Politics

Over the course of the next year, lawmakers on the U.S. House and Senate Agriculture committees will draft a new federal farm bill that will shape food, farm, conservation and nutrition programs across the country for the next five years. The omnibus law that began 90 years ago as crop supports now has an impact far beyond the farm, with programs to create wildlife habitat, address climate change and run the nation’s largest federal nutrition program. “Any number of economic policies that we establish in farm bills impact everybody’s daily lives,” said former Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee during the 2008 farm bill.

On Sunday, Maryland’s Republican Gov. Larry Hogan appeared on ABC’s “This Week,” where he said the Department of Justice needs to be transparent in their investigation of former President Donald Trump, while members of his own party need to stop with the violent rhetoric. Hogan said that, while he was relieved U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland provided more information and had unsealed the warrant regarding the Aug. 6 FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, the seriousness of the investigation against the former president, especially where it concerns espionage and treason, requires more transparency.

Zion Rice, a 16-year-old rising junior at Annapolis High School, was walking around downtown Annapolis this summer when a man pulled up in a car and handed him a business card. The man was William Rowel, a senior adviser to Mayor Gavin Buckley. “I was walking a friend home from a sleepover not far from City Hall when Mr. Rowel pulled up beside us,” Rice said. “He talked to us about our future and told us about an internship he was heading up in the mayor’s office. My friend said he was too lazy but I applied and here I am.”

On its best days, WSSC Water, the largest water and sewer utility in Maryland, seamlessly serves 2 million residents in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties. But it’s also a sprawling organization with 1,700 employees that receives very little public scrutiny. The leaders of the two counties appoint WSSC’s governing commission, which in turn hires and oversees its general manager, but the lines of authority and accountability are often blurred. Some policies and operational procedures are set by state government, rather than the counties WSSC serves. And the agency’s gleaming headquarters overlooking Interstate 95 in Laurel is often the object of wonder and resentment in the quotidian world of local government.

A landmark federal climate and health bill making its way to the finish line includes everything from a cap on Medicare patients’ costs for insulin to tax credits for manufacturing solar panels and support for offshore wind power. The U.S. House of Representatives is poised to pass the $740 billion package Friday, after the Senate approved it along party lines earlier this week. “It’s been a long and winding road, but the Inflation Reduction Act is almost at the White House door,” U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said Thursday in Baltimore.