With the climate crisis bearing down, Maryland legislators cave in to fossil fuels

Suspending the gas tax may sound good, but it’s a bad idea. Are our elected officials blind to the fact that almost nine out of every 10 barrels of oil used in Maryland are consumed by the transportation sector and that 36% of greenhouse gas emissions come from motor vehicles? Or that Americans use more oil than any nation, exceeding the next highest nation by 54% while consuming 20% of all oil with only 4% of the world’s population?

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How do we fight waterborne diseases? By reducing emissions and alerting the public to the dangers…

Health departments and the Department of Natural Resources need to issue regular public notices through the media about the dangers posed by these toxic organisms. Their messages should indicate precautions that can be taken to avoid waterborne diseases, especially for those most susceptible, including the immunocompromised or those with diabetes or chronic liver disease. Here’s what needs to be emphasized:

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The Fictional War on Family Farmers

One reality is that nobody wants families to be forced to stop farming. A second widely-understood reality is that the single greatest force driving farm families away from their traditional lives is the ever-growing domination of food production by huge companies like Perdue, Inc.

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Weak Regulation of Manure Proposed

(Posted by Gerald Winegrad)

The Maryland Department of Agriculture announced the development of weakened proposed regulations that are well short of the positions advocated by the Senior Scientists and Policymakers for the Bay to address the pollution from millions of tons of chicken and other farm animal manure that is poisoning ground and surface waters. Some key elements of the proposals don’t even go into effect until 2016, allowing four more years to do just some of what has been required for land application of treated human sludge since 1985!

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The Session of the Bay

(Posted by Erik Michelsen)

In preparing for the 2012 Maryland Legislative session, the memories of largely unproductive sessions for the environment in 2010 and 2011 were very fresh. The combined environmental community – the Clean Water, Healthy Families coalition – resolved to be more focused, to pursue a direct request of legislators, and to focus on goals that would have a measurable impact on improving water quality.

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Perdue’s PR Campaign of Deceit

(Posted by Bob Gallagher)

A group of legislators, following a script conceived by the public relations machine of Perdue and the Maryland Farm Bureau, have joined in Perdue’s unprecedented effort to derail an environmental lawsuit that has singular importance for the Chesapeake bay watershed. The effort is unprecedented in the extent to which Perdue and its enablers are attempting to use the media and the political process to win a case that they have as yet been unable to win in court.

Here is the story.

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