Compromise

Why has The Sun been quiet on the "Cadillac" health care plan debate? If you're an ordinary citizen who has a "Cadillac" health care plan, you will pay a 40 percent excise tax on the plan. Unless of course you're a union member or government employee and have a "Cadillac" plan. Then you will not pay the tax. President Obama promised to change the way Washington does business. Special interests and the influence of lobbyists was going to end. It's time for The Sun and the national media to call him on it. Len Bollinger Send your comments to talkback@baltimoresun.

Look who's smiling now? Even as the Maryland General Assembly was heading toward a budgetary train wreck last week, there was one unlikely group that had trouble believing its good fortune coming out of the 90-day session - the state's environmental community. Not only did Maryland's Chesapeake Bay lobby push through a doubling of the flush tax, but it managed to persuade lawmakers to require the state's largest jurisdictions to impose new fees that will be invested in storm water runoff controls.

Builders, environmentalists and government officials have reached a compromise in a looming legislative fight that threatened to weaken Maryland's new storm-water pollution rules, they said Monday. The deal, hammered out over more than a week of negotiations, would head off a move by lawmakers in Annapolis to soften or delay by up to a decade the requirements for controlling runoff from development, which are supposed to take effect May 4. Environmentalists were girding for a major battle to defend the rules, which were written to tackle a significant and growing source of pollution that is fouling streams, rivers and the Chesapeake Bay. "Not everybody's going to be happy," said Del. Maggie L. McIntosh, chairwoman of the House Environmental Matters Committee, who pushed the feuding parties to work out their differences.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller should promptly step down following his outrageous, irresponsible, unprofessional, petulant, self-centered performance during the final days and hours of the just-completed 90-day session of the General Assembly ("Debacle in Annapolis," April 11). He purposely sabotaged the budget compromise for his personal campaign to expand gambling to a sixth site in Maryland. Senator Miller's arrogance and egotism are breathtaking. Mr. Miller then has the audacity to suggest yet another, special session of the General Assembly at an additional cost of $21,000 to $100,000 per day to the already-overburdened Maryland taxpayers.

The United States is the world's largest industrial economy. It uses more energy than any other nation and is the greatest producer of greenhouse gases. Thus, no treaty such as that to be signed next month at Rio de Janeiro in a multinational summit on global warming could succeed without the cooperation of Americans. A compromise treaty, worked out after long, contentious negotiations between European and U.S. diplomats and environmental regulators, has opened the way for President Bush's participation in the summit.

If Baltimore City Council members are expecting the two sides in the Mount Vernon height battle to settle their differences, they are sadly mistaken. A compromise on a revised urban renewal plan for the neighborhood is not in the offing. An experienced mediator brought into the debate previously concluded to city planners that the groups were beyond her help. But the council needs to move this process along: It should use the Planning Commission's proposed height limits as its guide in setting new parameters for development in this historic neighborhood.

History may well record that Senate majority leader George Mitchell's submission of a compromise health care reform bill this week was the pivotal juncture in President Clinton's drive for congressional passage of his No. 1 priority.For the Maine Democrat, this was no ordinary legislative gambit. Mr. Mitchell gave up a Supreme Court nomination in order to push through a health measure as the concluding achievement of a Senate career that will end this year. Of all the proposals in the hopper, his or something like it has the best chance of enactment.

IN THE southern part of Carroll County, approvals of new development have been stopped in recent years, and for a very good reason: The area is a case study in suburban sprawl. Its population has tripled since 1980, and right now there's not enough water, classroom or road capacities for any more households. But a developer has dredged up a 6-year-old court ruling allowing the construction of 254 townhouses on 20 acres in congested Eldersburg. And a county Circuit Court judge has backed the developer and is threatening county Planning and Zoning Commission members with contempt charges and jail if they don't approve the townhouses as soon as possible - even though doing so would go against Carroll's regulations requiring that new developments have adequate public facilities in place.

The compromise Del. Maggie McIntosh brokered among environmentalists, the O'Malley administration and builders over storm water regulations that are set to go into effect this spring will mean more pollution flowing into the Chesapeake Bay, more erosion, less clean drinking water and assorted other environmental damage. But it could have been much, much worse. Powerful political figures, including Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr., were arguing that the storm water regulations would set back smart growth efforts, promote sprawl and hurt the environment -- an overblown concern but one that created an opening for developers and their allies to gut the new regulations altogether.

Gov. Martin O'Malley on Thursday accepted some of the blame for the budget impasse that left the state with a spending plan that cuts about half a billion dollars from key Democratic priorities such as education. "We all hold blame," O'Malley, a Democrat, said on WTOP's monthly Ask the Governor show. "We're all public servants. ... When the public is ill-served, as the public is right now, we all share the responsibility. " "I wish we had had a different result," he said. "It was not for lack of trying.

It wouldn't be right to call the calamitous end of the General Assembly session a failure. The word "failure" implies that those involved were trying to do the right thing and were for some reason unsuccessful. What happened Monday night, as the politics of an ill-considered gambling expansion bill tangled up a sensible compromise on taxes and the budget, was something quite different, a mixture of sabotage, negligence and too-cute-by-half gamesmanship. It reflects poorly on Maryland's leaders and belies the seriousness of the one real matter at hand: Who should be asked to pay more to maintain crucial state services, and how much?

MasterCard and Visa are warning banks nationwide of a massive breach at an unnamed U.S-based credit card processor, potentially involving as more than 10 million card numbers could be compromised, according to the blog, KrebsonSecurity . Blogger Brian Krebs says Visa and MasterCard started alerting banks to the problem late last week. So far, Krebs says, the compromised cards seemed to be concentrated in the New York City area. I will post more information from MasterCard and Visa when it comes in. Update 3: Response from MasterCard  "MasterCard is currently investigating a potential account data compromise event of a U.S.-based entity and, as a result,  we have alerted payment card issuers regarding certain MasterCard accounts that are potentially at risk.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake agreed Friday to temporarily stop seizing homes over unpaid water bills in cases where the bills were estimated, a practice that city officials say led to widespread inaccuracies. The move is a compromise between Rawlings-Blake and Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young, who had sought a comprehensive moratorium on home seizures over water bills after an audit showed serious problems with the accuracy of the city's bills. Rawlings-Blake and Young announced the deal Friday.

The House today passed legislation aimed at safeguarding western Maryland landowners from potential harm from drilling for natural gas in shale deposits in mountainous Garrett and Allegany counties. One bill,  HB1204 , would require the gas industry to finance the state's ongoing study of safety questions around the widely used but controversial drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking. "  Amid fierece debate over fracking's impact in other states, Gov.Martin O'Malleylast year ordered his administration to conduct a wide-ranging three-year review before approving any drilling permits - but state officials had said they lacked funding to carry it out.   By a vote of 88-49, delegates approved a one-time fee of $15 per acre on all new and existing drilling leases so the Maryland Department of the Environment could complete the study.  In deference to industry supporters who complain the delay in drilling is excessive, the fee was scaled back, and lawmakers directed the department to speed up its review, finishing in 2013 rather than 2014, as now called for under the governor's executive order.

– For days President Obama had been hammered by critics — including Cardinal-designate Edwin F. O'Brien of the Archdiocese of Baltimore — over a regulation in the healthcare law that required religiously affiliated hospitals, charities and universities to provide birth control coverage for female employees even if that conflicted with church teachings. On Friday Obama tried to end the debate with what he called an "accommodation. " The employees still will be offered free birth control coverage.

As we are faced with the imminent threat of Israel'sattacking Iran, pro-Israeli lobbying groups are putting pressure on President Barack Obama and the Congress to support such an attack. Israel would attack in the name of protecting its security, but at the end of the day, her security lies in peace - a peace derived from a comprehensive and just settlement with the Palestinians. If that is done, including return of most of the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 war, then the chances of Israel living in peace with all her Islamic neighbors will be greatly improved.