Bay & Environment: Climate bill nears passage, other green bills inch forward - Bay & Environment is The Sun’s blog devoted to news about Maryland’s environment

The House of Delegates gave preliminary approval tonight to the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Act, turning aside a "killer" amendment offered by the chamber's Republican leader.

The bill, which would commit the state to reduce its climate-warming emissions of carbon dioxide 25 percent by 2020, is now poised for a final House vote. Given the lopsided margins by which opponents' amendments were defeated tonight, it seems likely to pass easily. A parallel measure already has passed the Senate, all but assuring it will become law after being blocked two years in a row.

Key to the measure's apparent success this year was the sponsors' decision to exempt the state's manufacturers from any requirement to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the first few years. Manufacturers and labor leaders concerned about factory job losses teamed up to kill a similar measure in a House committee last year, after it had passed the Senate.

Tonight, Del. Anthony O'Donnell, the House minority leader from Southern Maryland, offered what he acknowledged was a killer amendment to strip the exemption in the bill for the state's manufacturers.

"What's good for the goose should be good for the gander," O'Donnell argued, saying that other segments of society and the economy would be forced to pay for manufacturers' exemption if greenhouse gas regulations raise electricity costs. It was his way, he said, of making the point that the bill was going to drive up energy costs for everyone.

But Del. Brian McHale, a Baltimore Democrat supporting the bill, disputed O'Donnell's assertions that energy costs would rise. He said manufacturers produced only a small share of the greenhouse gases, and they were exempted to spare them from being put at a competitive disadvantage with factories in other states lacking greenhouse gas regulations.

The amendment failed, 32-103. A second amendment also failed that would have required annual reporting on how efforts to reduce greenhouse gases are affecting energy costs, jobs and property rights.

Earlier in the day, the Senate gave preliminary approval to a bill that would require enhanced septic systems on all new houses built along the Cheseapeake Bay waterfront. The measure also would require nitrogen-removing septics whenever an existing home's septic system must be replaced, but the state would pay for those.

The bill originally had called for nitrogen-removing septics statewide, but fearing opposition from Realtors, builders and rural residents, its supporters narrowed the focus to the Critical Area bordering the bay and its tributaries. The measure still provoked spirited debate and repeated efforts to alter it or send it back to committee - and nearly certain death.

Though septic systems are a relatively small source overall of the nitrogen fouling the bay, they are significant in certain areas such as the Severn River in Anne Arundel County, where many homes are on septic systems. Nitrogen is not removed by conventional septic systems. Experts have urged requiring enhanced, nitrogen-removing septics be used, especially near streams and waterways.

But the enhanced septics are more costly, with estimates ranging from $5,600 for new homes to as much as $12,000 for retrofitting existing homes.

Opponents argued that the septic requirement would hurt an already suffering housing industry, and they pushed for having the state pay the additional costs in new homes as well as in cases where existing homes must replace their systems.

But supporters of the bill argued that the more costly septic was a relatively small percentage of the overall price paid for a new house, and that the state should not be expected to pay for their choice to live in the environmentally sensitive Critical Area.

That last argument infuriated senators representing the lower Eastern Shore, who said many residents have lived there for generations, and have modest means and cannot afford the extra cost. Their efforts to get the state to cover the costs failed narrowly, though, paving the way for a final Senate vote.

Environmental advocates, meanwhile, are girding for a showdown in the House as early as Friday over a bill that for the first time would penalize local governments if they fail to curb sprawl. The House Environmental Matters Committee added a few teeth to an O'Malley administration bill requiring local governments to report regularly on how growth is occurring within their borders.

As amended, the measure would give priority for state funding to any locality where 80 percent of its new development has occurred inside designated growth areas, and no more than 5 percent of newly developed land is in preservation areas. But it would require the state to deny permits or otherwise limit development outside growth areas if communities do not do enough to concentrate their growth.

Environmental advocates have pushed for putting teeth in Maryland's 12-year-old Smart Growth law, which they say has largely failed to curb sprawl by just offering state funding to support concentrated development. But county officials have opposed any state interference with their traditional control over land use. They contend that such decisions should be left at the local level because circumstances and the public's will varies from place to place.