Environmental groups won a victory Tuesday in their fight for more pollution controls on Maryland’s Conowingo Dam. when a federal court invalidated a 50-year license for the hydroelectric dam. By voiding the license, issued last year by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals is sending it back to the agency for further review. Local environmental groups, including Waterkeepers Chesapeake and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, considered the license a missed opportunity to regulate how the dam’s operator manages the polluted sediment trapped behind the dam, which bridges the Susquehanna River between Harford and Cecil counties.

What’s so special about the number 2? Quite a lot, if you’re a central banker – and that number is followed by a percent sign. That’s been the de facto or official target inflation rate for the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and many other similar institutions since at least the 1990s. But in recent months, inflation in the U.S. and elsewhere has soared, forcing the Fed and its counterparts to jack up interest rates to bring it down to near their target level. As an economist who has studied the movements of key economic indicators like inflation, I know that low and stable inflation is essential for a well-functioning economy. But why does the target have to be 2%? Why not 3%? Or even zero?

Like hospitals and health systems in much of the nation, Maryland’s healthcare system is facing myriad challenges. These include a historic workforce shortage, unprecedented financial strain, and a behavioral healthcare crisis. In this interview, Nicole Stallings, Executive Vice President and Chief External Affairs Officer at the Maryland Hospital Association, discusses how the Association’s legislative agenda for 2023 will help its members address these challenges and improve health and healthcare in Maryland.

Following a historic election in Maryland and across much of the nation, the Montgomery County Council welcomed its most diverse group of incoming members ever this month. At the council’s inauguration, speaker after speaker hailed the history-making slate of council members, who have said they are excited to work with one another, especially on issues that affect marginalized communities in the county. But by the next morning at the all-Democratic new council’s opening session, disputes over equitable representation, transparency and who gets to control policymaking discussions had already emerged, inflamed by backroom disagreements about leadership that ultimately left the council’s two Black members with little structural power.

Vaccines saved millions of lives in the pandemic, and the mRNA technology was rolled out in record time. It counts as a massive success and might help fight other diseases, too. Nonetheless, populist Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) last week demanded a grand jury investigate “criminal or wrongful activity in Florida” involving the “development, promotion and distribution” of coronavirus vaccines. As public opinion shows vaccine hesitancy is growing, Mr. DeSantis’s move is not only absurd but also dangerous. Vaccines work. A mathematical model, based on country-level data, found they directly saved some 15.5 million lives worldwide in the first year they were available, and millions more indirectly.

Wes Moore’s foreseeable victory has allowed him and his team plenty of time to develop policy priorities, and his transition team’s Executive Policy Committees have already gotten to work on how to achieve goals that will fall under the Departments of the Environment, Commerce, Education, and more. But the incoming administration has done little to telegraph how it will manage the Department of Agriculture, and as Josh Kurtz recently noted in Maryland Matters, it’s hard to speculate directly on appointments. Without public clues as to who the administration is considering to lead the department, all that’s available is to lay out what directions they might take and why.