Emissions

The new owner of the Sparrows Point steel mill has agreed to pay a $135,000 penalty and resolve alleged violations of state pollution control laws that occurred in 2009 when part of a blast furnace ignited, state officials announced Thursday. RG Steel Sparrows LLC, which purchased Sparrows Point in April, has signed an agreement with the Maryland Department of the Environment, or MDE, and the Maryland Office of the Attorney General to reduce emissions from the blast furnace. The money will go to the Maryland Clean Air Fund.

Maryland is on track to reduce climate-altering greenhouse gases 25 percent by the end of the decade, according to a state environmental official. In a preview of the state's overdue plan to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and methane, George S. "Tad" Aburn Jr., head of air management for the state Department of the Environment , told members of the House Environmental Matters Committee Wednesday that Maryland should exceed the goal set in a 2009 law if all 65 control programs laid out in the draft blueprint work as planned.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - A coalition of state attorneys general announced plans yesterday to sue the Bush administration for not regulating carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants. The coalition from New York, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Washington and Rhode Island says the administration's regulatory failure flagrantly violates the Clean Air Act and shows a dangerous indifference to global warming. "This problem will not disappear through wishful thinking or artful spinning," Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said yesterday in a telephone conference call with the other states' attorneys general.

State officials have missed their first major deadline for complying with a three-year-old law calling for Maryland to curb its emissions of climate-altering greenhouse gases. Under the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act, the Department of the Environment was required to give the governor and lawmakers a draft plan by the end of 2011 for scaling back statewide releases of carbon dioxide, methane and other climate-affecting gases 25 percent by the end of the decade. But Environment Secretary Robert M. Summers wrote Gov. Martin O'Malley and legislative leaders late last month that the draft plan would be "slightly delayed" until mid-February.

With $100 million or more at stake, there's a strong temptation for state politicians to throw their weight around to ensure that Maryland's auto-emissions testing contract goes to the politically correct company. That's why the Schaefer administration should keep the decision-making process as impartial and non-political as possible.Already, two powerful black legislators have met with the governor and with top transportation officials to get special consideration for a black-owned company eager to win the bid. According to one participant's account, the legislators threatened "trouble for the department" unless the procurement process was intentionally tilted in the direction of their favored company.

The Environmental Protection Agency recently proposed emissions standards that would reduce the exhaust products of gasoline- and diesel-powered marine engines built in 1998 or thereafter.And while the headlines left some boaters gasping at the prospect of perhaps having to replace existing engines or motors or altering them to meet new emissions standards, take a moment and catch your breath.Presently, there are no provisions to require retrofitting of existing engines and motors.There is, however, a great deal to be said for the EPA's proposal because in the long run the changes to engines and motors will be beneficial to boaters and nonboaters alike.

ANNAPOLIS -- Maryland's tailpipe exhaust inspection program may soon be expanded to include at least six rural counties and to force owners of failing automobiles to make far more costly repairs.Legislation expected to be offered Friday by Gov. William Donald Schaefer will extend indefinitely the 7-year-old program, currently set to expire at year's end.But to comply with the federal Clean Air Act passed by Congress and signed into law last November by President Bush, the state must significantly expand and toughen the program or risk losing millions of dollars in federal highway funds, administration officials said.

A blue-ribbon panel has decided that a Tennessee firm -- the veritable dark horse in a hotly contested race -- is the best choice to receive a lucrative contract to build and operate Maryland's automobile exhaust monitoring stations.The committee's recommendation, which was announced yesterday, provides an ironic twist to the politically charged procurement. The panel's preferred contractor, MARTA Technologies Inc. of Nashville, had not even hired a lobbyist in Annapolis, but now appears likely to win a $97 million contract.

The 19 nearly identical red brick buildings that have sprung up across Maryland's landscape this past year are just five weeks away from offering one of the nation's strictest vehicle exhaust testing programs.For the average motorist, the new pollution-control tests bode dramatic change. They will be more elaborate, stringent, time-consuming and expensive than any given before. The state expects 300,000 vehicles to fail the biennial test each year, causing their owners to face repair bills as high as $450.

ONE OF THE JOYS of living in the Free State is receiving your Vehicle Emissions Inspection Notice in the mail and then setting out on the mind-numbing journey to the testing center. It seems like a fairly cut-and-dried process, right? Either you fail, because your car is spewing great clouds of toxic pollutants into the air, or you pass. Well, sort of. As it happens, there is a third category you can land in, a sort of vehicle-emissions purgatory, which I discovered when I had my car tested last week.

Howard County officials say they will likely spend up to $50,000 on emissions testing for a new generator that will produce energy from methane gas given off by Alpha Ridge Landfill, after neighbors raised concerns over how the project might affect air quality. The decision last week came after an informational meeting held in Marriottsville by the department of public works, which is overseeing the proposed combustion engine. "If they can't prove to me it's safe, then don't tell me it's safe," said one resident, Geff Ottman, during Monday's meeting at Marriotts Ridge High School.

In a victory for common sense, America's top trading partner has become the first country to bail on the Kyoto Protocol before the nearly $7 billion in noncompliance costs comes due next year. Thus ends a pointless and pricey exercise in martyrdom. Having committed to reducing 1990-level carbon emissions by 6 percent, Canada somehow managed to go in the other direction by about a third. Not that anyone in Canada would have noticed by any tangible common-sense measure, except perhaps for all the Canadian plants and trees quietly cheering the abundance of carbon dioxide and overproducing fresh oxygen as a result.

The owner of the trash incinerator in South Baltimore has paid a $77,500 penalty to the state for failure to control emissions of toxic mercury into the air. Wheelabrator Baltimore L.P. agreed to pay to settle allegations by the Maryland Department of the Environment and the attorney general's office that its Baltimore Refuse Energy Systems Co. waste-to-energy plant on Russell Street near the stadiums had violated air pollution...

I agree with Al Nalley about the emissions test being a money grab ("Paying out-of-state company for emissions testing is too costly," Catonsville Times, Nov. 30). I just traded in my 1999 Ford 150 and it never had a problem passing this useless test. I have never had a vehicle fail and I keep them for 10 years or more. This is my fourth Ford truck since 1978 and none of them ever had a problem. At least we shouldn't need to get them tested for 5-6 years, because the first tune-up isn't due until 100,000 miles.

The start of the state legislative session is only two months away. Yet there is talk of ways to increase revenue, which is Democratic-speak for tax increases. Tolls have already been raised this year, with more increases in the next two years. Car and business registration fees are going to double. These increases come with no legislative oversight. The governor wants them so he directs his cabinet heads to raise the fees — oops — taxes. The 15-cent increase in the state's gas tax moves it from 23.5 cents to 38.5 cents for a fund the state can't spend fast enough.

A burden on the working class. A jobs killer. A hidden tax on every purchase. That's' just some of the strong invective hurled at the concept of cap-and-trade programs by its politically conservative critics in recent years. But a funny thing has happened to those 10 states, including Maryland, that actually signed onto what's known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and started requiring power plant owners to purchase allowances for each ton of carbon dioxide they emit.

Two powerful black legislators are pressuring the Schaefer administration to change the terms of a new, lucrative auto emissions testing contract so that a black-run Bethesda firm has a better chance of winning the bid.The lawmakers claim they only want to give Envirotest Systems Corp., the company that currently runs the state's tailpipe testing program, a fair chance at retaining its contract.But in an internal memorandum released yesterday, a high-ranking transportation department official claims the legislators have threatened "trouble for the department" unless the agency substantially alters the procurement process in favor of the incumbent.

The new owner of the Sparrows Point steel mill has agreed to pay a $135,000 penalty and resolve alleged violations of state pollution control laws that occurred in 2009 when part of a blast furnace ignited, state officials said Thursday. RG Steel Sparrows LLC, which purchased Sparrows Point in April, has signed an agreement with the Maryland Department of the Environment, or MDE, and the Maryland office of the attorney general to reduce emissions from the blast furnace. The money will go to the Maryland Clean Air Fund.