To Maryland environmental activists, penalizing fossil fuel companies for the damages of climate change looks like a no-brainer.

Other liberal states like New York and Vermont already have put such plans into motion, passing “climate superfund” laws to fine titans like ExxonMobil and Chevron billions of dollars.

But the effort in Maryland is on ice — at least for now — after Gov. Wes Moore vetoed a bill Friday that would have studied how much these fossil fuel companies could owe the state.

The RENEW Act was among 23 bills Moore vetoed Friday, many of which he said put an unnecessary burden on the state as it manages a strapped budget.

He also vetoed legislation to study the environmental and financial costs of data centers and a bill to establish a new energy planning office, parts of a sweeping package proposed by the General Assembly’s Democratic leadership aimed at cutting energy costs and boosting in-state power generation.

Moore signed the other two bills in that energy package into law Tuesday.

Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, called Moore’s veto of the climate costs study profoundly disappointing.

It also came as a surprise.

Tidwell said he met with Moore in March to discuss the RENEW Act and the governor raised no questions about it. The next time he heard from Moore about the issue was in Friday’s veto letter.

Though Tidwell said Moore has signed some good climate policy into law, he has yet to take the lead on climate change issues.

“He made an ill-advised veto,” said Tidwell, “that I think history will look back on as a sad moment for Marylanders.”

In a letter Friday to legislative leadership, Moore said he vetoed the RENEW Act and two other studies in part because of the unnecessary burden they put on the state’s already strained resources. While studies can make good first steps, Moore said “the practice has become so commonplace that it is now a significant financial and staff burden on the state government.”

In a separate letter, Moore also vetoed the Energy Resource Adequacy and Planning Act, which would have created a new state office to develop forecasts for the state’s energy needs. This office would cost $29 million over its first five years of operation, Moore said, and would overlap significantly with other agencies already focused on energy planning and analysis.

This study approach can delay action on pressing issues, Moore told the General Assembly.

“Studies can serve a purpose,” he wrote, “but their overuse is a drag on the State government.”

Environmental groups don’t see it that way.

The study outlined under the RENEW Act would have cost just $500,000, and proponents argue the payout could be in the billions if Maryland moves forward with a superfund law to penalize fossil fuel companies, as New York and Vermont have done.

“This veto is not fiscal responsibility, it‘s a definitive step in the opposite direction of our climate goals,” said Kim Coble, director of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters, in a statement alongside CCAN and the Maryland chapter of the Sierra Club.

Though other blue states have have considered climate superfund laws, the efforts in New York and Vermont face legal challenges, including from President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice.

The RENEW Act passed both chambers of the General Assembly overwhelmingly, and Moore’s vetoes could be overridden the next time lawmakers are in session.

The General Assembly’s next scheduled session isn’t until January, but there’s been discussion about whether lawmakers might need to head back to Annapolis before then if Congress cuts funding to the state.

Still, the vetoes didn’t come up Tuesday afternoon, when Senate President Bill Ferguson and House Speaker Adrienne Jones joined Moore as he signed the new budget and the two other bills in the legislature’s energy package.

“This year we passed the most substantive energy affordability package that Marylanders have seen in several generations,” Ferguson said.

One of the signed energy bills aims to override county bans on solar farms, while the other tightens the screws on utility companies and attempts to fast-track new power plants. That bill, the Next Generation Energy Act, became a flashpoint this session for its regulatory shortcuts and friendliness to natural gas, but the final version was more palatable to climate groups.

Moore’s signature on Next Generation Energy Act also ends renewable energy subsidies to trash incinerators. The incinerator in South Baltimore is the city’s single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, and environmental advocates have fought for years to end state support for the facility.

In a statement, Moore spokesman Carter Elliott pointed to the governor’s support for these provisions in the energy package, as well as legislation aimed at Chesapeake Bay restoration and $100 million for climate action in the new budget.

“The governor will work to make progress towards Maryland’s climate goals while the country’s fiscal situation continues to worsen because of the actions of the Trump Administration,” Elliott said.

A version of the RENEW Act introduced in the 2023 session would have charged Exxon, Chevron and dozens of other fossil fuel companies $9 billion. The original version of this year’s legislation would have moved ahead with fining the giant companies, but lawmakers instead decided study the costs of climate damages and decide whether to pursue the money another year.

Comptroller Brooke Lierman’s Office, which would oversee the climate costs study and release findings by December 2026, declined to comment on Moore’s veto.

Senator Katie Fry Hester, who sponsored both the RENEW Act and the bill to create an energy planning office, said she was “surprised and disappointed” by the vetoes and looks forward to working with legislative leaders on next steps.

Banner reporter Pamela Wood contributed to this article.