NEWS
Tim Wheeler | May 15, 2012
The Potomac River, which flows between Maryland and Virginia, was named the nation's "most endangered" waterway today by a Washington-based environmental group. American Rivers put the Potomac atop its annual list of endangered rivers. Though cleaner than it used to be, the "nation's river," so named because it flows through Washington, D.C., still faces threats from urban and agricultural pollution, the group says, and from cutbacks being pushed in Congress of federal environmental regulations.
NEWS
By John Fritze, The Baltimore Sun | May 5, 2012
A proposal to speed the approval of new prescription drugs has patient advocates and biotech firms — including many based in Maryland — hoping that Congress will deliver a rare dose of bipartisanship this year. Lawmakers are proposing a 6 percent increase in the fees that pharmaceutical firms pay the Food and Drug Administration to offset the cost of approving new drugs. If the measure is not signed into law by the end of September, the FDA would lose the ability to charge any fees and be forced to lay off 2,000 workers, significantly slowing review times.
NEWS
April 18, 2012
Last Monday night at midnight, the Maryland General Assembly recessed without having passed a balanced budget for the next fiscal year. So now, either a special session must be called, certainly at some expense to the Maryland taxpayer, or a "doomsday" budget will be enacted automatically, certainly not something Maryland citizens want or need! Why can't lawmakers do the jobs they are elected to do? Why can't they pass balanced budgets? Why can't they complete their work on time?
NEWS
By James F. Burdick | April 16, 2012
President Barack Obama's vision for health-care reform could have resulted in a much better law had it not been for congressional decrees at the start that a single-payer system was "off the table. " But guess what has appeared back on the table during the thoughtful pondering of the problem by the Supreme Court? Justice Anthony Kennedy said on March 27: "Let's assume that it could use the tax power to raise revenue and to just have a national health service, single payer. How does that factor into our analysis?
NEWS
April 9, 2012
Criticism of the Supreme Court is neither new nor unprecedented ("Obama and judicial review," April 6). However, what is unprecedented is criticism coupled with a challenge to the court's authority to overturn unconstitutional laws passed by Congress, particularly coming from President Barack Obama, who is supposedly a constitutional scholar. Jerrold L. Brotman, Timonium
NEWS
April 1, 2012
The argument that Leslie Meltzer Henry and Maxwell L. Stearns make in a recent op-ed piece in support of the Affordable Care Act ("Individual mandate is constitutional," March 22) is based on the Constitution's "necessary and proper" clause, which they claim, gives the government the right to pass laws to make other laws work. Under this logic the government can justify the passage of any law regardless of its constitutionality. In fact, the Supreme Court has routinely overturned federal laws that are not based on an enumerated power.