With the General Assembly in its final day, green lobbyists are breathing a bit easier after managing to salvage funding in the budget for some key environmental programs, though they lost on at least one budget struggle and suffered through some bruising legislative debates.
And in a year when tight money discouraged many new initiatives, a few "smart-growth" measures appear to be going down to the wire.
First, the budget, which received final approval over the weekend. It contains the $20 million for the Chesapeake Bay Trust Fund that Gov. Martin O'Malley had originally requested. This fund, which is supposed to be spent on curbing polluted runoff from developed land and farms, had been sharply curtailed by the Senate, but lawmakers reconsidered their trim.
Likewise, the state's ability to buy parkland was restored after the Senate reversed its decision to strip the administration's ability to borrow to pay for land acquisitions. Farmland preservation got a similar reprieve.
Those and other late-session twists buoyed environmental lobbyists' spirits in the closing days, as they had been bracing for what seemed like a disastrous 90 days in Annapolis.
"Basically, two weeks ago we were ready to declare the Senate a dead zone," said Jen Brock-Cancellieri, deputy director for the Maryland League of Conservation Voters.
Of course, the greens' victories were mostly of a rearguard nature -- mainly in preventing worse cuts, not in expanding spending to improve the environment. The Bay Trust Fund is a case in point - it was supposed to be $50 million a year when the legislature approved it in 2008, but it's never come close.
"We're disappointed that it wasn't fully funded," Brock-Cancellieri said. "But given the economic times we understand cuts have to be made." Environmental lobbyists were just hoping their causes didn't suffer a larger share, and repeatedly pushed the message that spending on the environment was an investment in green jobs.
That argument didn't always carry the day, though. Funds raised by the state's auction of carbon-dioxide emission permits to Maryland power plants are going to help poor families pay their utility bills through 2012, rather than to help them lower their bills permanently. Most of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative funds were supposed to get spent after 2011 on insulation, new water heaters, light bulbs and other energy-saving home improvements.
That's a bitter pill for those who'd hoped Maryland would blaze a clearer trail to a green economy. Peter Van Buren, head of Terra Logos, an energy audit firm, called the diversion of funds from energy efficiency incentives to ratepayer relief "shortsighted." It may prevent the state from achieving the energy conservation goals it had set two years ago, he warned, and it likely will stifle the creation of "green jobs" installing insulation, solar water heaters and the like.
"These would be well paying construction jobs that are desparately needed in the building sector that is experiencing high unemployment," Van Buren emailed. "Few if any jobs will be created by diverting funds to pay utility bills."
Another piece of the governor's alternative energy package hangs in the balance, as House and Senate negotiate over differences in their bills to require the state's power companies to boost the amount of solar energy they supply. Opponents had warned it would force utility customers to pay higher bills.
Likewise going down to the wire is an administration bill to extend and expand the historic tax credit for rehabilitating older buildings so it can be used to build or redevelop in other "smart growth" areas. And a bill to tighten penalties for oyster poaching was hung up in the House after the Senate tacked a one-year ban on establishing new oyster sanctuaries - a blow to the administration's effort to chart a new course in managing the bay's once-plentiful bivalves.
Other bills getting squeezed by time are bills to weigh global warming and smart-growth impacts before funding future state transportation projects, and a bill to give farmers a break from the state's estate tax, so they'd be less likely to sell out to developers.
A few things had been taken care of long ago, such as a bill passed in February to ban the plasticizer bisphenol-A in baby bottles and cups out of concern for its potential to impact toddlers' health and development. Likewise, a potential donnybrook over relaxing the state's storm-water pollution law before it could take effect was resolved last week with approval of emergency regulations - though not without dividing environmental activists over the wisdom and necessity of giving any breaks to developers.
UPDATE: By a vote of 31-14, the Senate just passed the bill requring smart growth and global warming be considered in funding future transportation projects. It had previously passed the House.
(Baltimore Sun file photo by Kim Hairston)