And yet they blame farmers?
There was a story in yesterday’s Baltimore Sun by Timothy Wheeler which was brought to my attention, a story which documented the troubles both Baltimore City and County are having with a sewage infrastructure which, in some cases, is over a century old. Between the two municipalities over 160 million gallons of untreated sewage has leaked into the watershed this year alone.
Obviously this is a situation which is slowly being addressed, as the story points out over $2 billion is being invested into repairing the system over the next decade. Certainly that’s a legitimate function of government, and I have no objection to local tax dollars being used in such a manner.
It’s the unfortunate tendency of farmers and rural interests getting the blame for a problem that occurs because of urban areas like Baltimore City and County which bothers me the most.
Taxes and Keystone
So, President Obama wants to extend the payroll tax cut. Okay, said House Republicans, but we’re going to create a whole bunch of jobs with it by giving the green light to the Keystone XL pipeline.
I’ll let Andy Harris pick things up from here:
“Americans need the truly ‘shovel-ready’ jobs and economic investment that the Keystone XL Pipeline will provide,” said Rep. Andy Harris (MD-01). “The plan that the House majority has introduced is an excellent compromise that will extend tax cuts to the middle class, create tens of thousands of jobs, and will help secure America’s energy future. I am deeply disappointed that President Obama has promised to veto this bill to extend tax relief to our citizens over the Keystone pipeline provision that actually creates jobs without spending a dime of taxpayer money while lowering the price of gasoline and diesel as well.”
Yes, President Obama is threatening to veto the measure. So much for compromise.
Either one of the two points below would then be true. Come to think about it, maybe both are:
- President Obama doesn’t really want to create jobs. Well, perhaps he doesn’t unless they happen to be either government jobs or positions in an industry he favors. But I have news for the President: there aren’t any green jobs; shoot, right now there aren’t many jobs period. Or:
- President Obama really has no desire to cut taxes. To be honest, this tax cut he gave out was relatively insignificant to working families. But he certainly wants to lower the boom on more successful working families by increasing the taxes for couples that make over $200,000.
I’ll grant that the Keystone XL pipeline probably won’t do a whole lot for our local economy since it will run through several states in the Midwest. But the additional oil supply will help us in the long run by stabilizing gasoline prices, as Congressman Harris points out.
But if we do elect a new President next year, I hope Congressman Harris – assuming he’s re-elected, for which he’s an odds-on favorite at the moment – will begin to advocate solutions for our tax code which are more permanent and will begin the process of weaning the government off an income-based tax collection. Ramping up a consumption-based tax, as Herman Cain proposed with his economic plan, would serve this purpose.
Electing conservatives isn’t enough – we need to elect those who have the courage to act. Whether you like President Obama or despise his policies as much as I do, the one thing you can say is that he acted in trying to get his agenda done. We may only have four years to undo the damage he did, although I suspect that if a true conservative succeeds Obama he (or she) will have a full eight years to make a difference. But we’ll all have to roll up our sleeves and get to work – something sorely lacking with the Obama regime.
And now for something completely different:
The first of six opening round tilts in my best local blog poll is over, and the first semi-finalist will be Right Coast Conservative.
After a strong start, Julie Brewington’s site saw a rally from the Shorebirds’ blog which placed it ahead for a time. But much like their team’s performance in 2011, the Shorebirds site couldn’t hang on in the late innings as a strong push from RCC readers carried Julie’s site in the end. Right Coast Conservative received 143 votes and moves on, while the Delmarva Shorebirds Blog gathered 66. The Pocomoke Public Eye did not receive a vote.
The second round is up now, and it has an interesting draw to be sure.
The ‘clean energy scam’ in Maryland
The inspiration for this post was received yesterday when I perused a commentary by Townhall.com writers Amy Oliver Cooke and Michael Sandoval called “Disasters Keep Hitting Clean Energy Scam.” It picks out over two dozen news items which illustrate the folly of so-called clean energy, alternatives which have “so far failed to demonstrate the necessary economic and energy-efficient capacity to succeed in a true energy market,” the authors write.
Their work got me to thinking about events closer to home. While Maryland doesn’t have its own Solyndra on a federal level and our efforts against Radical Green have been more concentrated lately on the battle to thwart the adoption of PlanMaryland, we indeed have our issues and spend many tax dollars on alternative energy. Governor O’Malley is foursquare a believer in anthropogenic climate change and has connived the Maryland General Assembly into passing several measures ceding a significant market share to these alternatives without a clear market demand for them.
For example, we’ve passed and since tightened twice a solar energy portfolio utilities are mandated to meet or pay a penalty, entered the extortion of local utilities otherwise known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative – a nifty model of wealth redistribution – and mandated a 25% reduction in greenhouse gases (read: our standard of living), just to name a few. Aside from the original solar energy portfolio mandates, these bills were all introduced at O’Malley’s behest and rushed through without much thought about the impact on the state’s economy. On the other hand, even exploring for offshore oil is something O’Malley “can’t imagine anyone actually wanting to go forward with” and tapping into a proven source of energy such as the Marcellus Shale formation has to be studied to death before Marylanders can take advantage. Meanwhile, our state is a net importer of electricity because of its high density, small land mass, and unwillingness to build the generating plants to bring balance (a Calvert Cliffs would likely not be built today.)
I have little doubt that there may come a time when some of these alternatives could work well, but the problem is we can’t depend on the fickle nature of natural phenomena to promote a 24/7/365 economy. To do so would place us in the same category as Third World nations which are lucky to have electricity a few hours a day, if at all. A stretch of cloudy, rainy days isn’t going to make a solar panel very useful nor will those hot, still days of midsummer do much to turn a wind turbine. Even a more reliable natural source like hydroelectric production could be curtailed by a lengthy dry spell.
It’s quite telling to me that radical environmentalists reflexively believe that any alternative energy or restriction of fossil fuel usage is great, and those skeptics like me need some sort of reeducation. (After all, why else would Maryland mandate environmental education in the schools? Can’t let those who know the real score influence those “skulls full of mush” in a politically incorrect way.) I’ll concede that someday in the distant future we will indeed eventually run out of marketable fossil fuels, but I have faith that someone in the private sector will also figure out a way forward – sort of like how Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, or the Wright brothers did.
The problem I have is in the force of law telling us we must adapt or the government tilting the playing field in a specific direction toward these unproven technologies. If someone wants to place a bed of solar panels or put up a windmill to power their farm (as was done a century ago) I say go ahead and do so – just pay for it out of your own pocket. If there’s economic viability in doing so, then by all means take advantage. But that economic viability shouldn’t include a cut from the state funding siphoned from your neighbors while other legitimate functions of government go wanting.
A pair of follow-ups
Just to update a couple stories I’ve featured recently…
You likely recall the story about the Hudson farm in Berlin and their trouble with environmentalists determined to extract their pound of flesh from this chicken growing operation. I received a note from former Maryland GOP head Jim Pelura which noted this sort of problem isn’t new, and farmers shouldn’t bear the brunt of the blame. He forwarded to me a copy of a letter he wrote to Kim Coble of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation back in 2005, part of which I excerpt here:
Thank you for your letter and brochure outlining the CBF’s position on agriculture’s part in the over-nutrification of the Chesapeake Bay. It was well written and concise.
However, I must take exception with the underlying premise that Maryland agriculture (both animal and crop) is the major cause of pollution in the Bay.
By using the Maryland Department of the Environment’s own figures, a major cause of Bay pollution is malfunctioning sewage treatment plants. I would even go so far as to suggest that sewage treatment plant malfunctions are the major cause of nitrogen and phosphorous pollution of the Bay.
According to the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE), close to 700,000,000 gallons of raw or minimally treated sewage was dumped into Maryland waterways in 2004. So far in 2005, there has been nearly 400,000,000 gallons of raw or minimally treated sewage that ended up in our streams and rivers. (Additional 3 million gallon spill in Arnold, Maryland this week).
As an advocate for Maryland agriculture, I have been following this situation for some time. The Maryland Department of the Environment has been aware of this situation, and in 1995 realized that antiquated and poorly maintained sewage treatment plants were a major cause of Bay pollution. (Emphasis in original.)
So the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and their environmentalist allies should know what the problem really is – but it’s more difficult to sue a city or other unit of government than it is to pick on farmers or big bad agribusiness in general. As the Hudson family is finding out, being the little guy makes it much easier to pick on you. Thanks to Jim for the update.
I also heard from Laura Mitchell of Salisbury City Council, both in person at the Winter Wonderland of Lights unveiling last night and on her Facebook page this evening. It seems she’s not giving up on her dogged fight against a city charter change:
Tomorrow night at 6:00pm in the Salisbury City Council Chambers, I will ask the Council to consider a Resolution to put the recent Charter Amendment on the 2013 ballot for a non-binding referendum vote.
More than 2,300 people signed the petition asking that the Council give the decision to determine the structure and operation of their government back to the voters. I heard that message loud and clear and I hope that my colleagues will as well. If you would like to help deliver the message of strength and unity and the desire for an inclusive City government in Salisbury, please join me at the meeting at 6:00pm.
You may speak during public comments if you wish, but there is no requirement to do so. Your presence will speak volumes. Please join me in turning up the volume of our message to a level that demands recognition.
I hope to see you there!
While I don’t support the Charter change because it’s a case of the legislative branch usurping the power of the city’s executive, I’m not sure a non-binding vote is the way to go; after all, the Charter change will go through regardless. The only reason this could be relevant is the timing – one of the three who voted for the change (Debbie Campbell) will be on the ballot, while the other two offices up for grabs will be that of Mayor Ireton (who will presumably be seeking re-election) and Council member Shanie Shields, who said at the beginning of this term that it would be her last. So there would be a new member in her place as well.
Having said that, though, the prospect is there of a different 3-2 configuration tossing out the Charter change 18 months from now and taking us back to the old way. Obviously 2300 people (including myself) were interested in preserving the system in place and that would be a significant chunk of the electorate with a vested interest in the 2013 race.
I will have another piece of news tomorrow morning concerning state politics – those who follow me on Facebook already know what it is. Tonight I’ll put the finishing touches on those tasks I need to do on this site to accommodate the new feature.
Relenting, but briefly
A small Worcester County farm has been the subject of an environmentalist maelstrom over the last few years, but recent developments suggest the state is pulling back its full-court press against the Hudson farm outside Berlin. The farm made news when it was sued by the Waterkeepers Alliance based on a spill of chicken waste which reached the watershed. It was later learned that bacteria in the body of water wasn’t linked to the stored sludge on the farm – which also could have been Class A sludge from the Ocean City waste water treatment plant – but the MDE still fined the operators $4,000.
Needless to say, the Waterkeepers Alliance is no friend of farmers. As their staff attorney sneered in a 2009 news release announcing the suit, “If you want to find out why the Chesapeake watershed is so polluted, then you don’t need to look any further than this facility and others like it around the Eastern Shore.” So it has nothing to do with the leaking municipal sewage plants or anything which happens upstream in Pennsylvania or New York – it’s just greedy agribusiness and corporate farms wantonly polluting the landscape (read: farmers trying to make a living.)
But besides the obvious concern about the farm the Maryland Department of the Environment,which was apparently resolved to their satisfaction in the 2010 decision to fine the operator, the most recent controversy arose from the fact that law students from the University of Maryland’s Environmental Law Clinic are representing the Waterkeepers Alliance in the suit. In short, the state of Maryland is complicit in trying to run this Perdue grower out of business – hence O’Malley’s concern about the law school’s role in a “state-sponsored injustice and misuse of taxpayer resources.”
My question is much simpler, though. Why does the Waterkeepers Alliance, an organization which collected over $3 million in FY2010 and $16 million over a five-year period (see part 2 of Schedule A), need a group of college law students to help, anyway? Has the Kennedy family fortune melted away that quickly? I doubt it.
Others have also weighed in on the issue, and backed O’Malley’s suddenly stiffened spine. Kim Burns of Maryland Business for Responsive Government added, “the precedent the law school’s action sets for land use policy and economic development all over Maryland is horrendous. The law clinic’s action has already caused serious damage to the viability of the farm, the use of the land, and to an industry critical to Maryland, to operate lawfully and without unwarranted government intrusion…Governor O’Malley is correct to hold the clinic accountable.”
Meanwhile, Congressman Andy Harris chimed in by stating “tactics like this, especially when they are backed financially by the state, will destroy the poultry industry. Governor O’Malley was absolutely right to question whether this is an appropriate use of state resources.”
It’s understandable that a law school needs to have some method of showing prospective students the ropes. But this particular case seems to smell about as much as the manure pile, and since the MDE had already resolved the issue to its satisfaction perhaps the Waterkeepers Alliance should have sued the MDE on their own instead of trying to pick on a small family business.
Instead, the radical greenies choose to take a stance against an industry that’s the lifeblood of this area. All the better to create wildlife corridors and “greenways,” I suppose. If this attack on farming keeps up, someday the environmentalists may get their wish – a depopulated Eastern Shore littered with the ruins of a once-thriving agricultural industry. Like sunken ships made into artificial reefs, the remnants of chicken houses, family farms, and industry will slowly be taken over by nature and become habitat for Gaia’s creatures. Too bad no one will be around to enjoy it.
Trust me, this is only a temporary pullback in the War on Rural Maryland. I didn’t hear of any pledge by the Governor to defund the Environmental Law Clinic because of this transgression, so once the controversy blows over it will be back to business as usual.
More land off limits to development: a sign of things to come under PlanMaryland?
It was just another item on the agenda Tuesday evening at the County Council meeting, and since I don’t have the record of what happened yet I have to presume it passed without a peep of opposition. (I’d be happy to stand corrected, but I know the resolution passed. Whether it was 4-2 or 6-0, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference in the end.)
With that passage the county was authorized to spend nearly $2 million in state money to purchase easements on 710 acres of land along Nanticoke and Royal Oak Roads known as the Tracey Property – that’s a little over one square mile of territory.
Extension of remarks
Just as a quick follow up to something I discussed yesterday, Richard Falknor has a solid wrapup of yesterday’s meeting of rural lawmakers and interested parties regarding PlanMaryland. And the article from Ken Timmerman he cites almost makes it sound like we really are going to war.
Maybe the time is ripe for telling O’Malley to pound sand. If a county feels threatened by a regulation passed without benefit of a vote of the General Assembly, perhaps it should be ignored. What else can the state do to hurt us?
Odds and ends number 36
Let’s begin with an item that only gets a couple paragraphs because of the circumstances. While I’m not at liberty to share the names of those who applied, I think I can safely say that we have no shortage of applicants to send four qualified prospects up to County Council in order to fill the District 4 seat made vacant by Bob Caldwell’s passing. Offoceseekers are both male and female, represent a broad spectrum of ages, and should be very interesting to screen. So that seat will be in good hands.
Now I could have had a great scoop in releasing the names but I respect the wishes of my Chair and the process too much to let any undue influence sway the decision, a circumstance which would certainly occur if the names were made public. Remember, this is not a typical political campaign because we as a Central Committee only make recommendations. The time for voting will be later and it will be done by County Council, not our committee.
All right, now for something a lot different.
WCRC meeting – October 2011
I suppose we were lucky he didn’t have a lot more to say.
The idea behind having Delegate Charles Otto of District 38A as this month’s guest speaker was for him to give us a rundown of the recently-completed Special Session, and once we went through the regular business of the Lord’s Prayer, Pledge of Allegiance, welcoming of guests, Treasurer’s Report, and a moment of silence for departed County Council members Ken Matthews and Bob Caldwell, it was time for Otto to speak.
After noting that one year ago we were in the midst of a heated campaign and thanking us for the opportunity to serve, Otto termed the Special Session a “success” – if only because they stuck solely to redistricting questions and didn’t make any attempts to raise taxes.
He then showed those assembled a number of the new maps, drawing snickers from some but getting the obvious comparison of District 3 to a Rorschach inkblot test. Yet that configuration received more than the requisite 85 votes (a 3/5 majority) for passage as an emergency bill, so pending any court action these are now Maryland’s Congressional districts. One piece of good news: “Andy Harris can stay in office as long as he wants to,” Otto said.
In print: Don’t put politics above security
This is a column I submitted to the Daily Times. A slightly longer version was submitted to another Maryland outlet.
In the 2011 session of the Maryland General Assembly, members of the House of Delegates tried and failed to get the Marcellus Shale Safe Drilling Act of 2011 through the legislature. Undaunted by that legislative defeat, in early June Gov. Martin O’Malley signed an executive order to study an oil and natural gas-field process called hydraulic fracturing, with a final report not required until August 2014. It’s a demand to study a process used in more than one million U.S. wells during the past 60 years.
In layman’s terms, “fracking,” as the procedure is better known, uses a solution forced into hard underground rock formations to create tiny fissures. The fissures allow energy resources — in Maryland’s case, natural gas — to be released and extracted.
(Continued at delmarvanow.com…)
Odds and ends number 35
Gee, and I just did one of these last week. But I keep picking up more interesting items, so here we go.
On Saturday it’s quite likely your bank started charging you a monthly fee for using a debit card, whether once or multiple times a day. The most infamous example is the $5 monthly fee Bank of America enacted, but many other banks got into the act as well.
But as John Berlau of the Competitive Enterprise Institute wrote in the American Spectator, we have someone else to blame as well:
The irony of these developments is that if the media and politicians wanted to blame a greedy big business for these new consumer costs, there is one industry that would accurately fit the bill. This would be the giant big-box retailers that lobbied for these price controls to fatten their bottom line.
In fact, one report I found said Home Depot stood to save $35 million a year by cutting the interchange fees in roughly half, as the new federal regulations do. Of course, that is split out among everyone who shops at Home Depot whether they use a debit card or not. But don’t hold your breath waiting for prices to miraculously come down since each store has thousands of items that may cost a few pennies less for the retailers to sell. Bank customers will be stuck with the fees, though.
Odds and ends number 34
Believe it or not, I have been besieged with another plethora of items which deserve perhaps an paragraph or three of comment on my part. So let me get crackin’ on them.
Since I’ve had the opportunity to speak with him in person, I would suggest that those of you who are political activists consider attending David Craig’s campaign school. It will make a stop here on the Lower Eastern Shore at the Comfort Inn in Cambridge this Saturday (October 1st) from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. It’s absolutely free and includes lunch too. You can sign up for the event here.
You know, I’d be curious to know if any liberals show up because it’s a freebie. But if it’s conducted like the “Bloggers and Burgers” confab you should leave the Craig campaign school neither hungry nor uninformed.
Speaking of liberals and freebies, there’s 116 people in Salisbury who really must suffer from terminal ignorance. I got this in my e-mail the other day, simply because September 30 is coming:
Here’s something you don’t have in common with 116 other supporters of this movement who tell us they live in Salisbury, MD.
That many of your neighbors have decided to own a piece of this campaign by making a donation of whatever they could afford. For some, that meant just $5. For others, it meant $100 or more. But each had their own personal reason for giving.
Our records show that you aren’t one of the 116 people where you’re from who have stepped up for 2012. Now’s your chance to change that.
Since the e-mail came from Jim Messina of the Obama 2012 campaign, don’t hold your breath waiting for my gift. I might give a little to Herman Cain, though.
It makes me curious, though – how many of my readers have donated to a Presidential campaign? I haven’t done so yet this cycle, but I did donate to Rep. Duncan Hunter’s ill-fated bid last time. He was my first.
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