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Max Stamper, Ph.D., London School of Economics, is eager to explore your 

international public affairs and communication needs, and to discuss our services.

Please email me at DrMaxStamper@att.net or phone (+) 1-(201) 848-6162. 

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Our friend, Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend of Maryland, is in a tight race for governor.  Here are some of her views on the environment. 

Please consider giving her your support.  Maryland State law permits individuals to contribute a maximum of $4,000 to a political committee in a four-year cycle (January 1, 1999 to December 31, 2002). 

We need your help, now!   http://kathleentownsend.net

Max

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On the Environment

by

LT. GOV. KATHLEEN KENNEDY TOWNSEND

Leadership is more than knowing what to do. It’s knowing what to do – and then doing it quickly.

We acted against Pfesteria when the fish kill in the Chesapeake was less than 13,000. North Carolina acted when their fish kill reached almost 1 million. The outbreak had the potential for being a major ecological disaster. We made sure it wasn’t.

We’re concentrating on protecting our Coastal Bays, strengthening our Critical Areas Law, and improving enforcement of other environmental laws. I am committed to protecting our Coastal Bays.

The population of these areas is growing rapidly. As Ocean City and other beach communities have boomed, the population of the Coastal Bays watershed has grown 50-percent.

These Bays are critical to Maryland’s economy. Commercial fishing, tourism and other activities in the Coastal Bays bring in $500 million annually.

But our fight to protect the water, shoreline and aquatic habitat of the Coastal Bays is not just about saving money, it’s about saving the wildness that makes Maryland as a state – and we as her people – special.

We’re also going to crack down on environmental lawbreakers – with tougher and more effective enforcement.

I believe we must never compromise on our right to have clean drinking water.

I believe we must never compromise our right to healthy air.

I believe we must never compromise on the public’s right to know what pollutants are in the air and water.

And I believe we must never compromise on our right to set tougher standards than the federal government if that’s what we believe is needed to protect Maryland’s environment.

Let me make one comment now about the current Administration in Washington. Their idea of environmental progress is to adhere to the status quo.

In other words, as long as they’re not moving backwards – they think they’re moving forwards. They’re wrong.

And to make matters worse – most of the time, they are moving backwards – deliberately.

Our attitude about progress must be different.

The Agreement sets tough goals for increasing land preservation in the Bay watershed and reducing the conversion of natural areas to development.

Implementing this Agreement will be a daunting challenge. It will be expensive. It will be complicated.

It will require that the Federal and State governments, environmental organizations, farmers, watermen, business, and the public work together.

But this is really a case where failure is not an option. The Bay is our state’s crown jewel. It is our history, our identity – and our economic lifeline, and the Bay Agreement is the best guarantee of its survival.

We also face the challenge of cleaning up our rivers – and I believe we must pay particular attention to the Anacostia. I love this river.

Cleaning up the Anacostia is really a matter of environmental justice.

The Anacostia is deeply entwined in the history of African Americans – both in Maryland and DC. In port towns up and down the river, African Americans worked, raised families, and fought for civil rights.

But over many decades, the Anacostia was neglected – and the communities near its banks – allowed it to decline. We’re changing that.

Our third challenge is to build on the successes of Smart Growth.

Maryland is already the national and international leader in Smart Growth. But Smart Growth in Maryland has a future – not just a past.

I was talking to a woman in the Canton neighborhood of Baltimore: “Why are you working in this community?”  She said, “Well, I grew up on a farm. I live on a farm. I want to preserve my farm. And the best way to do that is to make sure people want to live in Canton – not on my farm.”

When people enjoy a good quality of life where they are – they don’t want to move someplace else.

That’s what Smart Growth is really about – quality of life.

It’s about being able to walk down the street without fear. That is why Hot Spots – which pulls an entire community together to fight crime – is so important to Smart Growth.

It’s about being able to go to a nearby park to play baseball or soccer with your children. That is why we put $5.5 million into building or rebuilding urban green space through our Community Parks and Playgrounds program.

Smart Growth is also about having communities strong enough to create jobs so people can raise healthy families.

It’s about knowing your neighbors – and being able to trust your neighbors to watch your children.

It’s about safe and affordable places to live – with easy access to stores, restaurants and green space.

And it’s about having great neighborhood schools, where children prepare to get ahead, not fall behind. That’s why the Governor and I added $1 billion a year to K through 12 education – and why I made community service a requirement for all Maryland students.

Smart growth gives us a framework and vision for making excellent quality of life decisions.

When we decide – as we should – to build communities with housing options for all income levels: That is Smart Growth.

When we decide – as we should – to clean up contaminated industrial sites that scar our communities: That is Smart Growth.

When we decide – as we should – to reuse older buildings and relieve the pressure for new development: That is Smart Growth.

And when we decide – as we should – to provide more transportation choices – especially access to bus and rail: That is Smart Growth.

Pollutants that go up smokestacks in the Midwest come down on our forests as acid rain. Industrial waste from the Susquehanna ends up in the Bay. Inefficient cars burning expensive foreign oil create greenhouse gases, which have the potential to cause drought in Maryland’s farming communities – and coastal flooding.

We need the federal government to lead on these issues. To use its place on the world stage to call for change – not sound retreat. We were wrong to abandon Kyoto.

The federal government should be writing an energy policy that increases the fuel efficiency of cars – and promotes conservation, instead of simply dismissing it as nothing more than a “personal virtue.”

We should never drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The President signed legislation to save Rhinos, but he rolled back air pollution standards for some coal-fired power plants – and ended federal support for the creation of new fuel-efficient cars. Well I’m happy for the Rhinos. But I’m not happy for our children.

It is their health and future that the federal government is putting at risk.

I believe Maryland should take the lead in countering what the administration is doing, by voicing our disagreement and by showing – through legislation and working together – what proper stewardship of the environment is all about.

Let me close with Teddy Roosevelt’s own words: In a 1907 message to Congress he wrote:

“To waste, to destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right hand down to them.”