MARYLAND – A team of Republican lawmakers are calling on Maryland Governor Wes Moore, Speaker Adrienne Jones and Senate President Bill Ferguson to halt fees for Maryland’s EmPOWER program.

They say doing so would help residents struggling with high energy bills.

“We’re asking that this fee be revoked immediately to provide relief to people on their electricity bills,” said Del. Mark Fisher of Calvert County. “That’s the only thing we can do right now to fix things.”

The Maryland Freedom Caucus recently filed an emergency bill, House Bill 1535, to repeal those EmPOWER program fees.

Del. Fisher is one of several lawmakers in the Maryland Freedom Caucus calling for the repeal.

“We’ve seen EmPOWER bills as high as $100 a month, it’s ridiculous,” said Fisher. “We’ve seen other EmPOWER bills $75 a month, one of my colleagues has an EmPOWER bill that’s $50 a month and he’s in the Freedom Caucus.”

If approved, the emergency bill could save someone anywhere from a few bucks to around $100 on their utility bill.

“This would be immediate relief and some people are like, ‘oh what’s the big deal, it’s only $50?’ The big deal is between inflation, between electricity prices, between EmPOWER, between food costs and between the taxes that Annapolis keeps raising on the citizens of Maryland, they’ve had it,” said Del. Fisher.

The EmPOWER program began in 2008 and its surcharge helps low and moderate income homeowners make energy-efficient improvements to their home without out-of-pocket costs.

The higher the gas and electricity usage you have, the higher the surcharge.

“It looks like it’s just a slush fund, so the bill comes in to stop the program,” said Del. Kathy Szeliga, who serves as Vice Chair of the Maryland Freedom Caucus. “If we need to just pause it and do a complete deep-dive and reassessment of the program, that would be fine as well.”

Del. Szeliga, who also serves Baltimore County, said the time is now to act on relieving some of these high costs for energy consumers.

“You look at what’s going on in Washington D.C. and they’re really cutting waste, fraud and abuse,” she said. “I think this program is really ripe for that kind of audit and, first and foremost, we really need to find a way to deliver savings on people’s gas and electric bills right away.”

We reached out the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development Monday, but did not hear back.