Lawmakers target tree-cutting utility companies

Kaye White is hoping Maryland?s General Assembly can save her crepe myrtles.

In the spring, their pink and lilac blossoms shield a transmission line yards from her Halethorpe home in Baltimore County, and, for decades, crews from Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. have trimmed the branches perilously close to high-voltagewires. Now, White said, the company wants to cut them ? as well as her beloved eastern red cedars ? down.