A political first? The Bay as a campaign issue!
Wonders never cease. As Maryland's primary election looms next week, candidates for local and statewide office are actually talking about the environment in their TV commercials and political mailings.
The latest, most visible example, is the ad from former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. that debuted on Facebook/YouTube on Sunday and will begin airing on local TV stations later this month. The 30-second spot, "Let's Get to Work," doesn't make any specific claims or promises, just flashes through a series of reasons why the Republican candidate says he's running - including the Bay.
The campaign issues Ehrlich has been hammering throughout the summer are mentioned, including fixing the state's budget woes, helping small businesses and ensuring excellent schools for all. But the brief litany ends with what appears to be a waterman saying "Protect the Bay - Finally."
The governor's race isn't the only one where the Bay or the environment are getting some attention. In the Baltimore County executive's race, Democratic Councilman Kevin Kamenetz is hitting his primary rival, Councilman Joseph Bartenfelder, for votes he made years ago as a legislator on pesticides and bayfront develoment. Bartenfelder has responded with his own ad saying Kamenetz is misrepresenting his environmental record.
Such green-themed campaign ads are remarkable because polling routinely shows environmental issues aren't high on most voters' minds, whether in national, state or local races. Other than limited, targeted appeals to devoted greenies, candidates rarely bring up the environment on their own.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but did either Ehrlich or his Democratic opponent, Martin O'Malley, talk much about the Bay in campaign ads or literature four years ago? (UPDATE: Ehrlich spokesman Henry Fawell reminds me that one of the then-incumbent governor's commercials four years ago did indeed talk about the Bay, and the Bay Restoration Fund (aka flush fee) he backed to upgrade sewage plants.) This year, though, seems to be different.
"In general, it's being talked about more than normally," says Cindy Schwartz, executive director of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters.
She thinks one reason the Bay is getting airtime now in the governor's race is because there's a lot of federal pressure to ratchet up bay cleanup efforts. "It's sort of topical," Schwartz says.
Whether from President Obama's executive order asserting federal leadership of the bay restoration, or the cleanup bill pending in the Senate sponsored by Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, D-MD, "there's been this sort of heightened rhetoric around 'we haven't done enough,'" she adds.
The heightened public attention to the Bay from the federal government gives Ehrlich a chance to suggest O'Malley hasn't done enough to fix the bay, to be sure. But it also begs the question: How would Ehrlich "protect the bay" better than or differently from his Democratic opponent?
Most veterans of the bay cleanup effort seem to think it's going to take a combination of more spending and more regulation, but neither candidate seems to be talking much about those. Indeed, O'Malley's spokespeople routinely hammer Ehrlich for raising fees. One of those was the "flush" fee that's raised hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade sewage treatment plants and to install less polluting household septic systems. Does O'Malley think that was a bad thing to do?
Speaking of the flush fee, that's a Bay issue both candidates ought to address squarely. The flush-fee supported "bay restoration fund" is about to run short of money in the next few years, as costly overhauls begin of the bay's two largest sewage treatment plants, Baltimore's Back River and Washington's Blue Plains facilities.
An advisory committee has said that to keep the fund from running dry, the state either needs to raise the $30 per household annual fee (by up to 100 percent) or make local governments shoulder more of the costs, or delay some plant upgrades for several years until the fund is replenished.
Raising the fee could be unpopular, while forcing local governments to pay more is just shifting the costs - and responsibility to raise fees. Delaying plant upgrades might sound like the only viable political option, but that could make it unlikely Maryland would have taken the needed bay-cleanup steps by 2025, much less by 2020, as O'Malley is pledging. It also seems likely to get Maryland in trouble with the federal government, which is planning to lock the bay states into a cleanup schedule by year's end that is meant to ensure that the states and federal government - after repeatedly missing earlier cleanup targets - will collectively do by 2025 what's needed to finally restore the bay.
Now there's something specific to talk about when it comes to protecting and restoring the Bay. Candidates?
Comments
Martin O'Malley's League of Conservation Voters Grade = A Robert Ehrlich's Grade = D You decide....
Posted by: Tom Manzitti | September 7, 2010 3:12 PM
As a Democrat, I'm embarrassed to admit O'Malley has no record for the Bay.
Posted by: Lee | September 7, 2010 3:21 PM
Really? The League of Conservation Voters are a confederation of mindless automatons. Ehrlich passes the Flush Tax to upgrade sewage facilities and MOM grabs the revenues to backfill the hole left by the Dems endless and insufferable spending. MOM does have an environmental record, just not one to run for public office on.
TW: Yes, O'Malley did divert $200 million in flush fee revenue to help fill the state's budget gap. He's replaced the diverted funds with a like amount of general obligation funds, so there's no immediate impact on sewage plant projects. The switch will cost the Bay Restoration Fund $4 to $6 million in lost interest earnings over the next two years, but that's a drop in the bucket compared to the looming overall shortfall. Treatment plant upgrade costs over the next several years far outstrip what's on hand or what the fee can raise, to the tune of $500 million.
So putting aside for now the debate over who's been the greener guv, what do the candidates propose to do about the mismatch between what's needed and what's available to clean up the bay? Raise fees? Borrow more? Shove costs off on local government? Or put off the cleanup yet again?
Posted by: MDR | September 7, 2010 6:15 PM
OK but why should we "save" the Bay? No one, especially the lobby that lives off this issue fulltime, has an answer. The bay carries commerce. That's its main value.
Whether it's clean or dirty is irrelevant.
TW: Why "save" the Bay, indeed, if you think it's basically just an aquatic highway for shipping?
There's more than just one answer to your argument. Environmentalists (and there are a lot more of them than those who get paid to lobby for green causes) might make legal, philosophical, moral and even religious arguments about public health, stewardship and sustainability. Watermen and those in the food industry might point to the Bay's traditional economic role - though diminished these days - as a supplier of seafood. Folks working in tourism, boating and recreational fishing would say a healthy Bay has value to them, too.
And what about those in the real estate industry, which is so central to our economy? You think people would want to pay sky-high prices to live in waterfront homes on a body of water that's algae-ridden, unfishable and even unswimmable? If not, a lot of "value" goes out of our building industry, and with it jobs.
So there are a variety of reasons for "saving," "protecting" or "restoring" the Bay. That they aren't trotted out all the time probably reflects the fact that most Marylanders agree at some level that the Bay is worth maintaining, at least - and even returning to the abundance and vitality it once displayed. The rub comes in when you ask people to pay for it, or to change their own habits and lifestyles.
So at that point, the real question is, what's a clean Bay worth - to us, as individuals, and to society?
Posted by: Didactic1 | September 7, 2010 7:18 PM
O'Malley used $200 million in Flush Tax revenues that was earmarked for bay cleanup to shore up the state's general operating expenses. He then backfilled the bay fund with $125 million from the capital budget -- which is mostly funded by borrowing. His aides said the bay fund will be fully restored next fiscal year, though it is unclear if the money will come from the flush tax or from more state-issued debt.
Borrow, spend, Borrow, spend......
Posted by: MDR | September 8, 2010 9:45 AM
At least under Ehrlich the DNR and MDE tried to faithfully comply with our state's endangered species law. Sadly, it appears that Governor O'Malley continues to provide patronage to his cronies (e.g., to Wayne Rogers of Synergics) by holding back state agencies from carrying out their environmental responsibilities - as in the case of MDE and its OKing of construction for the Synergics windplant (despite numerous sediment erosion violations during initial stages of construction).
Remember too that O'Malley signed off on a scheme to fund Synergics by making state agencies like U of MD purchase electricity generated by its windplant - whose siting and construction would cause direct harm to multiple species that supposedly are protected as Endangered or Threatened in MD.
Posted by: Dan Boone | September 8, 2010 1:33 PM