The Baltimore Sun has revealed that the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) worked closely with the power industy to defeat the “four pollutants” bill that would have tightened restrictions on emissions of mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide.
On March 23 Maryland environmental Sectretary Kendl Philbrick faxed a letter to Senate Finance Chairman Thomas Middleton that the bill would cause the closing of coal fired power plants, blackouts and higher electricity rates. But emails received by a Sun freedom of information act show that the language of the letter was written by a lobbyist for the state’s largest owner of power plants, Constellation Energy, and emailed to Philbrick for his signature.
The released documents reveal meetings between the power industry and the MDE including a joint “strategy session,” and cooperative drafting of a “fact sheet” and letters by the MDE and Constellation.
Maryland resembles the Bush administration in that industry executives are now setting environmental policy.
But there is one important difference: Democrats hold a substantial majority in both houses of the Maryland legislature.
How did they get rolled so easily if they really care about the environment?
Clearly Democrats have some explaining to do on this issue. The need for a strong Green presence was never so clear.