O'Malley Pushes Last Minute Farm Regs

Md. moving to impose tough new farming pollution rules

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is moving ahead with a plan that seeks to reduce polluted phosphorus discharges into the water ways by imposing new rules for farmers.

The plan has been controversial and divisive. Environmentalists say the plan protects the Chesapeake Bay and other water bodies, while farmers have said the requirements would hurt them.

It's not really an either-or question; both assertions can be, and almost certainly are, true to some extent. The question is whether the benefits out weigh the down sides. Moreover, the upsides and downsides are felt by very different groups of people. The downsides effect farmers most, taking land out of production, and increasing their costs and decreasing their competitivity, and to a lesser extent, consumers who pay higher prices.  The upsides are felt by fish and shellfish in the bay, watermen perhaps, people who recreate on the bay, and mostly in the feelings of environmentalists that they have done "the right thing."

The plan involves something called a “phosphorus management tool,” which is a new way for farmers to identify when excess phosphorus is present in the soil.

The plan has been delayed previously due to opposition from farmers and the agricultural industry.

O’Malley forwarded the new regulations to the Joint Administrative, Executive and Legislative Review Committee on Nov. 14.

The committee will review the new rules, which could be adopted just before O’Malley leaves office.

This tool has been in the works for some time, and pushing it through in the twilight of the O'Malley administration suggests that it was not something they were willing to do before an election. Now that they are on the way out, they leave it as incoming Gov. Hogan's problem.

When asked what Gov.-elect Larry Hogan intends to do if the rules were to take effect, spokeswoman Erin Montgomery said that he would not be commenting on any policy issues until after his inauguration on Jan. 21.

However, Hogan has said previously that the new rules “could’ve crippled the entire poultry and grain industry and crushed the economy on the Eastern Shore” according to one published report.

Hogan could try to undo the rules, if implemented, through new regulations or with the help of the legislature.

This reminds me of the slew of regulations that the Clinton administration quickly published after Al Gore lost the 2000 Presidential election. The bureaucrats, of course, desperately wanted to keep all those in place, but Bush did, in fact, put off a number of them, for later review. Some were kept and others were not.

I could see that playing out in Maryland over the next year or so.