HB 969 Amendments Do Not Close the $0.00/kWh Loophole

I sent the following to members of the Maryland House of Delegates Environment and Transportation Committee regarding House Bill 969, Electric Vehicle Fuel Sold at Retail – Equipment Requirements, Units of Measure, Sales Price, and Fees

HB 969 – Continued Opposition Following Subcommittee Amendments

Chair Korman, Vice Chair Guyton, and Members of the Committee:

I previously submitted written testimony and testified at the February 27 hearing requesting an unfavorable report on House Bill 969. I write again briefly in light of the amendments adopted yesterday in the Agriculture And Aquaculture Subcommittee.

The amendment requiring itemized receipts is already addressed by NIST Handbook 44, Section UR.3.3, which requires a receipt at the completion of every transaction detailing the quantity of energy delivered, the unit price, and any additional separate charges such as parking fees, including their unit price and total cost. Handbook 44 is explicitly incorporated into Maryland law through Agriculture Article 11-207.1. To the extent other amendments also restate requirements already present in Handbook 44, the same redundancy concern from my original testimony applies. More broadly, codifying select provisions of the NIST Handbooks into Maryland statute creates a known risk: if NIST updates those handbooks, Maryland’s statute may fall out of step with the national standards it was intended to reflect. Advanced Energy United raised a related concern in their testimony, recommending that Maryland harmonize with national standards through the National Type Evaluation Program rather than creating Maryland-specific requirements.

NIST has a statutory responsibility for cooperation with the states in securing uniformity of weights and measures laws, and publishes Handbook 130: Uniform Laws and Regulations in the Areas of Legal Metrology and Fuel Quality to help fulfill that responsibility. Codifying selected provisions of these national standards into Maryland statute, rather than deferring to the uniform national framework, risks the exact statutory conflicts I described in my original testimony.

More importantly, none of the amendments close the loophole I identified in my original testimony. The loophole works as follows: an operator sets the kilowatt-hour price to $0.00 while charging consumers the full cost of the charging session through a time-based “parking” fee, thereby satisfying the technical requirement to display a kWh price while ensuring that price carries no monetary value. The two attached images illustrate this in practice. The first shows a Maryland charging station displaying $0.00/kWh for energy alongside a separate parking fee of $2.00/Hour, a structure that would require no changes under the amended bill. The second shows a charging station that displays no kWh price at all and charges entirely by time, a structure that would be required to add a kWh price under the bill, but which could achieve technical compliance simply by displaying $0.00/kWh.

NIST Handbook 130, Section 2.33.3(a) states in full: “A computing EVSE shall display the unit price in whole cents (e.g., $0.12) or tenths of one cent (e.g., $0.119) on the basis of price per kilowatt-hour (kWh). In cases where the electrical energy is unlimited or free of charge, this fact shall be clearly indicated in place of the unit price.” In practice, compliant stations displaying genuinely free charging show “FREE” as the price, and only when no other fees are assessed. However, Maryland Weights and Measures has made the interpretive decision that displaying $0.00/kWh alongside significant time-based fees satisfies this standard, treating a zero-priced commodity entry as the functional equivalent of the “FREE” indication the handbook contemplates. These are not the same thing. A consumer seeing $0.00/kWh next to a $2.00/hour parking fee is not being told electricity is free; they are receiving a misleading price signal. This interpretation may itself be inconsistent with the handbook’s intent.

The legislative history of this bill makes clear that its proponents understood this loophole exists and attempted to close it. The Senate version of this bill as introduced included a provision authorizing the Comptroller to set a minimum price per kilowatt-hour, specifically to prevent operators from setting the kWh price at zero. The Comptroller’s Office responded that it lacked the expertise to set such a price and requested the provision be removed. The Maryland Department of Agriculture then proposed specific amendment language in their testimony to this committee: that electricity sold as a retail vehicle fuel “shall be sold and priced in terms of kilowatt-hour during the charging session and in no case shall be priced to have no monetary value when other fees are present.” The Maryland Energy Administration went further in their testimony, recommending that the bill explicitly prohibit setting a $0.00/kWh price when additional service fees are imposed, drawing a parallel to Maryland’s existing prohibition on selling gasoline below cost. Neither the MDA’s proposed language nor the MEA’s recommended amendment was included in the amendments adopted yesterday. The loophole was identified, multiple attempts were made to close it, and all were set aside before the bill was advanced out of subcommittee.

The bill as amended codifies the appearance of a kilowatt-hour pricing standard while still permitting operators to render that standard meaningless. The proper remedy is to work within the uniform national framework that NIST is statutorily charged with maintaining. The Department of Agriculture should clarify its enforcement interpretation administratively, or petition the National Conference on Weights and Measures to make the distinction between “FREE” and “$0.00/kWh” explicit in Handbook 130. Because NIST’s mandate is precisely to secure uniformity of weights and measures laws across all states, a fix made at that level would protect consumers in Maryland and every other state, without the risk of Maryland’s statute falling out of step with the national standards.

This fee structure also continues to allow operators to mask the cost of electricity as a parking fee, reducing the state’s taxable sales and use tax base, a concern I have separately raised with the Comptroller’s Office, which is currently investigating the matter.

An unfavorable report on this bill is not a vote against consumer protection; it is a vote to ensure that consumer protection is achieved properly, through the uniform national standards framework designed for exactly this purpose, rather than through state legislation that leaves the core problem unaddressed while creating new risks of statutory conflict.

Respectfully submitted,
Lanny Hartmann
Columbia, Maryland

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