New mileage standards are a gas
Maryland strongly supports new federal fuel mileage standards for vehicles – and the editorial writers at the Baltimore Sun do too.
The Baltimore Sun said Washington got it right when President Obama introduced new rules requiring the nation’s fleet of cars and light trucks to get an average of more than 54 miles per gallon by 2025. The proposal is “good news for the economy, national security and environment,” the newspaper stated.
The President said the agreement with 13 major automakers to increase the fuel economy for vehicles represents “the single most important step we’ve ever taken as a nation to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.”
Governor Martin O’Malley issued a statement commending President Obama for his leadership on the issue. Governor O’Malley had urged the President to set new fuel economy standards to enhance energy security, promote clean air, protect against climate change, ensure affordable transportation, and create jobs.
In his statement, the Governor noted that while Maryland is taking steps to reduce air pollution, the State needs help to reduce the large amounts of pollution that come in from beyond the borders.
“The new fuel economy standards announced today will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as ozone forming and toxic emissions from cars and trucks.” Governor O’Malley said. “Together, we can work to transform our carbon-based economy into a green, sustainable economy for a cleaner future and healthier families – not just in Maryland, but across the nation.”
Good news on lead – but more needs to be done
MDE’s announcement of the results of its annual report on childhood lead poisoning in Maryland was front-page news – for the gains that have been made, and for the work that still needs to be done.
According to MDE’s annual statewide Childhood Lead Registry, the percentage of tested children with elevated blood lead levels dropped to less than one half of one percent statewide. This was a decrease from the previous year, and it represented the lowest number of children with tests showing lead poisoning in any year since figures have been collected. The figures also reflect a 98 percent decrease in the percentage of children reported to have lead poisoning since 1993, the year before Maryland’s Reduction of Lead Risk in Housing Law was enacted.
But MDE’s review also showed that children with elevated blood lead levels are more likely to live in homes not covered by Maryland’s lead law – and that number is growing. Maryland’s law applies to rental properties built before 1950. MDE is providing staff support for the work of a study group that is evaluating ways to fight lead poisoning in owner-occupied properties and rental properties not covered by Maryland’s law but built before lead-based paint was banned in the late 1970s.
The Baltimore Sun quoted MDE Secretary Robert M. Summers: “The bottom line is, we want everyone to know that lead poisoning is a problem, not just in older rental housing.”
WJZ-TV also covered the announcement.
Soaking in the first Clean Water Innovations Trade Show
MDE’s first Clean Water Innovations Trade Show gave vendors a chance to show off their solutions to stormwater runoff and water quality issues. For Chaney Enterprises, that meant demonstrating how water poured onto the company’s pervious concrete trickles through the slab.
“It can actually handle stormwater management right where it falls, right where nature intended it to go, back down into the ground,” Steven Tripp of Chaney Enterprises told News Channel 8. “It can percolate down into the ground and replenish aquifers rather than having it run off into the streams and waterways around the area.”
Chaney Enterprises was one of three dozen vendors who seized the opportunity to wet the appetites of potential customers. Rain barrels, green roofs, floating wetlands, and filtration equipment were just some of the other examples of the new green economy on exhibit.
The Trade Show was inspired by Governor Martin O’Malley’s suggestion during a “Maryland Forward” forum on sustainability that it would be good to bring Maryland companies working on solutions to polluted stormwater runoff together with developers and local governments. More than 320 people registered to attend.
In its report, the B’More Green blog explained that Maryland is applying new stormwater pollution control regulations to new construction and redevelopment and is starting to require better controls in existing communities. MDE Secretary Robert M. Summers told the blog that concerns about regulatory hurdles should ease under FastTrack, Maryland’s new tool to streamline and expedite the review of State permits for projects in priority development areas.
“We’ve got to have clean water. It really is the foundation of our economic health,” Secretary Summers said. “The Chesapeake Bay is the geographic and economic center of our State. Our public health and economic health depends on clean water – it’s absolutely critical to our future.”
Kinsey’s community
The Frederick News-Post’s Slice of Life feature promises a daily look at the people who make up the community there. The paper recently profiled a 10-year-old boy who grows, cuts, and donates his hair for wigs for children who have lost theirs, a Marine voted most “gung ho” in a class of staff sergeants, and a Hood College graduate who traveled to Athens to help manage a Special Olympics bocce team.
Add MDE Deputy Secretary Kathy M. Kinsey to the list, with a profile headlined: “Fighting pollution tops her agenda.”
The article traces Deputy Secretary Kinsey’s career from her work on an investigative unit at a Baltimore TV news operation through her years as a lawyer in the Attorney General’s Office and as Senior Policy Advisor for MDE to her position as second-in-command of the agency.
Of her new job, she said, “It’s working on the big picture.” Of living in Frederick with her family, she told the paper “we have never considered moving.”
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