House Bill 272, introduced to the House Environment and Transportation Committee, would remove outdated statutory language and realign several agency responsibilities to reflect current practice, Secretary Flora of the Maryland Department of Planning told the panel.

Secretary Flora, Maryland Department of Planning, said the bill comprises eight components aimed at efficiency and alignment, including clarifying precinct boundary data flows, moving some solid-waste plan responsibilities to the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE), and narrowing the Department of Planning’s role as a repository for real-property information to state-owned property only.

The bill’s measures include: requiring the State Administrator of Elections to copy the Department of Planning on precinct-boundary correspondence to reduce lag in population and mapping data; adjusting cross-agency responsibilities under the environmental article (citing 9‑507); ending obsolete reporting tied to the long-defunct State Economic Growth, Resource Protection and Planning Commission; removing a dormant budget-transfer reference to the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission; removing capital facilities planning duties that moved to the Department of Budget and Management decades ago; and updating geographic classification language to reflect modern GIS standards.

Secretary Flora said the department vetted the eight items over “the last couple of years” to avoid unintended consequences and to improve clarity for the public and agencies. Assistant Secretary Chuck Boyd appeared with Flora and answered technical clarifications about naming conventions for metropolitan councils.

Committee members asked about the municipal population projection change (adding Baltimore Metropolitan Council naming and a Gaithersburg request to add the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments). Secretary Flora said the Baltimore wording change was a naming clarification; the Gaithersburg proposal to include the MWCOG raised a policy question about parity for other metropolitan planning organizations and was deferred to a subcommittee follow-up.

No formal action or vote on HB 272 was recorded during the hearing; sponsors and staff said they stood ready to answer follow-ups.

The Department of Planning described the bill as narrowly corrective rather than policy-changing, targeting statutes that no longer reflect how responsibilities are carried out in practice.

The committee concluded the HB 272 hearing after members’ questions about metropolitan council data sources and subcommittee follow-up.