Commentary

Lobbyists for a small number of immensely powerful multinational corporations are working overtime this week to protect a loophole that makes Maryland’s corporate income tax virtually optional for their clients. They’re worried because the House of Delegates’ just-released revenue package wisely includes a rule — called “worldwide combined reporting” — that will close this gaping loophole and make long-time abusers of corporate power pay their fair share of Maryland taxes.

When Dr. Candice Peters woke up Friday morning, she still couldn’t believe she was one step closer to owning a cannabis business in Maryland. Her lingering surprise made her double check her lottery number against the one she saw chosen for a dispensary license. Hers was one of 179 selected at random by the Maryland Cannabis Administration on Thursday during a livestreamed event.

Right now, during Maryland’s 2024 legislative session, the state has multiple opportunities to improve insurance coverage and access to substance use and mental health care for individuals and families across the state. With more than 2,500Marylanders lost to overdose in 2023 alone, 922,000 individuals in the state age 12 and older documented as having a substance use disorder, and another 1,089,000 struggling with mental illness, the urgency is clear. We must act to save lives now!

I feel compelled to rebut several misrepresentations made by Mark Case, BGE’s vice president of regulatory policy, in a recent article, “Electrification will strain Maryland’s grid. The question is by how much,” published in The Daily Record’s March 11, 2024, edition. The story references a BGE study that anticipates that electrification will significantly increase the average load growth rate as compared to a much lower grid impact in the Maryland Public Service Commission’s electrification study.

In memory of bicyclist Sarah Langenkamp of Bethesda, we must remember that streets serve multimodal transit including zero-emission bicycles, not only cars and trucks. Sarah was hit and killed Aug. 25, 2022, by a driver in a flatbed truck when cycling on protected bike lanes in Montgomery County. Though it is impossible to overlook the tragic deaths that have occurred when pedestrians and bicyclists are struck while in a crosswalk, getting hit and killed or severely injured by a vehicle when cycling on a bike lane never results in a jail sentence which may be incurred when hit on a crosswalk.

Maryland has always been a leader in protecting our environment. Whether it be agricultural nutrient management, industrial pollution abatement or sustainable land management, the state has set goals to preserve our resources, including our beloved Chesapeake Bay. All Marylanders care about the environment and understand the importance of addressing pollution-related issues. However, we do not think that Maryland policymakers always consider how these ambitious goals may detrimentally impact their constituents during the transition and alter the fabric of our state.

Since the pandemic, an estimated 181,000 Marylanders have dropped out of the workforce and have not come back. Most of those Marylanders are prime-age workers, especially women. But a pay transparency bill being considered by the state legislature (Senate Bill 525/House Bill 649 requiring employers to list pay ranges on job postings) could be one of the keys to enticing these women back. Polling in late December from the National Women’s Law Center/Morning Consult showed that 53% of Marylanders have refrained from applying to a job opening because it did not list a pay range.

There’s a new state park coming to Annapolis, an unspoiled former horse farm named Holly Beach Farm. It wouldn’t be happening but for construction of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. “My grandfather, there was nothing he could do to stop the bridge,” Bill Labrot Crossman said. “It was the logical place for it. But it ruined the horse business.” On Wednesday, Gov. Wes Moore agreed to make Maryland the next owner of Holly Beach Farm, almost 300 acres of marshes and coves, coastal woodlands and wide bay views — for a buck.