the report that I co-wrote which led to the introduction and passage of HB993 can be found here:
https://works.bepress.com/wes_hanson/9/