University of Maryland scientists and other environmentalists painted a dire picture of the impact of global warming on the state?s coastline at a Senate hearing Tuesday.
But a range of industry groups opposed legislation that would force only Maryland businesses and residents to reduce greenhouse gases.
State Sen. Paul Pinsky, D-Prince George?s, introduced a bill that would set up a new regulatory process that would make Maryland reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to 1990 levels. Pinsky?s bill, co-sponsored by two-thirds of Senate Democrats, would give the Maryland Department of the Environment broad powers to regulate emissions and to charge companies fees if they failed to meet those targets.
“The U.S. has the responsibility to lead this effort,” Pinsky said, because the country still generates three to four times as much of the gases that are believed to cause global warming than do countries like China.
“There is wide scientific consensus that the climate is changing,” said Tony Busalacchi, head of the earth system sciences center at College Park. There is general agreement that the rapid change and the more severe storms area result of human activity. Michael Kearney, a University of Maryland geography professor, said there would be a 1-foot rise in the Chesapeake Bay in the next century that will lead to a loss of islands, shoreline and marshes.
Hurricane Isabel was “a wake-up call,” Kearney said. “We?ve been rushing to the shore, and the shore has been rushing toward us.”
Michael Powell, representing the Maryland Industrial Alliance, said Pinsky?s measure “provides a blank check to the Department of the Environment” and “allows department to provide a carbon tax” without any legislative control.
“This will not make a bit of difference” to Maryland and the impact of global warming, Powell said, but will have “draconian impacts” on Maryland business.
John Quinn, an engineer for Constellation Energy, parent company of Baltimore Gas and Electric, said the company favored policies to “slow, reverse and stop greenhouse gases” but it favored approaches that were “market-oriented and economy-wide,” including a national policy.
Pinsky pointed out that the same business groups used the same reasons to oppose his bill enacted last year reducing pollutants at coal-powered electric plants.
