For Maryland environmentalists, this looked like the year the state would stop giving green energy subsidies to trash incinerators.

As of Tuesday morning, that hope was still alive, though environmental advocates might have to swallow a tough pill to get there.

A pair of bills that would have stripped the “renewable” energy label from trash incinerators didn’t get a vote ahead of the General Assembly’s Monday night “crossover” deadline, when legislation either passes to the opposite chamber or, typically, bites the dust.

But Senate President Bill Ferguson, who introduced the senate’s version of the incinerator proposal, told reporters Tuesday he expects the proposal to be folded into Democratic leadership’s high-priority energy package, which lawmakers aim to approve in the session’s home stretch.

Environmentalists have pushed for years, to no avail, to end the state’s subsidy for trash incinerators, which burn garbage to produce electricity and steam. The state has paid out tens of millions of dollars in such subsidies since 2011 to waste-burning facilities in both Maryland and Virginia.

This year, though, felt different: Ferguson, one of the most powerful officials in Annapolis, announced ahead of session that he would lead the charge to end the subsidy, which benefits a controversial incinerator in his South Baltimore district.

Despite a last-ditch push by advocates, including an anti-trash burning take on the Chappell Roan hit “Hot To Go,” Monday’s midnight crossover deadline passed without action on the senate president’s bill and companion legislation in the House.

Ferguson, however, said Tuesday that he expects the incinerator proposal to be folded into a trio of bills top Democrats are pushing aimed at increasing Maryland’s in-state energy generation. One of those bills, backed by Ferguson and House Speaker Adrienne Jones, could be used to attract a new natural gas-fired power plant — a point of concern for climate advocates.

SirJames Weaver, an environmental justice organizer with Progressive Maryland, expressed disappointment that lawmakers didn’t advance the stand-alone bill before Monday’s deadline. He called tactics to hitch the proposal to another bill “duplicitous” and “stealthy.”

Weaver said his group doesn’t support bills that would bolster fossil fuels, but added that advocates are open to any route they can find to end the incinerator subsidy.

“This is the pathway to the finish line,” he said. “So we’re gonna have to make a compromise.”

Ferguson told reporters that leadership had agreed early on that they would work out complex energy issues toward the session’s end. He expects an agreement within the next week or two on a package aimed at bolstering Maryland’s generation of cleaner, more affordable energy.

“Just because you have a bill doesn’t mean it’s the bill that is the answer. It can go in another place,” he said Tuesday.

The senate president also controls his chamber, meaning there’s still the chance that the incinerator proposal could advance as a stand-alone bill.

Maryland is home to two trash-burning incinerators. One, located in an industrial area near low-income and majority nonwhite South Baltimore communities, is operated by the New Hampshire-based WIN Waste Innovations. It is the subject of intense opposition from environmental advocates and a federal civil rights complaint.

The other is owned by Montgomery County and located is a rural part of that county.

Since 2011, the state’s subsidy has paid more than $100 million to incinerators in both Maryland and Virginia, according to a report last year by progressive and environmental groups, which estimated that this payout could triple by 2030.

The WIN Waste facility in Baltimore collected $15.5 million in state subsidies between 2020 and 2023, according to company figures.

WIN Waste officials have pointed to upgrades the company has made to pollution controls at the Baltimore plant and said cutting the subsidy could threaten the plant’s viability.

Other polluting fuel sources, including out-of-state facilities that burn wood waste and methane gas from landfills, also collect the state’s renewable energy credits, and WIN Waste spokesperson Mary Urban said it’s those facilities, not wind and solar, that would benefit if incinerators stop getting the subsidy.

“If this bill moves forward, it will increase waste disposal costs for local governments, small businesses and residents, and it would punish in-state energy generation while Marylanders’ energy bills are skyrocketing due to insufficient home-grown energy,” Urban said.

Ferguson and backers of the legislation have argued that ending the subsidy wouldn’t shut down any facilities.

“When we have this energy crisis, when we need truly green, truly renewable sources of energy in Maryland, we don’t need to further incentivize incineration,” the senate president said at a rally last month. “I know it’s been a long time coming, and this is the year we’re going to get it done.”