More Environmental Priorities

Building Energy Disclosure

Environmental Challenge

Energy use in buildings constitutes a significant amount of total energy consumption - energy which typically comes from burning dirty fossil fuels with the resulting pollution impacts. While the state of Maryland and some local jurisdictions have put in place green building and permitting requirements that primarily effect new construction, existing buildings are frequently the least efficient. Heating, air conditioning, lighting and controls for these systems can be upgraded with new technology, and use of additional insulation and air sealing can achieve substantial cost effective energy savings in most existing buildings while providing work for those who perform audits and install new systems.

Bill Framework

This bill requires that energy use of commercial buildings be assessed using EPA's free Energy Star Program, which provides each participant with an energy star rating as well as recommendations for improvement. Making this information is available to potential purchasers or tenants of buildings allows these decision makers to account for ongoing energy costs, and should drive upgrades of existing buildings. This is a simple and inexpensive step to reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas pollution while yielding cost savings.

Environmental Justice

Environmental Challenge

Environmental Justice refers to the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.

Bill Framework

An Environmentally Stressed Communities Act would require the Maryland Department of Planning and the Commission on Environmental Justice and Sustainable Communities to develop maps that identify environmentally stressed communities. Any person who seeks a permit from the Maryland Department of the Environment must also first submit an Environmental Justice Review detailing any adverse and additional environmental, economic or public health impacts upon the air, land, water or people within two miles of the facility for which the permit is sought.

Family and Farm Health and Security Act of 2011

Environmental Challenge

Pesticides have been widely detected in the watershed and are a contributing stressor on the Chesapeake Bay. In 2004 researchers detected the pesticide atrazine (widely used for weed control in corn) in 100% of water samples taken at 60 different stations in 5 different Bay tributaries. Atrazine, has been shown to adversely affect reproduction of fish at concentrations below U.S. EPA's water-quality guidelines. Triclosan, an antibacterial product registered as a pesticide and found in many household products, can inhibit photosynthesis by aquatic plants in our waterways. Pesticides are also linked to chronic illnesses such as cancer, reproductive, respiratory, developmental and neurological diseases. Additionally, restricted use pesticides (RUPs) can be weaponized to cause mass casualties. Post 9/11, the FBI and US EPA expressed concern about the potential for RUPs to be used by terrorists. Without an
adequate centralized database to track pesticide use in general and RUPs sales in particular, government agencies, scientists and public health professionals cannot assess the impact of pesticides on our waterways or public health, nor can they work on strategies to minimize national security threats associated with these products.

Bill Framework 

Certified applicators including farmers, public agencies and commercially licensed businesses, as well as dealers of RUPs, are currently mandated to keep records on pesticide usage, or RUP sales, at their place of business. This bill would require submission of this data to a centralized system under MDA, that can be accessed by government agencies and scientists. The envisioned program would be funded by a modest increase in pesticide product registration fees.

 

Full Credit for Solar

Environmental Challenge

More than two-thirds of Maryland's electricity comes from coal-fired power plants dating as far back as 60 years. We are long overdue to reduce our pollution and boost our economy by dramatically expanding solar power in Maryland. Solar power creates three times as many jobs as coal power per megawatt. Regulations stemming from a 2010 bill will result in homeowners and businesses with solar panels getting less money for the electricity they put on the grid unless we fix the error this year.

Bill Framework

This bill will ensure that people with solar panels get full credit for the power they generate. Electricity they put on the grid will be subtracted from the amount of electricity they consume from the grid, so they only pay for their net energy consumption.

 

Incinerator Alternatives Act

Environmental Challenge

Incinerators sometimes called ‘waste-to-energy' facilities have significant environmental, health and financial impacts on the communities and their residents where they are sighted. Many communities have found themselves saddled with debt after floating bonds for an expensive incinerator that then bankrupts and pollutes their communities.

Bill Framework

The Incinerator Alternatives Act is designed to assist counties and municipalities in reviewing their solid waste disposal options, while supporting recycling and reuse programs. The Act would explicitly prohibit the building and expansion of any incinerator facility through sighting criteria. It also helps advance the concept of ‘zero waste' and focus taxpayer dollars on green jobs supporting real and proven renewable energy sources. Finally it will prevent the fiscal burden and hazardous environmental and health impacts caused by solid waste

 

Healthy Kids, Healthy Maryland

Environmental Challenge

More than 30 years of research have led to a growing consensus that chemicals are playing a role in the incidence and prevalence of many diseases and disorders in our country, including infertility, cancer, obesity, and learning and developmental disorders. Yet our chemical safety laws are failing to protect public health by allowing untested chemicals as well as known health harming chemicals to be put into consumer products. Many of these chemicals are now accumulating in our bodies and in the environment and contributing to an array of chronic illnesses.

Bill Framework

Comprehensive chemical safety policy takes an integrated approach to all chemicals, going beyond chemical-bychemical or media-by-media restrictions to establish processes that allow rapid chemical assessment, prioritization, and decision-making based on the inherent toxicity, uses, functions, and potential exposures through manufacturing, use, and disposal. This bill would give the Maryland Department of the Environment the authority to regulate multiple chemicals of concern. MDE would work in coordination with DHMH and an interstate chemical clearinghouse to identify, prioritize, and select chemicals that should be regulated. Manufacturers in the state would be required to participate in the collection and dissemination of health and

Lawn Fertilizer

Environmental Challenge

According to recent research, approximately twenty percent of the state of Maryland is devoted to home lawns and many of them are fertilized regularly. Over application of lawn fertilizer is a significant source of pollution to the Chesapeake Bay. Fertilizer that is not absorbed by a lawn can leach into shallow groundwater or runoff into the bay after a heavy rainfall. This process contributes to the creation of dead zones that appear in the bay every summer. Fortunately the EPA has written a "pollution diet" for the Chesapeake Bay that will require Maryland to clean up the bay more than ever before. A plan to reduce fertilizer pollution in the bay would be a cost-effective way to achieve Maryland's pollution-reduction goals.

Bill Framework

Action is needed to reduce the pollution caused by fertilizer runoff in Maryland. Bills will be introduced that will 1) eliminate phosphorus in lawn fertilizer 2) reduce the amount of quick-release nitrogen in lawn fertilizer and 3) strengthen the guidelines that currently allow lawn care companies and golf courses to apply too much fertilizer to our lawns and greens.

 

For more information, please contact:Brent Bolin, Anacostia Watershed Society; This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , 301-699-6204 x120

Invasive Plant Prevention and Control

Environmental Challenge

Invasive species are organisms that are introduced into a non-native ecosystem -regarding ecological boundaries, not political boundaries-- and which cause, harm to the economy, environment or human health. Invasive plant species are one of the top threats to biodiversity and ecosystem function in Maryland and the nation. More than half of the 1,200 plants reported as invasive in the U.S. were introduced as landscaping plants. Only in the Mid-Atlantic region 280 nonnative plant species have been reported to be invasive and detrimental for native species. The total cost of invasive species to the U.S. economy -regarding damages and control-- is now
estimated at $142 billion annually. Various Federal agencies, state agencies, local governments, NGO's and community groups continuously spent a considerable amount of money and effort to control these plant species in the state of Maryland.

Bill Framework

This bill would establish an Invasive Plant Species Advisory Committee that will formulate a science-based risk assessment protocol for the invasive plant species. The committee will adopt rules and regulations to create a tiered list of invasive plant species, according to the provisions of the risk assessment protocol, which will categorize plants according to their invasiveness and their impacts. The list will determine which plant species will be banned from sale according to their severe ecological impacts,
and, for which other species the retail outlets would have to post signs to warn the consumers about the environmental harmfulness of the plants. 

Reducing Trash in Maryland's Landscape

Environmental Challenge

Everyone has seen a plastic bag blowing down a street, stuck high in a tree, or floating down a waterway. Plastic bag litter is a statewide problem, from the hills of western Maryland to the beaches of the Eastern Shore. Single use plastic bags have an average use time of 12 minutes, but persist in the environment for an average of 25 years. Many cities, states, and nations have considered the issue of plastic bag litter, including Baltimore, and in 2010 nearby Washington, DC enacted a bill similar to Maryland's that has been a huge success. In 2009 DC sold 270 million bags, but only 55 million in 2010 with a five-cent bag fee as Maryland has proposed. Local environmental organizations are already reporting a noticeable decrease in plastic bag litter at cleanup events, and small retailers like saving money on buying bags that they used to give out for free.

Bill Framework

Modeled on the highly successful, Washington, DC bag bill, a five cent fee will be charged for all single-use plastic and paper bags distributed at stores that sell food. The fee will be split between the retailers themselves and the Chesapeake Bay Trust, who will use the funds for environmental restoration projects. This revenue-neutral bill would require the data already being maintained to be submitted to a centralized repository. The data, now currently unavailable for research purposes, could then be accessed by agencies and scientists to more fully assess the occurrence and impact of fertilizer and pesticide runoff on the Chesapeake Bay
and assess the impact of pesticides on human health.

 

Marcellus Shale: Hydraulic Fracturing Moratorium

Environmental Challenge

A new technique to extract natural gas from the Marcellus shale rock formation called hydraulic fracturing ("hydrofracking") was developed over the past few years. Despite lack of information about the direct and cumulative impacts at possibly hundreds of new drilling sites in western Maryland from extracting, transporting, and storing millions of gallons of water and toxic chemicals, mineral rights throughout the region are being acquired, and permit applications have been filed with MDE.

Bill Framework

This bill puts in place a moratorium on issuance of permits for drilling gas wells until there is a comprehensive assessment of direct and cumulative impacts.

Listen to this recent audio clip from WYPR