‘Eric's ID' moves from idea to reality, a ‘forever chemical' fail, the mother of all amendments
Del. Jheanelle Wilkins (D-Montgomery), left, poses with Eric and Linda Carpenter-Grantham at the State House on March 6. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)
Butterflies could soon be appearing on Maryland driver's licenses.
That's because lawmakers are close to approving 'Eric's ID Law,' which would require the Motor Vehicle Administration to put the butterfly logo above the words 'hidden disability' on driver's licenses, identification cards, even moped licenses, for people with a 'nonapparent disability.'
The bill is named for named after Eric Carpenter-Grantham, a 20-year-old Montgomery County resident with autism, one of the nonapparent disabilities identified in House Bill 707, which also includes anyone with developmental or intellectual disabilities that are not immediately noticeable. There is also a Senate version, Senate Bill 618.
The House Tuesday give final approval to the Senate bill, which has already been sent to the goveror. The Senate unanimously passed the House version Thursday with minor technical amendments that need to be accepted by the House before it can be sent to the governor, too.
The measures are sponsored by Carpenter-Grantham's District 20 representatives, Montgomery County Democrats Sen. William C. Smith Jr. and Del. Jheanelle Wilkins, and co-sponsored by Dels. David Moon and Lorig Charkoudian, among others.
Carpenter-Grantham and his mother, Linda Carpenter-Grantham, traveled to Annapolis last month, when the House and Senate approved both measures in their respective chambers on the same day.
'The significance of that bill is that it was an idea that came from a constituent. We went out to coffee, explained some of the concerns with their situation, and that's the majesty of this process,' Smith said in an interview Tuesday. 'Eric and Linda are just amazing people that have really leaned into this process. It's very rare where you get a story, where you can start from a small seed of an idea, and then it grows to like an actual piece of legislation that's going to impact a lot of people.'
A bill that would have banned certain PFAS chemicals from pesticides in the state is dead for this year after environmental groups and safety advocates pulled their support, the sponsor of the Senate bill said.
The groups initially backed the bills, House Bill 386 and Senate Bill 345, which would have banned the sale of pesticides containing PFAS, chemicals that have been linked to serious health issues and are known as 'forever chemicals' because they are extremely slow to break down in the environment and the body.
But the groups reneged after the definition of PFAS compounds was narrowed in the legislation, a change that was backed by some pesticide manufacturers. Under the amendment, PFAS would need to have two fluorinated carbon atoms, a departure from state law, which currently requires only one.
Advocates worried that more-narrow definition could be used in other areas of state law dealing with PFAS. That disagreement ultimately sank the bill, said Sen. Benjamin Brooks (D-Baltimore County), who sponsored the Senate version.
'The supporters of the bill, they are just that entrenched, that they just cannot go with the double carbon,' Brooks said. 'So, it would be better to hold off for this session — maybe even next session — and come back.'
It's the second high-profile PFAS measure to stumble in the closing weeks of the legislative session. Senate Bill 732 and House Bill 909 would have limited PFAS levels in the sewage sludge that comes from wastewater treatment plants, and is often applied to farm fields as fertilizer. But lawmakers said they could not reach agreement with treatment facilities.
Bonnie Raindrop, coordinator of Maryland's Smart on Pesticides Coalition, said she was grateful to hear that the pesticide bill's shrunken PFAS definition would not advance into law. She is fearful that President Donald Trump's Environmental Protection Agency will soon consider the narrowed definition at the request of chemical industry groups.
'We are glad that they won't be able to point to Maryland and this bill as a justification for 'harmonizing' the definition to the 2-carbon definition,' Raindrop said in a statement.
The Senate Education, Energy and the Environment Committee had issues with some of the content of House Bill 161. How much of an issue? The committee's amendment struck everything between 'Section 1. Be it enacted' on the first page to 'Section 2. And bi itfurther enacted' on the final page.
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HB161 once prohibited parents from opting their children out of required age-appropriate instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity, drawing scathing criticism from House Republicans who argued that those discussions are best held at home, not in the classroom.
The Senate amendmments, filed Wednesday, remove all the controversial provisions. Now, the bill simply affirms that counties must align their curriculum to state standards and creates a process to correct county curriculum if it is out of alignment with those standards.
The Senate voted to approve the committee amendment Thursday morning, overhauling the legislation and removing the required instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation language in the process. It gave final approval to the amended bill laterin the day, on a 33012 vote.
'The committee saw an opportunity to … create a broader and clearer process,' Sen. Mary Washington (D-Baltimore City and Baltimore County) said when defending the legislation later Thursday. 'While this started in one place, it sort of highlighted a different broader issue and frankly … it wasn't really clear what locals could do if there was some disparity or discrepancy.'
The initial version of the legislation arose in response to a Carroll County school board decision to remove certain curriculum related to LGBTQ+ issues. The House has passed versions of the bill to boost instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation, but those efforts have fallen short in the Senate so far.
Minority Whip Justin Ready (R- Frederick and Carroll) said Thursday that he appreciated the changes to the bill, although he ultimately voted against it.
'I appreciate that this bill was not moved forward in the way that it came over, because as it was, I think it would not have been the right move for the state,' Ready said.
'The genesis of this legislation, which has been about an ongoing three-year saga, has been a disagreement about what's appropriate for different age groups in the context of sexuality and family life,' Ready said. 'Now the bill tried to do a lot of things that are not in the bill anymore … I do appreciate that a very egregious part of the bill, which was going to try to say that parents couldn't opt their children out of some of that instruction at all, was struck from this bill.'
Despite the heavy amendments, Senate Republicans still voted against the bill Thursday. It now goes back to the House, which will have to decide whether it will accept the changes and send it on to the governor, or let the bill die.
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