Michael

McDermott urges elected school board action

As do I…

On March 15th, 2012, the House Ways and Means Committee heard HB 966 – Wicomico County – Board of Education – Selection of Members – Straw Ballot. This bill, sponsored by Delegate Michael A. McDermott (Worcester and Wicomico Counties), would simply allow the people of Wicomico County to voice their opinions about the selection method of the members on the Wicomico County Board of Education. It proposes a non-binding referendum that would ask whether voters favor changing the selection method of school board members from being appointed by the Governor to a direct election by county voters.

What has happened since the hearing on March 15th? Absolutely nothing. In response to this, Delegate McDermott is asking the citizens of Wicomico County to urge the Ways and Means Committee Members to vote on this bill. In particular, please contact the Ways and Means Committee Chairwoman:

Delegate Sheila E. Hixson

Phone Number: 410-841-3469 or 301-858-3469 or 1-800-492-7122, ext. 3469

Address: Room 131, House Office Building, Annapolis, MD 21401-1912

E-mail: sheila.hixson.annapolis@house.state.md.us

Fax: (410) 841-3777, (301) 858-3777

Delegate McDermott is also asking the citizens of Wicomico County to contact the members of the Wicomico County Delegation who did not support this bill:

Delegate Norman Conway

Phone Number: 410-841-3407 or 301-858-3407 or 1-800-492-7122, ext. 3407

Address: Room 121, House Office Building, 6 Bladen St., Annapolis, MD 21401

E-mail: norman.conway@house.state.md.us

Fax: (410) 841-3416, (301) 858-3416

Delegate Rudolph Cane

Phone Number: 410- 841-3427 or 301-858-3427 or 1-800-492-7122, ext. 3427

Address: Room 364, House Office Building, 6 Bladen St., Annapolis, MD 21401

E-mail: rudolph.cane@house.state.md.us

Fax: (410) 841-3780 or (301) 858-3780

If the people of Wicomico County want the right to simply ask a question at the ballot box, they must act now!

Unfortunately, this hasn’t been a very successful year for those in the four counties who are still saddled with appointed school boards to make headway on the problem. While some of these bills are looking for more than a straw ballot, neither the one bill regarding the Baltimore City Schools nor a plethora of seven bills which would affect the composition of the Anne Arundel County board have gained anymore traction than the Wicomico County effort. In fact, two of the Senate bills for Anne Arundel County were killed in committee. Moreover, it’s also worth pointing out that the latest successes have been only to secure a partially-appointed, partially-elected “hybrid” board, which means the state still has their fingers in the local pie in those counties.

But there is one bill which has cleared the House, a bill which would change Baltimore County’s school board from a 12-person board appointed by the Governor to a 10-person board elected by district. So it can be done.

There are key differences between the Baltimore County effort and ours, though. One key distinction is that the sponsorship is bipartisan, under the Baltimore County delegation. This is why the lack of local Democratic support this year is hurting us – bear in mind all of our delegation was on board last year, but Rudy Cane and Norm Conway instead decided to listen to a tiny minority who was worried their outsized power would be eroded. (Interestingly, Cane was for the Baltimore County bill while Conway did not vote in a 124-8 tally.)

In essence, there are three (perhaps four) people holding up the opportunity to allow our voices to be heard. One is County Executive Rick Pollitt, who insists on ridiculous demands that we pony up thousands of signatures to express our support when it could be done much more easily through a straw ballot.

The second pair are Delegates Cane and Conway, who refused to get behind this bill and perhaps are convincing the fourth (Delegate Sheila Hixson) to not pull it out of her desk drawer so her committee can vote on it. Most likely it would pass the committee (and for that matter, the General Assembly) without a problem.

We have talked about this issue for at least a decade, and it’s time to get it resolved. And it may be worthwhile to impress on our local recalcitrant delegation that this could appear now, when they are not on the ballot, or it can appear on the ballot on 2014 when they’re presumably running for re-election. It’s their call, because we won’t forget who is holding up this process.

Primary crystal ball predictions

Just for the heck of it, I’m going to do my set of predictions on some key races locally and around the state. In the past we did this among ourselves at the Central Committee meetings but we didn’t discuss it last night. So tell me what you think, and if I turn out to be wrong – well, don’t laugh too much. Most of this is a (somewhat) educated guess.

I’m going to begin with the Presidential race, on a statewide level. There have already been several polls on this, so there’s a little bit of cheating involved; then again, the polls actually pretty much mirrored my gut instinct all along.

In Maryland, I see the race like this:

Mitt Romney – 41%
Rick Santorum – 28%
Newt Gingrich – 16%
Ron Paul – 11%
Fred Karger – 2%
Rick Perry – <1%
Buddy Roemer – <1%
Jon Huntsman – <1%

The polls seem to have Romney winning bigger (Rasmussen has it 45-28) but I think Mitt’s people will tend to figure he’s got it in the bag and turnout will be better in certain areas where Gingrich and Paul may run a little stronger.

How about Wicomico County? This is more of a crapshoot but I think the top 4 results will be a little different:

Rick Santorum – 35%
Mitt Romney – 33%
Newt Gingrich – 18%
Ron Paul – 13%

The voters here tend to be more conservative than the state at large.

The other statewide race is for U.S. Senate. Now I’m really going to go out on a limb here, because there aren’t any polls I’m aware of (aside from the sure fact campaigns have internal polling I’m not privy to) but my gut is telling me we may have a barnburner on our hands:

Dan Bongino – 36%
Richard Douglas – 34%
Robert Broadus – 8%
Corrogan Vaughn – 5%
Joseph Alexander – 4%
David Jones – 4%
William Capps – 3%
Rick Hoover – 3%
John Kimble – 2%
Brian Vaeth – 1%

In Wicomico County, I suspect the top three will be Bongino (42%), Douglas (36%), and Broadus (8%). None of the others will be over 3 percent. Incumbent Ben Cardin will be the opponent, with the over-under line for me being 70% of the statewide vote.

And how about the Sixth District race? It’s the most talked-about Congressional primary since the 2008 First District primary, with the added benefit of mud flying on both sides.

On the Republican side, I think Roscoe Bartlett will hold on to his seat with 33% of the vote, with David Brinkley gathering 29%, Joseph Krysztforski 14%, Robin Ficker 10%, and Kathy Afzali 7%. The other three will split the remaining 7%.

What saves Bartlett’s bacon is the fact that there are so many in the race that people may just throw up their hands and go with the name they know. If there were just four or five in the race I think Brinkley has a shot, although the last-minute release of 9-1-1 tapes featuring his ex-wife may knock a point or two away from Brinkley and provide Roscoe’s margin of victory. It’s the voters on the extreme western end of the district who are likely most swayed by that because they don’t really know David that well.

On the Democratic side, I’m sensing a bit of an upset. We figured that this seat was drawn for Rob Garagiola, but I suspect the charges laid against him by John Delaney have done enough damage that Delaney will squeak out a close win, something on the order of 31-30. Milad Pooran will likely run a respectable third with 21%, while Ron Little grabs 10% and Charles Bailey the last 8%.

The Second District GOP race is also interesting, but I think Nancy Jacobs will win it with relative ease, probably with 40% or so of the vote. Larry Smith comes in around 28%, Rick Impallaria with 19%, and the other two with single digits apiece.

Meanwhile, I think John LaFerla will be the First District Democratic nominee against Andy Harris and he’ll end up just short of a majority – 49% district-wide against Wendy Rosen’s 43%. Kim Letke will get the last 8%. What puts LaFerla over the top in the primary is the endorsement of Wayne Gilchrest. What keeps him from winning in November is being endorsed by NARAL and Planned Parenthood.

GOP winners in other districts will be Eric Knowles (3rd), Faith Loudon (4th), Tony O’Donnell (5th), Frank Mirabile (7th), and Dave Wallace (8th). Wallace gets the nod because the other three candidates will likely split the Montgomery County vote just enough for him to win over Ken Timmerman. Of course, there will not be any upsets among the incumbent Democrats – all of them will get over 75% in their respective primaries.

So what do you think? Am I all wet or do I have a good chance of being correct – and why? As opposed to yesterday, I’m going to leave this up all day until results come in.

Pipkin relives 2008 campaign in Cecil County

I was tipped off to a developing situation in Cecil County which involves their State Senator, E. J. Pipkin. Rather than allow the voters of Cecil County to make their choice or making a simple endorsement in their local races, he’s jumped into the proceedings by violating Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment.

The two flyers pictured here are part of a barrage of mailings and robocalls that Pipkin is using in Cecil County against Robert Hodge, a candidate for County Council, and Tari Moore, who’s running for the newly-created County Executive position.

But the Cecil County Patriots group objects to Pipkin’s interference, charging that the candidates he and Delegate Michael Smigiel are backing – Jim Millin for County Council and Diane Broomell for County Executive – were handpicked by the state officials as puppets for their agenda. One local observer added “this all goes back to the unionization issue that he tried to force on our local government, and the teacher pension shift…(Pipkin’s) attacking two candidates who he despises because they are very popular, very conservative, and very independent of him.”

The Pipkin tactics remind me of how he conducted the 2008 primary battle between he, Andy Harris, and then-Congressman Wayne Gilchrest. In that race, Pipkin spent over a million dollars – almost all his own money – on glossy mailings and flyers which promoted his conservative record while calling opponent Andy Harris a “dishonest Baltimore politician.” Harris has returned the favor in this race by endorsing Hodge and Moore.

Hodge has taken to the media to respond to Pipkin’s negative attack, while Moore is apparently above the fray.

But there is one area where I can agree with the Cecil County Patriots. For example, in Mullin’s case he’s a proponent of “sav(ing) literally thousands of acres of our Eastern Shore from sprawl and development.” As I’ve often pointed out, if an area doesn’t grow it shrivels and dies so Mullin seems to be throwing his lot in with the zealots who would tell people where they can live and work, knowing that’s just the start of government control.

On the other hand, it’s interesting that the Cecil County Patriots object to a candidate who “organized the first two TEA Parties in Cecil County” and was the impetus behind an elected school board as Broomell claims. They’ve managed to get through the Byzantine process of getting an elected school board for their county as opposed to our efforts here in Wicomico, which seem to have run into a brick wall.

But the real question is why Pipkin is using such scorched-earth tactics in a primary, a strategy which could damage Hodge and Moore should they survive to the general election. The GOP contest for Executive is already a seven-person scrum, with three running on the Democratic side; meanwhile, the council district Hodge is running for already has a Democratic opponent in place for November who’s unopposed in the primary. While I’ll grant there’s not the strong Republicans serving in the General Assembly from Wicomico County that Cecil County can boast, I would be floored if any of our local Republican elected officials carried on in this manner in a contested GOP race here – of course, none have the means that Pipkin does.

There’s probably something to like about most of the GOP hopefuls in Cecil County, and this year is a key election in their history because they’re electing their first County Executive. Yet this interference in the Cecil race may mean both Senator Pipkin and Delegate Smigiel draw primary opposition in 2014. (Pipkin got 72% of the vote in his 2010 primary against one opponent, Smigiel was unopposed.)

I think in closing it’s worth noting something E.J. Pipkin wrote back in 2007, a paragraph in a lengthy e-mail I used for a post:

The “right” to put oneself forward for office, to be judged by voters, and to represent your friends and neighbors is a basic fundamental component of our representative government. This system relies upon individuals being willing to discuss their ideas, their backgrounds, their strengths and weaknesses as leaders, and their vision for how to improve the lives of those they wish to represent.

It seemed like the Cecil County race was doing just fine until Pipkin decided to put his thumb on the scale and alienate a number of voters for no good reason. Senator Pipkin, you should let these individuals have the necessary discussion, back the winner against the Democratic challenger, and save your money for your own next race.

Gingrich returns to school

My latest commentary, this time on Patriot Post. I took my reporter’s hat and added more of my opinion…

At one time in his life Newt Gingrich was at home in the academic world, perhaps even moreso than he ever was politically. On Tuesday he selected the small town of Salisbury, Maryland and the campus that he claimed gave birth to the Contract With America to begin a new phase of his Presidential campaign.

Gone were the big banners, the line of welcoming politicians, and the press entourage which followed him from stop to stop when he was the leading anti-Romney in the 2012 Presidential race. Instead, if it weren’t for the small “Newt 2012” logo buried in a corner of the campus flier announcing “An Afternoon With Newt Gingrich” you may not have even known he was still in the race. He didn’t even charge the College Republicans $50 for a picture at the small gathering he held with them afterward.

(continued at Patriot Post…)

Newt to push for Delaware votes

Those of you across the border may be interested to know Newt Gingrich has several Delaware events planned this week, well in advance of their April 24 primary. He also has two stops later today in Frederick, Maryland.

Newt will be at a local auto dealership and Hood College in Frederick in a last-ditch effort to improve his Maryland standing, which places him in the low teens, according to recent polls. But tomorrow evening wife Callista comes to the First State for a speaking date at the Sussex and Kent County Republican Women’s Dinner in Milford.

Thursday will be a whirlwind day of stops in Delaware, with plans for Callista to read to children at a Christian academy in Dover, Newt to visit the Delaware Electric Cooperative office in Greenwood, then both holding late afternoon and evening rallies in Magnolia and Millsboro, at their respective fire halls. (I suppose one could call that a whistle stop tour.)

It’s obvious Newt is making his appeal to the conservative side of the Delaware GOP as his initial itinerary steers him away from the more centrist Wilmington area, where the bulk of Delaware voters live. On the other hand, the rural portion of Delaware he’s visiting is well off the beaten path for Presidential politics in most years – but 2012 will be an exception.

And it’s likely that these events will have a markedly different feel than Newt’s Salisbury stop, because they’ll likely be populated with local officeseekers gladhanding and the actual trappings of a political rally as opposed to Newt’s low-key college presence – conveniently, Newt has a fire hall rally in both Kent (Magnolia) and Sussex (Millsboro) counties. This is important because Delaware has a number of local elections including a Republican nomination to oppose current Governor Jack Markell.

So Newt fans who couldn’t get a seat at Salisbury University because the event was only open to campus attendees can see the Gingriches live and in person on Thursday if they want to take the drive up Delaware Route 24 to Millsboro. It’s a nice, sleepy little town that will be far more awake come Thursday evening.

The McDermott notes: weeks 11 and 12

Yes, I missed last week, but Mike had such a long week I didn’t have a chance to post in a Sunday slot – and I had a lot to write about anyway.

We’re now at the point in session where the hearings have pretty much ended and the House is now taking up a number of bills which have passed through the Senate. But as Mike wrote at the top of his Week 11 notes, “The news I bring you this week from Annapolis is not good.”

Some of the lowlights included the passage of a bill to further hinder Maryland’s opportunity to join in on the Marcellus Shale bonanza. “There was a significant amount of propaganda put forward by Chairman McIntosh citing many ground water contamination concerns”, wrote McDermott. “Although none of these instances has shown to have been caused by hydraulic fracturing in the process described, the chairman is a believer and is not swayed by many known facts.” But as he describes in week 12, there’s no problem with rushing offshore wind.

Continue reading “The McDermott notes: weeks 11 and 12”

Something better to do

As I have the last few years, I wanted to take time out and encourage people to follow the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s lead and celebrate Human Achievement Hour later tonight, from 8:30 to 9:30. As Christine Hall of CEI notes, Human Achievement Hour is “an annual celebration of individual freedom and appreciation of the achievements and innovations that people have used to improve their lives throughout history. ” We should “enjoy the benefits of capitalism and human innovation,” she added.

It’s unfortunate that the timing of particular events didn’t lend itself to a fairly proper local celebration of Human Achievement Hour, but that report will have to wait until next week I suppose. Petting Hendrix cranking out tunes with bright lights and several hundred watts of amplification seemed a fitting way to celebrate the time period since they were the ones on stage at that time, but alas that all happened last week. However, I’m sure a number of local venues are hosting live music tonight and that will do just fine just so long as it’s not unplugged acoustic.

In fact, it just so happened that I did a bang-up job of celebrating this four years ago, before I even knew about Human Achievement Hour. That celebration didn’t come along until 2009, when I noted the event’s first rendition. I also made mention of this in 2010 and last year when I rolled it into a Weekend of local rock post. The point is, we live in a society which depends on those things we have created to make our lives better, and sitting in the dark to celebrate Earth Hour – which just happens to coincide – believing it makes a difference only places a bold “S” on your forehead, meaning “sucker.”

Do I believe we should strive for energy efficiency? Absolutely, when it makes sense to do so based on a solid cost vs. benefit analysis. (I liked to use a payback period of five years or less in mine.) Problem is the same people who believe we should sit in the dark for an hour would eventually love to make us do so by fiat, or else creating the conditions where we will be forced into such a situation.

Unlike previous years, it does not appear that Maryland state government will participate; however, the National Cathedral in Washington and National Aquarium in Baltimore will participate. To be honest, the National Aquarium will be more of a symbolic effort because I can guarantee you the aquatic life they’re supporting needs some power to maintain their respective environments. If they completely went black you’d have a lot of dead fish. (They are also closed to the public during that time frame anyway so it’s not like they’re losing business.)

And that’s the rub. There are people and entities who know they can do Earth Hour to look politically correct yet not pay for it in the long run. Notice as well this falls on the weekend, when many are home enjoying their lifestyle. This wouldn’t fly if they tried it on a weekday evening when kids are doing homework or parents are running late-evening errands. Saturday is that day many people relax, perhaps by visiting the National Aquarium.

In particular, I’m sure their staff has probably fallen for this global climate change garbage hook, line, and sinker. They forget that it’s progress and abundant, reasonably-priced energy created from fossil fuels which aids in making the lifestyle where people can afford to pony up $25 to $30 to visit. Have you ever wondered why there’s not such a facility in places like Rwanda or Bangladesh? It’s because most people in those wretched places are worrying about where their next meal will come from and can only dream of having disposable income to spend.

And it’s in the vein of knowing we live in the greatest society the planet has ever known that we celebrate Human Achievement Hour. I’m not sure just what I’ll be doing, but I doubt that it will involve sitting in the dark being environmentally correct.

One last appeal

On Thursday Anne Arundel County voters got to meet a half-dozen of the aspirants for the United States Senate in one of the last debates before the April 3 primary.

Video streaming by Ustream

The Maryland GOP was heavily promoting this event, so if you haven’t made up your mind yet, this is a chance to do so.

136 conservatives

It took us many decades to dig ourselves into this hole, but at least there are some Republicans out there looking to build the ladder to climb our way out. (Obviously they have already adopted the common sense to know we can’t dig our way out of a hole, as President Obama seems to think.)

The Republican Study Committee came up with a budget that’s supposedly going to balance by 2017. Now I know this brings back memories of President Clinton telling us that the budget would be balanced in four, five, six, seven, or ten years (take your pick; he pretty much promised all of them) and of course, the Congress we have in five years could be completely different than the one we have now. So there’s no safe prediction in Washington, just as it was a surprise that Clinton adopted budgets which were at least nominally balanced thanks to Newt Gingrich and House Republicans.

And while readers can partake in several analyses of the RSC budget (like these by the Heritage Foundation and Veronique de Rugy) I want to focus on the actions of our local Congressman, Andy Harris.

Continue reading “136 conservatives”

Next up: a chicken in every pot?

I get a lot of e-mail from Congressional candidates; it’s part of the job. But this one intrigued me, slight grammatical errors, sentence fragments, misspellings and all.

Maryland’s 6th District Republican voters will have a little bit more spending money after today.

Thanks to Peter James, who is mailing voters 1/2 Green JUST MONEY notes.

“The bankers loaned themselves trillions of dollars from money they essentially created out of thin air. I thought the average Joe could use an interest free loan for a change. So I am mailing money to voters throughout the district.”, James said.

According a recent partial Federal Reserve audit the Fed loaned $16 trillion at near ZERO interest. $7 trillion of these loans went to foreign banks.

US banks now have $1.5 trillion in excess reserves for which the American taxpayer is paying them interest.

“While America suffers, big bankers grow rich on interest payments on their excess reserves. These reserves represent $1 million for each and every one of 12.8 million unemployed in America that could just as easily be injected into the economy in the form of low interest loans.”, exclaimed James.

All JUST MONEY notes are backed and redeemable in lettuce. A growing list of farmers and local merchants redeem JUST MONEY for goods and services. The advantages of a JUST MONEY over private bank credit money is that it bears no interest and does not loses it value over time.

The concept is explained in somewhat more depth here, but if the money were legal tender wouldn’t this be considered buying votes?

Peter is no stranger to politics, and it may come as a surprise that he actually has been a Republican nominee for Congress before. In 2008 James won the nod in the Fourth District over three other candidates before losing to Donna Edwards in the general election with just 13% of the vote. (He did get 26.7% in the Montgomery County portion of the district, though.)

But one has to ask whether the “Just Money” is really all that much different than the system we have now. After all, even if one pegs the value of the currency to that of a head of lettuce or other commodities, wouldn’t an oversupply of the commodity make the currency worth less? Truly it’s no different than the farmer who considers whether to plant wheat, corn, or soybeans based on what his prediction of the market will be come harvest time, except the farmer is paid in dollars which he can use in other places. Sure, the value of a dollar isn’t what it used to be years ago but there’s no guarantee that Just Money will buy the half-head of lettuce a year from now either unless the grower is convinced he can use it for other items, too. Perhaps it’s more like a coupon in this respect.

Moreover, there are many methods of trading value which don’t involve dollars. For example, we’ve often used the lasagna trick for getting people to help us move or do other tasks – sharing in a pan of good lasagna can be worth the afternoon of toil.

So in essence James is trying to buy votes, and enrich himself in the process. Because he is one of the farmers who accepts Just Money at his place of business (I presume it’s a vegetable stand of some sort) he would also be able to receive actual dollars for other items purchased as well – I sincerely doubt his stand is completely independent of our national legal tender. I can pretty much guarantee you that not all of his suppliers are Just Money fans.

I get the point that we need to shore up the purchasing power of our dollar, and the best way to do so is to not continually ratchet up debt. But sending out Just Money notes seems more like self-promotion than actually addressing the issue.

Oh, and Peter: please have someone review your press releases before they’re sent out. I’d be happy to give it a shot, but you’ll have to pay me more than Just Money.

Senate and early voting updates

In the last week of the campaign Richard Douglas is making a charge down the stretch to grab the GOP nod for U.S. Senate. Witness this commercial, which is actually a pretty well-done 30-second spot:

But I can’t help noticing parallels between the 2010 and 2012 GOP Senate races. The two things which got eventual 2010 nominee Eric Wargotz through the primary and into a general election shellacking by Barbara Mikulski were the tacit backing of the state party establishment (as opposed to Jim Rutledge, who was perceived as more of a TEA Party candidate) and a lot of the candidate’s money. Fast forward to 2012 and you find that, on the first point, Richard Douglas has retained the services of Lawrence Scott’s political consulting firm. Lawrence Scott is the son of former MDGOP Chair and National Committeewoman candidate Audrey Scott, who has also endorsed Douglas.

I don’t doubt that Scott Strategies has had its share of successes over the years, but FEC records show his firm has received over $27,000 from Douglas. By comparison, the campaign has raised just over $26,000 in individual contributions.

So where is the money for what the Douglas campaign describes as a “six figure advertising buy focused on statewide radio, direct mail and voter turnout phone calls as the April 3 primary nears” coming from? Richard has secured over $100,000 in candidate loans, meaning his campaign is (as of the March 14 filing date) nearly $111,000 in debt with just over $20,000 cash on hand.

This is similar to 2010, where Eric Wargotz had over $500,000 cash on hand before his September primary but was $575,000 in debt based on campaign loans (he ended up raising just over $250,000 from outside contributors for the 2010 campaign but spent $1.24 million overall.)

By comparison, Dan Bongino raised over $187,000 in individual contributions by March 14, and had only loaned $3,000 to his campaign. A significant portion of his expenditures went to several paid members of his campaign rather than to an outside consultant. But maybe he needed a better audio feed for this spot, because it doesn’t compare well with his radio ads.

Of course, financially neither holds a candle to the nearly $1.9 million Ben Cardin had on hand. Ben obviously didn’t sleep through the class on how to shake down unions, PACs, and other special interests for campaign cash.

I also wanted to add a few words about early voting in Maryland. So far, according to the latest figures which now include five days of the six-day process, not even 2% of voters have come out. Even if the final day is as busy as Saturday was, fewer than one out of 40 registered voters will partake in the process. So I must ask: why are we bothering?

The only counties which may have significant early turnout (that being on the order of seven to eight percent) are Talbot and Kent counties; on the other hand some of the largest counties will likely lag under 2%. (Wicomico is at 2.37% with 1,063 voting at the Civic Center so far.)

As far as party affiliation, the GOP is ahead in terms of percentage with 2.17% turnout compared to 1.97% for Democrats. That’s a little ironic given the fact the GOP didn’t care for early voting when it was presented to the General Assembly, but both parties have encouraged its use since.

As for me, I’m going to the polls Tuesday like we should.

Environmentalist doesn’t tell the whole story

A good friend of mine tipped me off to this op-ed in the Baltimore Sun from March 5 and encouraged me to write a rebuttal. The paper wouldn’t take it as an op-ed nor run a shortened version as a letter, so in the spirit of never letting good writing go to waste I’m posting it here.

As the energy industry has arrived in our state in hopes of extracting the natural gas which lies underneath in the Marcellus Shale formation, the term fracking has become part of our vocabulary. As a Maryland resident who has no stake in the energy industry, aside from my role as a consumer of those elements used to create the gasoline and electricity I need for my various jobs and the heating oil I use to heat my hot water and household, my main concerns are twofold: reliable energy which doesn’t cost me an arm and a leg. I suspect those concerns are shared by a vast majority of us.

The cost competitiveness and abundant supply of natural gas gives Americans a great asset, but only if we choose to take advantage of it. This choice, though, is one environmentalists want to frighten us away from because natural gas is not a renewable source. And it’s obvious that some people just can’t stand prosperity as a recent op-ed by Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune demonstrates.

In his piece Brune disparages the entire natural gas industry with a palette of half-truths and wild assumptions. But the bad news for Marylanders is that Brune seems to have the ear of Governor O’Malley. It’s obvious that both are only too happy to impact the coastal environment of the Atlantic as well as areas of western Maryland by building noisy, unreliable, and unsightly windmill farms because they’re perceived as the politically correct thing to do, but those tried and true methods of getting the energy and job creation our state desperately needs are unappealing to them.

And the allegations that Brune makes don’t stand up to scrutiny. For example, hydraulic fracturing has been used in more than one million oil and natural gas wells in the United States since the 1940s, and despite Brune’s strictly anecdotal reports to the contrary not one confirmed case of groundwater contamination stemming from fracturing has been documented, according to a recent University of Texas study. And regarding his shrill warnings about the dangers of piping the natural gas he fails to mention that natural gas is already piped to points across the country via a network spanning well over 300,000 miles nationwide – including almost 1,000 miles lying under Maryland and Washington, D.C. An existing pipeline already services the Cove Point LNG terminal!

One has to wonder why Brune isn’t telling you those facts I easily found with a little bit of research. Perhaps it’s because he wants us to “invest in” (read: subsidize with taxpayer dollars) sources like wind, solar, and geothermal, as well as emphasize energy efficiency. Most of us realize taxpayers can pump all the money we want into these sources but we can’t spend our way into making the wind blow just the right speed to make turbines work effectively all the time, nor can we compel the sun to shine 24 hours a day. Geothermal energy is more promising, but has a limited amount of effectiveness and also requires hazardous pipeline fluid chemicals to handle the wide temperature swings.

And while we should strive for cost-effective energy efficiency, it shouldn’t come with a price tag of reducing our standard of living. A shuttered coal plant is neither efficient nor a job producer, but it’s a badge of honor to a radical like Brune. For those placed out of work by the closure, though, it’s only their economic livelihood they’re losing. No doubt Brune and O’Malley would gladly “invest” government dollars into teaching them the skills needed for a non-existent “green” job.

Environmentalists could be taken more seriously and provide a better service to residents by not obfuscating their argument with scare tactics. Most people have the sense to know that fossil fuels won’t be around forever, but for the foreseeable future the market favors reliable sources of energy including natural gas. If you’re enjoying the current decline in natural gas prices and the resulting extra money in your pocket, you can thank hydraulic fracturing because it’s that decades-old “new” technology increasing supplies, driving down prices, and actually bringing back a discussion about helping our nation’s balance of trade by exporting natural gas.

Who would have ever thought we could beat OPEC at its own game? Let’s put Maryland to work building for the prosperity of tomorrow by making use of that which we have in abundance.