Congress considers reducing (or ending?) tax breaks for land conservation easements
John Christensen points to this article in the WaPo. He and Pat Burns have lots of posts (keep scrolling).
They both point to this new report by the Joint Committee on Taxation: Options to Improve Tax Compliance and Reform Tax Expenditures and to the reaction of the Land Trust Alliance.
A watershed event: Maryland LCV launches a blog
They may not know it yet, but the Maryland League of Conservation Voters took a very big step this week. They started a blog.
Three pieces of advice to the new bloggers at LCV:
1. Add links to your posts. Without links, a blog will be disconnected, flat and lifeless.
2. Post daily. Once a week isn't enough.
3. Make it a conversation, not a broadcast. In addition to giving your own opinions, listen to your readers' comments and read other blogs.
Nothing but good can come out of this -- if you keep at it and if you have the discipline to listen to your critics as well as your supporters.
Good luck.
A growing bond between environmentalists & neocons?
[Strange bedfellows (or not) department]
Less than a day after I post "off topic" on Iraq, Robert Bryce at Slate points out this connection:
a curious transformation is occurring in Washington, D.C.,[...]: Many of the leading neoconservatives who pushed hard for the Iraq war are going green. James Woolsey, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and staunch backer of the Iraq war, now drives a 58-miles-per-gallon Toyota Prius and has two more hybrid vehicles on order. Frank Gaffney, the president of the Center for Security Policy and another neocon who championed the war, has been speaking regularly in Washington about fuel efficiency and plant-based bio-fuels.
Bryce concludes:
If they can convince Congress and the White House to enact meaningful legislation on energy efficiency and conservation—issues that have been marginalized since the Carter administration—then perhaps the neocons will finally have a success story that they can brag about.
I'd love to see what happens when these folks (scroll down) from the Center for Security Policy start working with these folks (scroll down) from the Apollo Alliance.
[via Andrew Sullivan]
Nice fundraising idea: grocery store donates 5% of sales to watershed group
Kudos to Whole Foods of Mt. Washington (in Baltimore) for their generosity in support of the Jones Falls Watershed Association. From the Baltimore Messenger
(1-13-05):
Shoppers at the Whole Foods market in Mt. Washington got more than groceries Jan. 4.
They also got an education about the ailing Jones Falls, a tributary of the
Chesapeake Bay frequently beset by storm water runoff, leaking sewage and other pitfalls of urbanization.
Whole Foods donated 5 percent of the day's sales to the non-profit Jones Falls Watershed Association. Association staff and volunteers spent the day at the store talking to shoppers about projects to restore the health of the Jones Falls, and indirectly, the health of the bay, into which it feeds.
I assume the grocery store picks a slow sales day for this type of event. If the publicity is done right and the turnout is good, the store could easily come out ahead. Win-win.
Should environmentalists emphasize objectives or methods?
Gary Jones laments that we tend to fall in love with methods and suggests that we focus on objectives instead:
Environmentalism isn't now and never was a political issue, it's a governance issue. Every political camp has environmental objectives but they favor different methods to achieve them. Environmentalists need to focus on the objectives rather than the methods.
Yup. Nicely put.
More of his thoughts for environmentalists touch on professionalism, focus and party affiliation:
[Environmentalists] surely will have their own personal views about methodology but to sacrifice environmental objectives in the interest of supporting their political views is a betrayal. It's a hard lesson not yet learned but there it is; environmentalism needs to be more professional and better focused on the task at hand. It's too important and too big to be shackled to the fortunes of a failing political party.
Comparing missions of local watershed groups in Balto City & around harbor
I recently had reason to look up the mission statements of watershed associations in and around the City of Baltimore and Baltimore Harbor.
Listed below are the ones that I've been able to find on the web:
Gwynns Falls Watershed Association mission:
improve water quality in the Gwynns Falls Watershed and to promote and enhance the value of the Gwynns Falls and its tributaries as a recreational, aesthetic, educational and natural resource.
Herring Run Watershed Association mission:
improve the environmental quality of the Herring Run watershed for the mutual benefit of its community and the Chesapeake Bay, by mobilizing volunteers for advocacy, restoration, and education.
Jones Falls Watershed Association mission:
protect and restore the health and beauty of the Jones Falls Watershed through restoration, monitoring, advocacy, and citizen awareness.
Patapsco Riverkeeper mission:
protects, promotes, and advocates on behalf of the Patapsco River - the health of the river itself, the ecosystems it sustains, and the human and wildlife communities it supports.
(1) The actions they hope to take (protect, enhance/improve, advocate/promote and educate);
(2) The objects of their actions (humans/citizens, wildlife, ecosystems, rivers/tributaries, watersheds, and downstream waters); and
(3) The measures of their success (health, environmental quality, beauty/aeshetics, and value)
Schwarzenegger takes on gerrymandering, proposes redistricting reform
The Maryland legislature* and Governor Ehrlich should do the same.
What does this have to do with the environment? As I've alluded before -- gerrymandering leads to safe seats in the U.S. Congress and safe seats make congressmen less responsive to voters on key issues, including environmental ones.
Crazy-quilt districts also complicate any dealings local watershed associations (or any local groups) might have with the U.S. House of Representatives. For example, the Jones Falls watershed covers an area of roughly 8 miles x 8 miles, yet it overlaps with four bizarrely-shaped congressional districts:
District 2 - Dutch Ruppersberger
District 3 - Benjamin Cardin
District 7 - Elijah Cummings
District 1 - Wayne Gilchrest
Details of Schwarzenegger's thoughts (from the NY Times via Pete the Elder):
In his annual State of the State address [Governor Schwarzenegger] called on the Democratic-controlled [California] Legislature to enact a fundamental overhaul that would include that most sacred of political cows, the way Congressional and legislative districts are drawn.
Mr. Schwarzenegger proposed turning over the drawing of the state's political map to a panel of retired judges, taking it out of the hands of lawmakers who for decades have used the redistricting process in a cozy bipartisan deal to choose their voters and cement their incumbency. He threatened to take the issue directly to the voters if the Legislature does not act on the plan in a special session he called for.Mr. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, noted that of the 153 seats in the California Congressional delegation and Legislature that were on the ballot in November, not one changed party hands.
"What kind of a democracy is that?" he asked in his address.
Excellent question.
*In Maryland, U.S. congressional districts are controlled by the state legislature.
Ehrlich names Democrat Ron Guns to oversee WQ programs at DNR
Guns is currently a member of the Maryland Public Service Commission. He was appointed to the PSC by Gov. Glendenning in 2001.
As DNR assistant secretary for Chesapeake Bay programs (replacing Mark Bundy) he will be responsible for
overseeing water-quality programs, bay grass restoration and other bay initiatives.
Previous experience:
- Delegate in the Maryland legislature from 1983-2001(D-Cecil County).
- Chairman of the House Environmental Matters Committee for nearly 10 years.
- According to the Sun, he was also a budget manager and former lineman for Verizon.
Black environmental group (AAEA) supports ICC highway project in Maryland
In today's WaPo:
"We want businesses and the general public to have mobility options that will reduce travel times," said Norris McDonald, president of the African American Environmentalist Association, a group that backs the [Intercounty Connector] highway [project]. "We believe that the connector will accomplish this goal with very little impact to the environment."
The AAEA seems to have two websites, here and here.
It's interesting to see a set of environmental goals that reflect an African-American perspective. In addition to supporting the ICC project in Maryland, the AAEA:
- aims to deliver environmental information and services directly into communities
- is concerned with racial bias* in the environmental movement,
- promotes electric, hybrid and hydrogen vehicles,
- promotes both renewable energy sources & nuclear power,
- is concerned with black-on-black crime, and
- seems to focus more on air quaility and brownfields issues than water quality.
*The AAEA is planning to issue a racial diversity report card on environmental groups. But it seems progress is slow because they're not getting a good response to a survey that went out to 25 NGOs.
