Maryland's Gov. Martin O'Malley will support a bill that would impose some of the nation's toughest limits on global warming pollution, according to administration and legislative sources, the Baltimore Sun reported Feb. 18.
The measure, SB 309, now under consideration in the state Legislature, would impose a 25 percent cut in greenhouse gases from all industries in Maryland by 2020 and a 90 percent cut by 2050. Those figures are on a par with California's AB 32 and a 2005 executive order signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
According to the newspaper, Maryland would use a system of financial penalties and rewards to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for altering the climate. The Sun reported that many environmental groups, wary of possible global warming-related flooding along the state's low-lying Eastern Shore, support the bill. But at the same time business groups and many Republicans are fighting the proposal, saying mandatory caps on carbon dioxide could drive businesses out of the state and derail the economy.
What are the prospects for the bill? Uncertain, according to the Sun. The paper noted a similar bill failed last year, although the O'Malley administration helped win approval for a more limited "clean cars" bill that will cut emissions of global warming gases from vehicles by an estimated one-third.
Sen. Paul G. Pinsky, the sponsor of the bill, told the newspaper that O'Malley (pictured above), a fellow Democrat, might offer an amendment to make cap-and-trade systems optional for industries beyond the electricity sector. The decision on how to regulate greenhouse gases would be made by the Maryland Department of the Environment. The proposal does not specify exactly how the state would cut greenhouse gases. But the bill lays out a timetable the state's environmental agencies must follow to propose a series of regulations for each business and sector of the economy, the Sun reported.
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The notion that a cap-and-trade program provides the best way of forcing and/or encouraging reductions in greenhouse gas emissions appears to be running into some opposition from one sector of the environmental community. 