A messy compromise

Looks like we're kicking a can down the road, but it's a win for the moment.

Hopefully amber waves of grain like this won’t become solar panel fields. A showdown over county rights came to a head this week as the Delaware Senate Republicans used the little leverage they had to delay a bad bill.

Sussex County residents were big mad Monday night as the General Assembly passed Senate Bill 159, allowing the state to overrule the Sussex County Council’s denial of a necessary permit for US Wind to use the site of the former Indian River power plant to transmit offshore wind energy through the First State for Maryland’s use. Governor Matt Meyer wasted no time in signing it once the Senate voted on House changes, crowing, "We're bringing offshore wind to Delaware!"

Well, not so fast. You see, there was this matter of a bond bill to finish before the General Assembly adjourned for the year on Monday night, and the Republicans still have enough of a membership to hold off on that bill (which requires a 3/4 majority) until their concerns were addressed.

Moments after SB159 was signed, a bipartisan compromise was reached that would delay the enactment of that bill until January 31, 2026. Senate Bill 199 took about an hour to make its way through the two chambers and has been presented to Governor Meyer - however, he’s not signed it yet. All but one (absent) member of the House backed the bill alongside all 21 Senators.

The reason for the compromise bill was a lawsuit that’s still pending in Delaware Superior Court, where U.S. Wind is suing Sussex County over the permit denial. (Hopefully that court tells U.S. Wind to pound sand, but I don’t hold a lot of hope on that one considering every last court appointee in this state is a Democrat.) Republicans argued that the bill was premature with the suit pending.

While Governor Meyer could still veto SB199, he would lose a lot of credibility with his legislature and he needs them for three more years. Meanwhile, Senate Bill 200, the Bond Bill, was brought back from a previous unsuccessful vote where the GOP Senators held out and rushed through the DGA. At 11:33 p.m. the House voted on that bill and completed the cycle.

That wasn’t all the work the chambers did, though. Just after 1 a.m. the House wrapped up this half of the two-year session by establishing an Office of the Inspector General, which was a priority for both sides. Almost as importantly (and perhaps as part of the SB159 deal) a few minutes before that the House passed Senate Concurrent Resolution 18, which I talked about awhile back.

We will now have a “Delaware Nuclear Energy Feasibility Task Force to examine the feasibility, economic impact, regulatory considerations, energy reliability, and environmental implications of deploying Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) in Delaware.” Why bother with unreliable offshore wind or solar panels when you can have carbon-free, reliable energy out of 3 or 4 of these plants to service the state?

Still, I’m going to tally up the first half votes and deliver an interim report for the 2025-26 Delaware Accountability Project in the coming weeks. In the meantime, let’s hope the SB159 question becomes moot for the court as the Trump administration kills the offshore wind project for good. (I’m sure the battleground shifts to federal court then.)

Being it’s a holiday weekend upcoming, though, look for a blast from the past on Saturday.

In the meantime, though, you can Buy Me a Coffee, since I have a page there now.