The bill doesn't specify how much each business would have to cut or what technology they would have to use instead of burning coal and oil. Instead, it would require the Maryland Department of the Environment to issue a series of regulations that would gradually reduce emissions from all sectors of society - including transportation, homes and industry.
The sponsors of the bill, Democrats Sen. Paul G. Pinsky of Prince George's County and Del. Kumar P. Barve of Montgomery, say it's impossible for businesses to say the law would bankrupt them when the regulations haven't even been written yet.
They say the predictions of doom are similar to the auto industry's cries of wolf during the 1970s when the Congress first imposed fuel efficiency rules. And they predict thousands of new "green" businesses will spring up in windmill construction, home insulation, window replacement, energy-efficient architecture and the manufacture of solar panels.
FOR THE RECORD - Based on inaccurate information from company officials, an article in Feb. 29 editions reported incorrectly that the NewPage mill in Luke, in Western Maryland, makes paper for Pottery Barn and Williams-Sonoma catalogs. In fact, another NewPage mill makes paper for the catalogs.
The Sun regrets the error.
Tad Aburn, director of the MDE's air division, said his agency has never shut down an industry, and it would continue to be careful as it figured out these new regulations.
"Every business in Maryland is struggling to reduce their energy costs, and what we're doing is along the same path - because reducing carbon dioxide emissions is all about reducing energy consumption," Aburn said.
Unlike other pollutants, carbon dioxide can't be filtered out in the smokestacks of coal-burning plants. Capturing the gas and recycling or burying it has been tried on a small scale, but those techniques aren't commercially viable.
Aburn said it's possible that by 2050, new technology to capture carbon dioxide will be invented - and plants such as NewPage will be able to keep burning coal.
Neal Elliott, a mechanical engineer with the nonprofit American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, said Maryland's proposed law need not shut the paper mill or any other business.
Greater efficiency
He said American industry on average has improved energy efficiency by 40 percent over the past three decades to save money. More than doubling that number over the next half-century is possible, he said.
"The paper mill should produce its own fuel from wood waste," Elliott said. "Use your waste. When you've got a pig, use everything but the squeal."
The NewPage plant already gets a third of its power by burning a form of wood waste - a black tar-like byproduct of the papermaking process.
