When Bob Ehrlich became governor in 2003, one of his first acts -- as Maryland’s first Republican chief executive in more than three decades -- was to abandon new state regulations that would have held the state’s large poultry industry responsible for reducing its manure runoff pollution into the Chesapeake Bay.
Ehrlich’s former appointments secretary, Larry Hogan, a Republican real estate developer, was sworn in as Maryland's new governor last week. On his first day in office, Hogan beat his former boss in anti-environmental showmanship by killing not only new poultry waste regulations important for the health of the Bay, but also clean air rules designed to reduce smog in the Baltimore area.
“This is a big blow to clean air goals in the state," said David Smedick, a policy advocate for the Maryland Sierra Club. “Maryland has some of the worst air quality on the East Coast, particularly ozone pollution – which aggravates asthma, of which we have high rates in Baltimore city. And it really poses a danger to people’s lungs and our air quality in Maryland.”
By halting state regulations meant to reduce nitrogen oxide air pollution from coal-fired power plants, Governor Hogan may have saved power companies millions of dollars in costs for installing pollution control equipment or switching to cleaner natural gas.
Hogan also cancelled new state regulations that would have prohibited poultry farmers on Maryland’s Eastern shore from applying more manure as fertilizer to fields that are already saturated with phosphorus from manure. The dumping of excess manure in fields helps the poultry industry with a waste disposal problem, because about 200,000 tons more manure is produced every year by the state’s 300 million chickens than crops on the Eastern Shore can absorb as fertilizer. But the dumping pollutes streams and the Chesapeake Bay with phosphorus that feeds algae blooms and “dead zones.”
"Particularly on the phosphorus management tool regulations, the governor did decide to block one of the biggest tools to clean up the Chesapeake bay and our local waters in more than 30 years," said Joanna Diamond, Director of Environment Maryland. "So I certainly was disappointed in his decision to do that.”
Governor Hogan’s spokesman agreed to be interviewed about the regulations for this radio program, but then cancelled at the last minute. Instead, the governor’s office issued this written statement:
"The Governor has directed all agencies of state government to begin a comprehensive review of all pending regulations." according to the email from Hogan's office. "This review process is to allow public input, public hearing and full due process before regulations are finalized. We're holding the regulations that were slated for publication on Friday to give them the attention they deserve."
On the campaign trail, Hogan argued that the manure regulations would put the Eastern Shore’s poultry industry out of business and kill jobs. But that was not the conclusion of a November economic impact report by Salisbury University. This report predicted the rules would cost the poultry industry and state taxpayers $22 million – but result in $100 million in economic benefits from a cleaner Chesapeake Bay and more fish and crabs, as well as improved tourism.
Hogan’s decision to stop the regulations set up a potential conflict with the state’s Democratic-majority in the General Assembly. Some lawmakers are now considering legislation to require the phosphorus pollution control in some form of law.
State Delegate Kumar Barve, chairman of the House Environment and Transportation Committee, is among the lawmakers who believe the phosphorus pollution regulations would have a positive impact on both the Chesapeake Bay region's ecology and economy.
“This is not a job killer," Barve said. "But I tell you what would be a job killer: Watching the Chesapeake Bay go down on our watch would be a job killer. Because there is an enormous amount of economic benefit in the fishing industries – for example, for crabs and oysters. These things are at risk if we do nothing.”
Governor Hogan has said that a goal of his administration is bipartisanship. He could follow through with this aim by working with members of both parties in the General Assembly who strongly support protecting the Chesapeake Bay.
