Environment Maryland: Cut carbon without harming steel mill
This email from Environment Maryland's Brad Heavner a propos of Wednesday's column on the Sparows Point steel mill:
What I dispute in your recent column on the Sparrows Point steel mill is that the global warming legislation now being debated would lead to a carbon tax covering industrial sources. You leap straight to that assumption and base the whole argument on it, but it's really not the case to begin with.The bill is fundamentally a planning process for clean energy policies.
These policies are all things we're talking about already -- green building standards; supporting small, local power generators; transit-oriented development; energy efficiency opportunities of all sorts; dozens of small initiatives to inject a low-carbon mentality into all of our public policy. The bill sets deadlines for making decisions and getting policies in place. It will make sure our transition to a clean energy economy is smooth.The policies developed between now and 2012 will have to result in a projected reduction in pollution of 25% from the 2006 level by 2020.
This is the course we need to be on to address the potentially devastating impacts of global warming, and doing it in ten states will spur the federal government to match it.Can we do that without taxing manufacturing? You bet. And, as you point out, we have to.
If we impose a tax on steel that drives Severstal out of Maryland, it would result in increased greenhouse gas emissions because more of our steel would be made in places without good environmental standards and would be transported over long distances. That would make no sense. I would be the first to object.Fortunately, there are plenty of other strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Take a look at our report from last June that offers one scenario. The Maryland Commission on Climate Change is refining details on 53 policy recommendations, and a blanket carbon tax is not one of them. (Our report is at http://www.environmentmaryland.org/reports/global-warming/global-warming
-program-reports/a-blueprint-for-action-policy-options-to-reduce-marylan
ds-contribution-to-global-warming)It would be a great benefit to Maryland's economy to be ahead of the curve in addressing global warming. Maryland stands to create an entirely new arm to its economy and infrastructure. As the transition to clean energy occurs, we want to be part of creating it and profiting from the opportunity. The entire world is looking for solutions that Maryland can play a big role in providing.
Comments
If you drive all industry out of Maryland that will cut greenhouse gas immensely.
Posted by: Neil | March 28, 2008 4:06 PM
I live just across Jones creek from that steel mill and if the day ever comes that it is shut down or driven out of Maryland it will be a day that I celebrate. The damage that Severstal does to the environment does not warrant the diminished amount of jobs it provides. The noise alone that the plant puts out is enough to drive anyone crazy. You can not open the windows to enjoy Spring and Fall weather and if you do try to put up with the noise and open them the dirt that the plant puts out gets into your house and into everything. The plant continually emits a combination of kish, (a silicone based steel making by-product,) along with a black coal like substance that gets on and into everything. It ruins the finish of cars and boats and I have even seen it soften things like rubber garden hoses. I assume that's because of the acidity of the emissions. Studies have shown that long term exposure to kish can cause sylicosis, a disease much like black lung disease, and I can only assume that the black dust is coal or coke based, both of which cause black lung and other respiratory diseases. And that is only what we can see. We also know that the smokestack emissions coming from the plant every day contain a toxic mix ranging from arsenic to sulfer to benzine. There are also odors that come from the plant from time to time that smell like burning oil that are so strong they have made me sick to my stomach. I live on the water and I have often seen the water covered in a greasy film, (that I believe is some kind of cutting oil like substance,) that smothers the fish and everything else under it. If you disturb the bottom when the tide is out you are hit with a horrendous smell that just tells you that it is contaminated from years of toxic discharges from that mill. I could go on but I think you get my drift. That plant does not employ enough people any longer, (and never will,) to warrant this kind of damage to the environment and I would be a very happy resident of this community if it were to shut down forever.
Posted by: BruceMyers | February 27, 2009 12:51 AM