Front Page > World > Article Title/Fixture Title

Front Page > Metro

Email | Print | Subscribe

Click-2-Listen

advertisement

Green agenda seen as stalling

By Kristen Wyatt
March 25, 2008

ANNAPOLIS (AP) — All was going green last year in the Maryland legislature, with environmentalists winning easy approval of many of their long-awaited priorities. But the story is different this year.

A plan to address global warming by slashing carbon emissions has been weakened. Tougher rules governing waterside development have been modified. And a bill to postpone a deadline for requiring lower phosphates in dishwashing detergent is headed toward approval.

In addition, a major environmental accomplishment of last year — a $50 million fund to clean up the Chesapeake Bay — has already been raided by lawmakers before a single dollar is spent. The fund now stands at about $25 million.

Environmental activists say they're still making progress. But the going is much slower in the 2008 legislative session than it was last year, when lawmakers signed off on pollution controls for power plants and mandated cleaner-burning cars. The legislature also banned power clam-dredging in Atlantic coastal bays and ended the commercial harvest of diamondback terrapins.

Activists hoped to regain momentum yesterday in dramatic fashion. They used chalk to draw a line across an Annapolis street, about a quarter-mile away from the water, to represent a possible new shoreline if global warming isn't addressed.

"Sea-level rise would be devastating for this city," said Tommy Landers of Environment Maryland. "And not just Annapolis. Baltimore, the Eastern Shore — everywhere."

The demonstration was aimed at House members, who are considering a global-warming measure significantly weakened by the Senate. Senators voted last week for carbon reductions that scientists say are necessary to slow climate change. But they amended the bill to take away power from state environmental regulators to enforce the reductions, a move environmentalists say would gut the bill. A maneuver to try to get senators to reconsider the change failed.

If the Senate amendment stays in the bill, "it would be useless," Mr. Landers said.

Click-2-Listen

Front Page > Metro