O'Malley Tours Bay Monitoring Sites, Studies Restoration Programs
April 25, 2007
I want to thank President Miller and I also want to thank Speaker Busch for their leadership and for their very hard work during the course of this session to improve our quality of life that we enjoy as Marylanders and, really, to renew our commitment. A commitment that we’ve always shared as Marylanders, a commitment to safeguard and protect our environment and to improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay. We still have a lot of work to do, but the land, the water, the air are all things that we share and things that unite us.
I want to thank Lt. Governor Brown for your partnership and for helping us find common ground and consensus to advance these causes. Because of the leadership -- also Senator Conway, Senator Frosh, Delegate McIntosh, and so very many others -- we were able to build on our strength and build on those traditions of protecting the environment. And the land and the water has been the heart of our State. You know, if you look at our State seal, it’s the plowman and the fisherman, together in harmony.
And I’m very proud of the steps that we’ve taken. In fact, some of these things happened with so little controversy, without the need for a divisive debate and a veto and a veto override that I don’t think they got as much attention as they otherwise would have. So I’m inclined to veto all of these just so we can go back and vote for them all over again because they felt so good. (Laughter.)
But seriously, folks, if you go back and you look at the budget, in the budget that was submitted, every penny of open space went to open space. In other words, we did not divert it for other purposes. You look at the program that we’ve begun with BayStat, you look at the record funding for cover crops in our State. Because we’re stronger together, just last week Maryland joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, partnering with our neighbors. And today we’re going to have a number of bills that we sign that continue to advance the ball in terms of the health of the Bay.
One of them is the Maryland Clean Cars Act. And I want to thank Liz Bobo for her leadership year in, year out, on that. And now that’s a good idea whose time has come. I want to thank the President and the Speaker both for their leadership on that.
Particularly I want to thank the Speaker for championing the Oyster Restoration Act, which we will sign today. Very important legislation which allows us to return that natural filter and hopefully grow and expand upon itself in the Bay.
We are establishing the Maryland Green Building Council. I want to thank Delegates Morhaim and Bronrott and also Comptroller Franchot for their leadership on that, to ensure that green building is at the foundation of smart growth. Also can help create jobs in the long term as well.
I want to thank Senator Rosapepe and Delegate Lawton for their work on improving our storm water management systems for the benefit of this sensitive watershed. And we are also going to have a fun one here when we have a couple of creatures from the planet come join us later on the Terrapin Bill. I want to thank Senator Dyson and also Delegate Virginia Clagett and so many others for their leadership on that.
At the end of the day, I don’t think that there is another issue that more underscores the common good and our shared future together and our shared responsibility than the environment. You know, Native Americans have a saying that Awe do not inherit this earth from our parents so much as we borrow it from our children.
And by our acts here today, by what all of you have done in both parties, frankly, coming together around these bills is something that we should all be very proud of as Marylanders.
And with that, I want to turn it over to the Speaker and then to the President for any opening comments they might have before we start signing.
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