The Environment in Focus

The Chesapeake Bay is full of history that is slipping away before our eyes. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One envirnmental advocate has a unique way of bringing attention to the topic: hip hop music. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tom reflects on his relationship with a dear friend - an old rowboat. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Can we engineer Earth's atmosphere to stop global warming? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Maryland over the last three years, there was a back-and-forth political battle between Republican Governor Larry Hogan and the Democratic-majority state legislature over a controversial insecticide called chlorpyrifos. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In a shallow bay of the Potomac River about an hour south of Washington, D.C., lie the remains of 214 wooden cargo ships from World War I, some of which have sprouted trees and become islands. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The U.S. Senate passed an infrastructure bill that includes $7.5 billion for the construction of electric vehicle charging stations across the U.S. as a step toward combating climate change. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There is a growing movement to measure the worth of nature by quantifying its economic value.  What, then, is the value of fireflies?  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's been a summer of record-breaking heat, wildfires, floods. So people can't avoid thinking about climate change. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Temperatures in the Pacific Northwest got so hot in June – hitting a record 121 degrees in British Columbia – that hundreds of people died and more than a billion clams and mussels cooked in their shells. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Matt Fitzpatrick, an ecologist and associate professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science discovered that Maryland's climate future is … Mississippi. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tom Pelton takes a trip to western Maryland to visit the Paw Paw bends. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last week, after months of negotiations, President Joe Biden announced a bipartisan compromise in the U.S. Senate on a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Maryland Governor Larry Hogan ran for office, he promised to address a major environmental threat just north of the Chesapeake Bay. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Once nearly extinct in the East, beaver populations are booming.  Their comeback, however, is creating complications for storm water pollution control systems, which beavers love to dam up. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Villiages of tent homes are increasingly cropping up around Baltimore because of Covid 19. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Back in 2007, the number of blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay plummeted to an all-time low, in part because of chronic over-harvesting. Watermen every year caught almost two thirds of all the crabs alive in the Bay. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was a balmy spring evening when I launched my kayak into Seneca Creek, about 15 minutes northwest of Potomac, Maryland. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Michael Raupp, a professor of entomology at the University of Maryland, is on his knees in the back yard of a house in Howard County. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There is a widespread belief, especially among some Republicans and conservative Christians, that the environmental movement is essentially a secular, socialist movement born out of the radical liberalism of the 1960s. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As, the sounds of spring From the songs of birds at dawn; to the trills of American toads, calling to attract mates; to the splashing of streams, swarming with tadpoles. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's an hour after sunset on Maryland's Eastern Shore.  Glenn Therres, a wildlife biologist and associate director at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, is up to his usual Friday night routine: prowling the back roads in a pickup truck, surveying frogs. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Maryland General Assembly wrapped up its annual 90-day legislative session at midnight on Monday. The tradition was altered this year by pandemic safety protocols, such as masks and video-only legislative hearings. The clerk announced at 11:59 pm: “Thank you Mr. President. I move that the Senate of Maryland stand adjourned, Sine Die!”  Senate President Bill Ferguson said: “Without objection, so ordered!   Stay safe. Wear your mask. Get thee vaccine.” In terms of environmental legislation, the session was a mixture of failure and success.  A major, groundbreaking piece of climate legislation – the Climate Change Solutions Now Act of 2021 – collapsed in last-minute disagreements between Democratic committee chairs in the House and Senate. However, lawmakers passed legislation that will ensure continued funding for maintaining mass transit in Maryland, despite threats of sharp cuts from the Hogan Administration. Other bills that passed will require the state to plan better for increased rainfall caused by climate change; and ban the intentional releases of balloons, which litter the Chesapeake Bay. State Delegate Brooke Lierman, a Democrat from Baltimore, was a sponsor of the mass transit funding bill.  “I think it was a pretty big session for the environment,” Lierman said.  “I think especially given  the understanding of the intersection of environmental sustainability and public health; and given that we have been spending this whole year thinking about public health, and ensuring that people live in healthy communities, people understood the importance of passing many of these environmental bills.” The biggest clashes came over the Climate Change Solutions Now bill.  A strong version of the legislation was introduced by State Senator Paul Pinsky, a Democrat from Prince George's County and chair of the Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee. Pinsky's bill passed the Senate by vote of 34 to 11. The legislation would have required the state to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent by 2030; achieve net zero emissions by 2045; and require large new buildings and some new schools to adopt energy efficiency and clean energy requirements. However, in the House, state Delegate Kumar Barve of Montgomery Country, chair of the House Environment and Transportation Committee, and allies, thought Pinsky's bill went too far. They wanted more modest pollution reduction targets, and opposed the mandates for real estate developers and schools. Senator Pinsky said he was frustrated after negotiations between the Senate and House broke down. “Unfortunately, when the House got around to paying attention to it, they stripped about 75 percent of the bill out, and they sent it back to us,” Pinsky said. “And we didn't receive it until Saturday, with two days left in the session. So I just don't think there was the urgency or the interest in passing legislation that pushed the envelope, which Maryland, a very vulnerable state, needs.” Delegate Barve did not respond to a request for an interview for this program.  But the vice chairman of the House environment committee, State Delegate Dana Stein of Baltimore County, said he was disappointed because he also wanted a strong climate bill. But Stein said a silver lining was that two important parts of the climate bill – mandating that the state plant five million trees and buy only electric buses to reduce greenhouse gas pollution – were pulled out and passed separately.  “If you clean the bus system, electrify it, you are really going to make the air – especially in urban areas – much better,” Stein said. Maybe the political climate for climate legislation will warm next year. …………………. The Environment in Focus is independently owned and distributed by Environment in Focus Radio to WYPR and other stations. The program is sponsored by the Abell Foundation. The views expressed are solely Tom Pelton's. You can contact him at pelton.tom@gmail.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Maryland General Assembly wrapped up its annual 90-day legislative session at midnight on Monday. The tradition was altered this year by pandemic safety protocols, such as masks and video-only legislative hearings. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Back in 2004, Maryland lawmakers approved a bill meant to encourage wind power, solar panels, and other renewable energy sources as a strategy for fighting climate change. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It is strange but true that the environment has become a politically-charged wedge issue in America – like abortion or gun control. In the last election, for example, the phrase “Green New Deal” was used by Republicans as a weapon to scare voters into thinking Democrats are socialists bent on government control. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Back in the late 1990's, the Houston-based energy trading company, Enron, went on a lobbying and campaign contribution spree in the Maryland General Assembly. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A landmark court decision last week requires the Maryland Department of the Environment  – for the first time – to start regulating the ammonia air pollution that rises from the Eastern Shore's massive poultry industry. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daniel Estrin remembers when he was about eight years old. He was fly fishing with a friend in a stream in New York State. His friend's father caught something. At first they thought it was a fish. But when he reeled it in, it turned out to be a salamander, but with a huge mouth and weird flaps of skin hanging off its sides. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Developers are proposing to build a high-speed, magnetic levitation train line between Baltimore and Washington. The $13 billion Maglev project is designed to cut the hour-long train trip to a mere 15 minutes, with trains travelling at more than 300 miles an hour. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Exactly one week after his inauguration, President Joe Biden issued an executive order promising to tackle climate change. He set a goal of making all electricity generation in the U.S. free of carbon dioxide pollution by the year 2035. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After World War II, the DuPont chemical company began marketing Teflon, the miraculous-seeming nonstick agent sold on pots and pans around the world. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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My brother Mike texted me about our mom. He wrote: "If you want to say any last words, Tom, you'd better get out here fast.” Our mother, Patty Jane Pelton, had been slowly declining from congestive heart failure. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As President Biden gears up to tackle a daunting variety of problems – ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic to climate change – he's forming a cabinet to reflect his priorities. His pick to spearhead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is Michael Regan. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's a cold winter day, and I'm exploring an old forest of oaks, tulip poplars and beech trees in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. I'm with Dennis Whigham, an ecologist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, hunting for orchids. Many of the 25,000 known species of these flowers are threatened or endangered, in part because their complex lifecycle is vulnerable to disruptions caused by development. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Amid the chaos of a pandemic, as well as the lingering shock waves from the recent anti-Democratic riots by Trump followers in Washington D.C., the Maryland General Assembly's annual legislative session opened today in Annapolis.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yesterday, the Trump Administration's EPA Administrator spoke during an online press conference to announce a new regulation that he said would end EPA's use of “secret science” in federal government decisions to control pollution from industry. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kevin Omland, a biology professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, stands below a highway overpass towering above a wooded stream valley in the Patapsco Valley State Park, just southwest of Baltimore.  He aims his binoculars up at a scraggly nest of sticks that ravens built in the steel beams beneath Interstate 195.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ah, Christmas time!  I went walking through my neighborhood and was charmed by the strings of lights illuminating porches, the inflated Santa, the plastic reindeer, the snow and ice.  But then I saw flowers emerging from the ground, near a cherry tree in full bloom. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As President-Elect Biden assembles his new administration, one candidate being considered for a top environmental position, perhaps director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, is Mustafa Santiago Ali. Ali worked for 24 years at the Environmental Protection Agency and was its senior advisor for environmental justice. He was a founding member of EPA's Office of Environmental Justice, which is dedicated to reducing pollution in minority and lower-income communities, including those in Baltimore. After working for EPA most of his life – he started there as a student intern -- Ali quit in March of 2017 after the new Trump Administration tried to eliminate the Office of Environmental Justice. It was part of Trump's general hostility toward government programs, especially those that would help urban areas and people of color. Here's Mustafa Ali: "I saw what the new administration was going to do by not honoring science, by eliminating programs that were critical for front-line communities in protecting their lives and their health.  And I knew that I couldn't be part of that.” Eventually, Congress blocked Trump from killing the EPA Office of Environmental Justice. “They were trying to eliminate it,” Ali said. “But because there was so much attention from folks across the country, including some from myself, they were not able to eliminate that office. But it was moved, and taken down the food chain, so to speak….so that it would be less effective.” In the same way, the U.S. Congress -- including Democrats and Republicans alike -- blocked Trump from slashing EPA's budget and zeroing out spending on programs like the Chesapeake Bay cleanup. Instead, the Trump Administration diminished and weakened the environmental justice program. So Ali left EPA. Instead, he helped lead a group called the Hip Hop Caucus, a national non-profit organization that connects the hip-hop community to efforts to create positive change. He then became a vice president at the National Wildlife Federation, working to focus that organization on not just protecting grey wolves and other endangered animals, but also on fighting for lower-income communities and helping them move from surviving to thriving. Looking to the future and the Biden Administration, Ali said he would recommend that the new administration start treating the covid pandemic as a social justice issue. “Covid is one of those tragic situations where if we learn the lessons, we can build the right infrastructure to really protect folks,” Ali said. “We got about 25 million people living in medically-underserved areas, in physician deserts.  And we all know we've got 80 million people uninsured and underinsured.  And Covid feeds off of long-term medical conditions.” So expanding health care and health services –including in cities like Baltimore-- could help tackle the terrible public health environment that is making the pandemic so deadly, especially for minority and poor communities. “Most folks don't know that we've got 100,000 people dying prematurely from air pollution every year in our country,” Ali said. “That's more than all those dying from gun violence, more than all those dying from car crashes, and a number of other tragic situations.” The new administration will have many crises to solve all at the same time  – including vaccine distribution, a recession, and climate change. But increasing federal investments in urban and minority neighborhoods, as well as poor rural areas ,could address the unfairness and injustice that fester like ignored wounds beneath America's skin, threatening our country's survival. …………………………………….. The Environment in Focus is independently owned and distributed by Environment in Focus Radio to WYPR and other stations. The program is sponsored by the Abell Foundation. The views expressed are solely Tom Pelton's. You can contact him at pelton.tom@gmail.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last Friday, on Black Friday, instead of hitting the malls or shopping online, I escaped to go paddling in my kayak. I explored the streams, rivers, and wetlands at Point Lookout State Park, in far southern Maryland. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, but because of the coronavirus, many people – for the first time in their lives -- won't be able to gather with their families and friends. As an alternative to a big indoor get-together, consider a socially-distanced hike in the woods with your family in one of Maryland's 53 state parks. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Just before the presidential election, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation sent me a letter asking me for money. Many of you probably received the same fund-raising letter from the nonprofit group, urging financial support for their oyster planting campaign. The letter said, “You can help bring back the oysters and save the Bay! Your gift to CBF of just $18 will help us plant 1,800 oysters… Larger gifts will help us do even more!” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After a presidential campaign that gave historic prominence to climate change and a debate over the future of the oil industry, Democrat Joe Biden's victory – even in Pennsylvania, the birthplace of the oil industry – could have been a cause for jubilation by environmentalists. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Charlie Reeves grew up in public housing in South Philadelphia near the oldest and largest oil refinery on the East Coast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Next Tuesday is Election day. And for the first time ever, environmental issues --and specifically climate change --are center stage in the public debate during the decisive final phase of a presidential contest. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Earth, as we know it, is being threatened by at least two simultaneous environmental crises. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Forty minutes northeast of Baltimore, at the Boulevard at Box Hill shopping mall in Harford County, hundreds of empty parking spaces surround a J.C. Penney store. Signs out front proclaim: “CLOSING. Entire store, 75 to 90 percent off. Everything must go!” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After months of ridiculing scientific guidance on the use of masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus – and even demanding that his own employees inside the White House not take precautions around him – President Trump was hospitalized with COVID-19. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Earlier this month, during a press conference in Jupiter, Florida, President Trump recalled how lawmakers from Florida asked him to sign a nonbinding resolution urging Congress to expand a moratorium on oil and gas drilling off America's southeastern coast. “They came to my office and they said that this will make us, and make you, the number one environmental president since Teddy Roosevelt,” Trump said from the podium. “I said, ‘Huh. Why does it have to go back only to Teddy Roosevelt, which is over 100 years? Why can't we say from George Washington? Right from the beginning. It's true. I'm number 1 since Teddy Roosevelt. Who would have thought? Trump is the great environmentalist.” Trump's endorsement of an offshore drilling ban in Florida – a key swing state in the upcoming election – was a switch for the President, who has opened up millions of acres of public lands to drilling and mining as part of what he calls his “Energy Dominance” policy. But beyond that, what about this idea of comparing Trump's environmental record to that of Teddy Roosevelt and other presidents? Well, Roosevelt –an avid outdoorsman, hunter and explorer – protected 230 million acres of public lands, including by establishing 18 national monuments, one at Grand Canyon. He also created five national parks, 150 national forests, 51 federal bird reserves, and four national game preserves. Another Republican – Richard Nixon – created the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Nixon is not often thought of as a tree hugger, but he gets credit for singing the landmark National Environmental Policy Act, which requires in-depth federal studies before major development projects. George H.W. Bush signed amendments to the federal Clean Air Act that dramatically reduced sulfur dioxide air pollution across the U.S., curbing acid rain. Barack Obama raised fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks. He also established the largest ocean sanctuary on the planet, imposed limits on greenhouse gas pollution from coal-fired power plants, and signed the Paris Climate Accord to combat global warming. How does that compare to President Trump's record? Well, Trump yanked the U.S. out of the Paris agreement. Hiring a former coal industry lobbyist to run his EPA, Trump worked energetically to undo almost every environmental protection that Obama, and many of his predecessors, put into place. Trump has dismantled nearly 70 environmental regulations, including protections for many wetlands and streams and limits on water and air pollution. Three times, the Trump Administration attempted to eliminate at least 90 percent of the funding for the Chesapeake Bay Program, which oversees the Bay cleanup effort, before being stopped by Congress. He removed federal protections from two million acres of scenic national monuments in Utah, opening them up to potential uranium mining. In the area of environmental law enforcement, Trump's EPA has let many companies responsible for illegal pollution off the hook. Amid budget cuts and a shrinking staff, annual inspections and evaluations by EPA of polluting industries declined in 2019 to the lowest level in at least two decades, according to EPA data. The number of civil cases referred for enforcement also dropped last year to the lowest point since at least 2001, federal figures show. So, no, Trump's record does not quite stand up to Teddy Roosevelt's…or even Richard Nixon's, or George H.W. Bush's, or Jimmy Carter's, or Barack Obama's…or any other president's. When it comes to anti-environmentalism, Trump is truly greatest of all time, all the way back to George Washington. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.