Maryland Deregulatory Commission Targets Protective Bay Regulations

Politicians are famous for reneging on, or conveniently ignoring, campaign pledges and other promises. In some cases, politicians put themselves in untenable positions, such as when they offer conflicting promises to different interest groups. This is when it becomes easy to see what an elected official's true priorities are. Governor Hogan proclaimed that he would be "the best environmental governor that's ever served." Of course, he also campaigned for "regulatory reform" in Maryland. The Governor established a Regulatory Reform Commission by executive order in July, stacking it with an almost all-industry roster of members, and charging it with "fixing our burdensome, antiquated, broken, and out-of-control regulatory environment in Maryland." This week, we got to see the results of the commission's work, and the biggest victim was the environment. Of the 29 specific regulations or regulatory chapters targeted by the commission, all but 10 were Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) regulations. It's not as if "cutting red tape," or streamlining administrative processes necessarily means weakening standards designed to protect public health or the environment. There's no reason that the commission needed to focus on rolling back environmental protections to achieve its stated objectives. But that's what it decided to do.