Daily Record columnist and WYPR Senior News Analyst C. Fraser Smith joins me once again on a super-sized podcast to review the big news from Friday: the House of Delegates passing same-sex marriage legislation and the Senate unanimously voting to censure Sen. Ulysses Currie.

Fraser provides some big-picture perspective on both events and recalls the last day the General Assembly made so much historic news in one day. (Hint: It was in 1984.)

We also look at Gov. Martin O’Malley’s role in the gay marriage bill and how involved he might be in legislation throughout the rest of the session. Enjoy.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Gov. Martin O’Malley held his first “Tweetup” Monday morning, fielding a handful of questions from 16 Twitter followers who met in person to discuss issues in the state.

“We have an opportunity in these times to be better connected than ever before,” O’Malley said, kicking the event off.

The questions ranged from softballs — “What book are you reading now?” was the first one — to specific policy questions, like whether libraries would also have to shoulder a share of pension costs along with the counties.

O’Malley said that issue, along with how school funding requirements would be affected by the proposed pension shift, are yet to be decided.

The governor said the state has a “tremendous opportunity” this year to bring in tourist dollars associated with the bicentennial of the War of 1812, an event that could also help clean up Baltimore’s image.

“You have to talk about the good things happening in the city,” O’Malley said. “It’s not a good way to sell newspapers, but it’s a good way to sell the city.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Harford County has won the “House of Cards” sweepstakes, landing the production of the political drama to be distributed by online streaming service Netflix.

County Executive David R. Craig announced the deal this week.

“This represents a tremendous opportunity for Harford County and will provide a noticeable boost to our economy,” Craig said in a written statement. “Between the number of jobs created, office and studio space leased, hotel rooms booked, and businesses utilized, this is yet another indication that industries of all types recognize that Harford County is a good place to do business.”

The statement said the county expects “House of Cards” to have a “major impact” on its economy.

“House of Cards” will star Academy Award-winning actor Kevin Spacey and its pilot will be directed by David Fincher, whose recent credits include “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and “The Social Network.”

The Maryland Film Office estimates the series of 13 hour-long episodes will spur $75 million in spending in the state and create more than 2,000 jobs for local crew, actors and extras.

Filming is expected to take place in and around Baltimore, so those effects will likely be spread throughout the region.

“House of Cards” will be Harford’s first major film production since “Tuck Everlasting” in 2002.

The ink isn’t yet dry on Gov. Martin O’Malley’s deal with Exelon Corp. and Constellation Energy Group, but wind energy advocates are already hailing the accord as a boon for their cause.

That’s not surprising. They have 32 million reasons to do just that.

“It means Maryland is one step closer to developing a home-grown manufacturing base for wind turbines and an overall economy that helps solve global warming,” said Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

The Constellation/Exelon merger deal negotiated by O’Malley will require Exelon to pay $30 million into an offshore wind energy development fund that would allow the state to pay some of the permitting costs for a wind farm in the waters off Ocean City. Another $2 million would be paid to Maryland colleges and universities to fund wind energy research. Read the rest of this entry »

Gov. Martin O’Malley’s latest effort to bring more green energy to the state is clean only in the strictest of energy-industry terms.

The state is soliciting proposals for a 10-megawatt power plant fueled with animal waste — “such as poultry litter or livestock manure.” The plant would have to be connected to the power grid and be up and running by New Year’s Eve 2015. Proposals are due Nov. 30.

“Maryland is leading the nation’s efforts in clean energy and sustainability, and our state’s growing ‘green’ jobs sector is vital to our ability to create jobs and complete globally in the new economy,” O’Malley said in the statement announcing the state’s dung-to-power project.

The effort is called “Clean Bay Power” — state officials hope turning animal waste into fuel reduces nutrient run-off, like nitrogen and phosphorus, into the bay. Animal waste-powered plants would also be categorized as a Tier 1 renewable source, meaning their juice would move the state closer to its goal of electric utilities buying 20 percent of their power from clean energy sources by 2022.

A 10 megawatt project wouldn’t move the needle all that much, however. The governor’s wind energy legislation that failed earlier this year called for generating capacity 40 to 60 times greater. A standard wind turbine generates about 1.5 megawatts of power.

(For more comparisons I turned to Wikipedia, which told me 10 megawatts is about four times the peak output of a blue whale, a little more than three times the power generated by a diesel locomotive, and slightly less than the electrical output of Togo.)

“We are seeking to purchase our power from a variety of renewable resources for a better and more sustainable future,” said Alvin Collins, secretary of the Department of General Services. “Obtaining electricity from poultry manure or animal waste helps Maryland to reach its goal of generating 20 percent of its energy needs from renewable sources, all while improving Bay water quality and supporting the agriculture industry.”

Gov. Martin O’Malley installed a nine-member board Wednesday to oversee the state’s planned venture capital fund that, if all goes as planned, will pump at least $70 million into young, high-tech companies.

“For a modern economy to create jobs we need to make modern investments,” O’Malley said before swearing in the Maryland Venture Fund Authority board members.

Invest Maryland was O’Malley’s top economic initiative in the past legislative session and, according to the Department of Business and Economic Development, is the largest economic development program in Maryland’s history. It is designed to enable entrepreneurs to capitalize on the research done at government and university labs in the state.

“It will get venture funding flowing again,” O’Malley said.

Peter Greenleaf, the president of MedIummune Inc. in Gaithersburg and the chairman of the authority board, called Invest Maryland “a progressive opportunity and one that not every state is capitalizing on.”

MedImmune is touted by state officials as a modern Maryland success story to be emulated by beneficiaries of Invest Maryland. The company was started with a venture investment in the early 1980s and has grown to 3,500 employees worldwide, with the vast majority in Frederick and Montgomery counties. Read the rest of this entry »

Four days after Hurricane Irene blew through Maryland, Gov. Martin O’Malley said there remains much work to be done to clean up in the aftermath of the storm.

“Some of those streets looked like the Jolly Green Giant came by and pushed over oak trees and hickory trees on to houses,” the governor said Wednesday during a quick briefing with reporters in Baltimore.

Some 140,000 households remained without power at about noon Wednesday.

“I think we won’t be satisfied until everyone’s turned on,” O’Malley said. “It’s been a long, long time for central Maryland.”

He did not criticize any utilities outright but pointed to different regions of the state as examples of how some areas are faring better than others. (Check out county-by-county outage figures here.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Jim Dinegar, the president and CEO of the Greater Washington Board of Trade, has a unique point of view on the Maryland vs. Virginia economic development battle because his constituency hails from Northern Virginia, suburban Maryland and the city in between.

He briefed the Maryland Senate Budget and Taxation Committee on Tuesday about a range of business issues, including the differences between Maryland and Virginia with a frankness that one doesn’t often see from business representatives.

One of the key factors that separates the states is the degree to which businesses can predict what action lawmakers will take in statehouses in Annapolis and Richmond, Dinegar said.

“You don’t have a reputation for being business friendly,” he told the committee. “The certainty, you don’t want people [in Annapolis] trying to battle on taxes. Decide. There’s a higher degree of certainty in Virginia.” Read the rest of this entry »

Gov. Martin O’Malley will renew his call for a statewide growth plan Friday at the annual Maryland Association of Counties summer conference in Ocean City.

Plan Maryland, as the administration calls it, would steer population growth into already developed areas while seeking to stop the seemingly-endless rings of suburbs radiating out from the state’s urban centers into forests and farmlands.

O’Malley will be armed with a new map and new statistics. The land-use map, updated for the first time since 2002, shows 128,650 acres of land were developed in the state over those nine years, according to the state Department of Planning. That’s good for 8.4 percent growth, or about twice as fast as the state has added population during that time.

“The need for a state growth plan is made evident by the latest analysis,” said Planning Secretary Richard E. Hall. “The data shows that Maryland has now developed more than 1.6 million acres, or about 27 percent of the total land area, in total.”

Read the rest of this entry »

The credit rating front has been quieter Wednesday with Maryland officials believing any Standard & Poor’s rating action will not come soon, if at all.

Here are some of the things that didn’t quite make the stories in the dead-tree editions as the state held its breath, waiting for an S&P downgrade and then when it seemed Maryland was in the clear, at least for now.

On pensions…

The stock market volatility is not good news for Maryland’s pension fund. At the end of June, there was $37.5 billion socked away for retirees, and about half of that was in stocks. If those stocks took the same 6.3 percent loss the Dow took from Friday to Tuesday, that equates to a loss of $1.18 billion

Melissa Moye, the State Retirement and Pension System’s interim CIO, said the system looks at performance longer term, over months rather than days.

But, if stocks do keep losing value and, therefore, make up a smaller share of the system’s portfolio, it could prompt the system to buy more in the stock market.

“We will continue to look for opportunities to rebalance,” Moye said.

Read the rest of this entry »