Commentary

To his credit, Gov. Wes Moore has set remarkably ambitious goals for the state. Among those are having Maryland generate 100% of its energy needs from renewable sources by 2035. Even that is on the low end of what he says he wants to achieve: He’s argued that Maryland should become a net producer of alternative energy. These are laudable goals. The tricky part, however, isn’t why we must meet these goals. Just a few blocks from the State House, after all, the U.S. Naval Academy is reportedly spending $37 million on a sea wall to protect from sea level rise.

The March 10 commentary “More than consumer choice” amplifies several false or unsupported myths the fossil fuel industry is propagating to preserve the status quo, to the detriment of Maryland’s consumers and the state’s achievement of its climate goals. What the petroleum distributors don’t mention is that electric technologies are outperforming fossil technologies and provide the least-cost path for reaching state climate policy goals, according to technical analyses performed for the Maryland Commission on Climate Change and for my office — the statutory representative of Maryland’s utility customers.

Rev. Al and I are back, and we start the 2023 year with a guy who made more news happen in 2022 than anyone we know.... Stewart Bainum, the uber successful Chairman of Choice Hotels International, made lots of news by getting himself in the news business as the lead investor in The Baltimore Banner.

Like millions of Americans, the opioid epidemic hits home for me. I lost my nephew, Ian, to a fentanyl overdose in 2016 after working with him for more than five years on his treatment — from finding safe recovery housing to overcoming his past criminal record of possession and petty theft. I’ve seen firsthand how hard it is for folks to battle opioid use disorder, and oftentimes, therapy on its own is not enough to deal with the physical and emotional effects of withdrawal.

Baltimore has a wonderful opportunity to make lemonade out of lemons as my father, James Rouse, used to say. He also used to say, “Every problem is but a challenge, and a challenge is an opportunity in disguise. And when confronting a problem start by thinking first of what things would be like if they worked and let reality compromise you later.”

Tutoring is a textbook example of how sometimes a lot of money for public schools does not pay off as advertised. That’s true so far for investments in tutoring nationwide, triggered by the pandemic. And it’s true in Maryland although there is potential for speedy improvement. Tutoring is universally recognized as the most effective way to prevent and remediate learning deficits. School systems nationwide are on track to spend around $3.6 billion this year and next on tutoring.

The reverberations from the COVID-19 pandemic continue to echo through our world, in ways great and small, obvious and obscure. The news this week that nearly a third of the schools in Frederick County received fewer stars in recent state ratings than they received before the pandemic was one more reminder that we as a community and as a nation will be dealing with the aftereffects of the pandemic for a long, long time.

As we mark Disability Awareness Month, it is an optimal time to reaffirm and amplify our commitment to providing exceptional special education services and supports. There has been much community discussion recently, including media coverage about special education services in Howard County. I am immensely proud of the progress we have made in serving our students receiving special education services and in building a culture and climate of meaningful inclusion in our schools.