The enforcement and inspection crews at Maryland’s Department of the Environment are woefully understaffed, a situation that could lead to a Flint, Michigan, style water crisis here, state Attorney General Brian Frosh has warned.
Joel McCord , Wypr
Short-staffed MDE could spell trouble for Maryland’s drinking water
State lawmakers moving to legalize recreational cannabis
Maryland lawmakers returned to Annapolis Wednesday to take on a number of issues, among them, the legalization of recreational cannabis. Last fall, a Goucher poll found that 60 percent of Marylanders favor legalizing marijuana.
But the House and Senate are taking sharply different approaches.
An early start on the General Assembly
Maryland’s General Assembly will return to Annapolis for its regular session in less than a month and advocacy groups are already laying out an ambitious environmental agenda.
Much of that agenda centers on climate change. The proposals range from beefing up the requirements of Maryland’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction act to going all electric in the state’s vehicle fleet and changing building codes to require all electric buildings.
Delegate Kumar Barve, the Montgomery County Democrat who chairs the House Environment and Transportation Committee told a virtual gathering of environmental groups this week the goal is to “electrify everything.”
The reason, he said, is very simple.
“First of all, we need to keep fossil fuels in the ground where they can’t harm us.”
Mike Miller resigns from the Maryland Senate
Mike Miller, who presided over the Maryland Senate longer than any other state senate president in the nation, has resigned from the Senate, citing health reasons.
Miller, 78, presided over the Senate for 33 years, longer than some Senators have been alive.
