During a meeting of the League of Conservation Voters last night in Annapolis, Gov. Martin O'Malley said he felt nauseous while taking a helicopter tour of Western Maryland recently.  It wasn't the wobbling of the chopper that gave him butterflies in the stomach, he said. It was gazing out the window and seeing the endless march of new subdivisions gobbling up the rolling, green landscape.

"I almost became ill, because I looked down and saw mile after mile after mile of development," O'Malley said, his voice quavering with emotion.  "It's a wonder that farms and God's natural beauty can even exist" with all the development.  "What a sad irony: because of growth, we are destroying all of the things that attract the growth."

Turning to former Gov. Parris Glendening, a fellow Democrat in the audience at the Westin Hotel, O'Malley said he is reopening the state's anti-sprawl agency, called the "Office of Smart Growth," that was eliminated by former Gov. Robert Ehrlich, a Republican. 

O'Malley didn't address the much-debated question of whether Glendening's ballyhooed "Smart Growth" program really did anything to slow exurban construction that bleeds cities and towns of wealth and population.  Some reports, based on U.S. Census figures, have suggested that development in the farthest-flung areas continued roaring along, unabated, after Glendening launched his program in 1997. The program gives the state little power to stop developers, leaving most decisions in the hands of local government.

But O'Malley made the point that he's philosophically opposed to the idea of wasting farmland and forests for housing, when existing towns and cities have plenty of sites available.

"We have seen our population increase by 30 percent and our consumption of land grow by 100 percent," over the last few decades in the state, O'Malley said.

On the subject of global warming,  O'Malley made no promises last night.  He has a commission studying what the state should do to limit carbon dioxide emmissions.  But he said he's at least different from Republicans, which he accused of living in a fantasy land and denying the truth about rising global temperatures. "We acknowledge the fact that there is a climate crisis, and we have to do something about it," O'Malley said.

He was candid that he's had some differences with conservation voters. For example, O'Malley  supports the construction of the Intercounty Connector, a massive highway project in the Washington suburbs.  But O'Malley said at least he's a governor who "feels bad" about the project, which could accelerate sprawl. 

READER Mike Petrie has this opinion of the Governor's stomach:  "Sprawl may cause certain problems, but if one is nauseated by it, perhaps one should not be governor.  :-) "

READER Michael Rubenstein is  angry about O'Malley's "bad feelings." He writes: "When they come and rip out that lovely stretch of trees which runs down the middle of my community to build the ICC, when we have bright lights at night and road noise 24 hours a day in our quiet neighborhood, and when I am choking on pollution from this six lane highway, at least I will have the consolation of knowing that Governor Ehrlich -- um, I mean, O'Malley -- feels bad about it.

And all this for a highway that won't deliver on its promise to reduce traffic congestion.

Mr. O'Malley, if you feel bad about it, then muster the political courage to kill it," Rubinstein writes.