O'Malley's Agenda on Energy

by: Isaac Smith

Wed Aug 20, 2008 at 09:41 PM EDT

This past weekend, Gov. O'Malley presented some new proposals for energy policy at the meeting of the Maryland Association of Counties. How do they stack up?

In brief, O'Malley is proposing:

Some of this is old news, I think, but it looks like O'Malley is hitting the right notes. It's especially good to see talk of real-time pricing, where consumers can shift their electricity use to non-peak hours, when it is cheaper. Besides helping save money, it can also reduce strain on the grid during peak times, and thus lessen the chance of a brownout or blackout. This, combined with the new peaking plants, should help avoid the specter of constant shortages that the Public Service Commission warned about not long ago.

As for the long-term contracts for renewables, it sounds good, but I want hear more details about what it involves. Wind power is the most likely source of renewable electricity for Maryland, and given that the two best sites for wind energy are in western Maryland and the Delmarva region, O'Malley will need to solve two problems: 1) How to build the transmission lines to the Baltimore-Washington corridor where demand is largest, and 2) how to deal with the variability of wind power (see Tom Wilson for more on this). This is not to say that O'Malley's proposal is wrongheaded -- even President Bush's Department of Energy recognizes wind power as being capable of producing much more electricity than it does today -- but it'll certainly be difficult to pull off.

Perhaps the biggest sticking point to O'Malley's agenda is how he will deal with the neither-fish-nor-fowl electricity market that Maryland currently has. O'Malley seems to have no interest in reregulation -- i.e., buying back plants from power companies -- but ordering power companies to build new plants could unleash any number of unintended consequences, particularly when it comes to financing their construction. On the other hand, it's clear that we are far from a truly competitive market for electricity -- the product of the General Assembly's rush to deregulate in 1999 and the feckless responses of the Assembly, Bob Ehrlich and Gov. O'Malley when deregulation went haywire. Hopefully O'Malley's first four proposals are enough that he won't feel compelled to put his fifth proposal into practice.

Obama's Gloves are Definitely Off

by: Eric Luedtke

Wed Aug 20, 2008 at 08:17 PM EDT

This new as is playing in a number of battlegrounds, including Virginia. It echoes some of the themes Obama was hitting during his swing through southern Virginia today.

McCain Supports a Draft

by: Eric Luedtke

Wed Aug 20, 2008 at 08:14 PM EDT

Via Kos:

The Damage Ulysses Currie is Doing to the Party

by: Eric Luedtke

Wed Aug 20, 2008 at 08:12 PM EDT

Mike Steele Fronting for McCain Again

by: Eric Luedtke

Wed Aug 20, 2008 at 08:05 PM EDT

Michael Steele's making an appearance at the Republican Convention. Let's hope some of his candidate karma rubs off on McCain. Maybe he'll bring the puppy on stage with him. Republicans may be on the wrong side of every issue that matters, but at least they can keep up their pro-puppy stance.

Oh, and in a fit of unintended irony that would make Jonathan Swift's head explode, the theme that has been chosen for the Republican Conventions is: "Peace, Prosperity, and Reform."

Franchot the Blogger

by: Eric Luedtke

Wed Aug 20, 2008 at 07:55 PM EDT

John McCain, Out of Touch

by: Eric Luedtke

Tue Aug 19, 2008 at 08:00 PM EDT

Update: I don't want to write another whole diary, but there's a lot going on with McCain that's interesting. First, an excellent diary on DailyKos about the McCain myth and McCain's wingnut web attack dogs whose first reaction to criticism of him is to question the critic's patriotism. The reference to Solzhenitsyn is explained here, where the same diarist discovered that McCain's story of a Vietnamese prison guard drawing a cross in the dirt may have been stolen fromThe Gulag Archipelago. Also, Open Left pointed out an op-ed by one of McCain's fellow POWs explaining why he'll be voting for someone else.

AG to Sue Army Over Ft. Meade Pollution

by: Eric Luedtke

Tue Aug 19, 2008 at 07:50 PM EDT

Prince George's Police Involved in Another Scandal

by: Eric Luedtke

Tue Aug 19, 2008 at 07:41 PM EDT

The police in Prince George's County are having a very, very bad summer. First, there was the apparent murder of accused cop-killer Ronnie White in a solitary cell correctional officers had access to. Then, there was the botched investigation of a drug smuggling ring that led to the raid on Cheye Calvo's home and the shooting of his two dogs. Now, a Prince George's police officer is being accused of spraying a latino man with pepper spray, beating him with a baton, and then shooting him point blank after the man grabbed for his baton. A startling overreaction, to say the least, if it's true.

Anyone know at what point someone steps in to investigate police departments with records this abysmal?

Labor vs. Central Committee in Prince George's

by: Eric Luedtke

Tue Aug 19, 2008 at 06:18 PM EDT

Adam posted part two of his pair on the recent spat between the Prince George's Central Committee and the labor movement. The background: the leadership of the Prince George's County Democratic Central Committee started throwing around some anti-union rhetoric in mass-emails after a UFCW staffer took action to keep non-union employers out of the county. Given that unions are and continue to be a major part of the base of the Democratic Party, this can only be described as unutterably stupid. Unions reacted by sending an ultimatum to the county's elected officials, basically telling them they would not be endorsed if they didn't recommit to support some labor bills in the next session AND support the ouster of the leadership of the Central Committee.

Problem is, the PGDCC is a machine. Essentially, it is run by the county's state senators as a sort of patronage system. In other words, a body that should be entirely meritocratic, and motivated by a desire to strengthen the party, is instead subverted to the individual agendas of the state senators. So there are really two issues involved here. Adam has his suggestions for the unions as to how they can turn this whole situation in their favor, and it involves putting pressure directly on the central committee rather than on elected officials. My take:

First, there is no place for a spoils system in deciding who gets what positions within the party. The people selected as central committee members should be chosen entirely by the voters. The problem is, these positions are run on a slate, and the slates are controlled by the powers that be. The only real solution to this would be for Party leaders to ban the use of slates in central committee elections statewide. That would force individuals to run for the job by appealing to Democratic voters, rather than a small cabal of leaders.

Second, the Prince George's County leadership, both on the Central Committee and in the legislature, needs to look out for the good of the party. By alienating a core constituency, the Central Committee leadership has undermined the health of the party in a county that is essential to statewide success for Democrats, something that is in direct opposition to its only mission and entire reason for existence. The labor letter Adam posted shouldn't have needed to be sent. The elected leaders in Prince George's County should have tossed the Central Committee leaders aside for simply being bad at their duties. And the labor bills the unions are asking the elected officials to support are things politicians with any real commitment to workers should be able to support anyway. If elected Democrats aren't willing to support basic labor bills, not only should the unions refuse to support them, but they should run primary challengers against them.