Even before he?s sworn in, environmentalists are cheering the arrival of the O?Malley administration and its appointees.
“They can be the heroes,” Chesapeake Bay Foundation President Will Baker told a roomful of environmentalists Monday. “Wecan cheer now in anticipation of them being heroes.”
“The stars are in alignment,” said Cindy Schwartz, executive director of the League of Conservation Voters. “We have a green comptroller, a green attorney general, a green governor and a green lieutenant governor, plus a conservation majority in the House and Senate.”
O?Malley already had pleased environmental groups with his campaign promises and his appointment Thursday of Shari Wilson to secretary of the environment. He scored again Tuesday by naming John Griffin as secretary of natural resources.
Griffin had the same post in Gov. Parris Glendening?s administration, and he chaired O?Malley?s huge transition team of more than 50 people on the environment.
Besides O?Malley?s strong environmental credentials, “he?s also concerned with restoring the agency to a place of stature,” said Schwartz, who was a member of the transition committee. “I think he?s really going to do a fine job.”
Baker, a longtime advocate for the bay, said they already have the best science, the right tools and “more public support than anyone could have hoped for” five years ago.
“What we need is the political will to get the job done,” Baker said, and he thinks they have found it in O?Malley.
Wilson, the nominee for environment secretary, said the O?Malley team has “a clear vision for what they want to see for the environment in Maryland.”
“There is a moment in time before us,” O?Malley?s new Chief of Staff, Michael Enright told the 250 environmentalists in the room. “The answer is political leadership.”
Enright said that O?Malley, new D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine were on the same page and constituted the “three green amigos.”
