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Cara Dahl ― The Dispatch

State elected officials called for something to be done to prevent future serious congestion on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge during the Maryland Department of Transportation’s (MDOT) annual tour meeting with Worcester County elected officials.

State Sen. Lowell Stoltzfus, co-chair of a recent Bay Bridge study conducted under former Gov. Bob Ehrlich’s administration, said the state must take action on the span in the near future.

MARTIN CRUTSINGER ― The Daily Times

The bailout is now the hottest lobbying game in town.

Insurers, automakers and American subsidiaries of foreign banks all want the Treasury Department to cut them a piece of the largest government rescue in U.S. history.

The betting is that many with their hands out will be successful, especially with financial markets in a stomach-churning dive and predictions the economy is about to tumble into a deep recession.

PAMELA WOOD ― The Capital

Tom Horton is on a mission to get people to talk about something that’s often left unsaid: How population growth is harming the Chesapeake Bay.

Dana Bash, Peter Hamby, Ed Hornick and John King ― CNN

With 10 days to go until Election Day, long-brewing tensions between GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and key aides to Sen. John McCain have become so intense they are spilling out in public, sources say.

Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin “going rogue.” A Palin associate, however, said the candidate is simply trying to “bust free” of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged roll-out.

Read more...

Siobhan Hughes ― DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The Bush administration plans to finalize by next week controversial rules that critics say would allow power plants to spew out more pollution without installing new pollution controls, according to people familiar with the matter.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had outlined the most recent version of the rules earlier this year. The regulation was aimed at making it easier for older power plants to extend their lifespans and make upgrades without having to install costly new equipment.

Under current policy, power plants that make upgrades and increase annual emissions must install pollution-control equipment. But the proposed rules are tied to an hourly rate of emissions. As long as hourly emissions stay at or below a historical maximum, power plants would in essence be treated as if they were running more cleanly, even if their total emissions increased as plant operators stepped up operations.

Read more...

the American People—individual contributors—have given over $739,000,000 of their personal funds to the final contenders of the Presidential election—over a billion dollars overall.

Updated data released this week by the Federal Election Commission and deciphered and published on OpenSecrets.org show a break-down of funds raised by McCain and Obama.

Barack Obama (D)

Individual contributions	$543,360,105
PAC contributions	$1,030
Candidate self-financing	$0
Federal Funds	$0
Other	$59,858,945

John McCain (R)

Individual contributions	$193,991,664
PAC contributions	$1,375,110
Candidate self-financing	$0
Federal Funds	$84,103,800
Other	$162,406,443

The New Republic

Charles Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School, has long been one of the most important conservative thinkers in the United States. Under President Reagan, he served, with great distinction, as Solicitor General of the United States. Since then, he has been prominently associated with several Republican leaders and candidates, most recently John McCain, for whom he expressed his enthusiastic support in January.

This week, Fried announced that he has voted for Obama-Biden by absentee ballot. In his letter to Trevor Potter, the General Counsel to the McCain-Palin campaign, he asked that his name be removed from the several campaign-related committees on which he serves. In that letter, he said that chief among the reasons for his decision “is the choice of Sarah Palin at a time of deep national crisis.”

Fried is exceptionally thoughtful and principled; his vote for Obama is especially noteworthy.

Fried writes to TNR: I admire Senator McCain and was glad to help in his campaign, and to be listed as doing so; but when I concluded that I must vote for Obama for the reason stated in my letter, I felt it wrong to appear to be recommending to others a vote that I was not prepared to cast myself. So it was more of an erasure than a public affirmation—although obviously my vote meant that I thought that Obama was preferable to McCain-Palin. I do not consider abstention a proper option.

The Wall Street Journal

Add Charles Fried, a Harvard Law professor and former Solicitor General in the Reagan administration, to the list of Republicans supporting Obama. Fried’s vote for the Democratic ticket is particularly harsh, as he was associated with the McCain campaign. Fried voted absentee for Obama this week, and informed McCain campaign general counsel Trevor Potter of his decision in a letter where he stated he could not support McCain in large part because of his selection of Palin as his running mate.

Talking Points Memo

Conservative legal scholar and Reagan Solicitor General Charles Fried, who just endorsed Obama, isn’t just a Republican. He’s actually one of McCain’s campaign advisors.

Before they cycle down the memory hole, here’s Fried on McCain’s Honest and Open Election Committee and Justice Advisory Committee.

Key to his decision was McCain’s “choice of Sarah Palin at a time of deep national crisis.”

 

Dynegy, a major owner of coal-burning power plants, has agreed to tell investors more about how global warming could affect its business, Andrew M. Cuomo, the New York State attorney general, announced Thursday.

Dynegy has agreed to put detailed information in its financial filings on any material business risks posed by climate change.

Read more...

MATTHEW L. WALD ― NEW YORK TIMES

After three decades without starting a single new plant, the American nuclear power industry is getting ready to build again.

When the industry first said several years ago that it would resume building plants, deep skepticism greeted the claim. Not since 1973 had anybody in the United States ordered a nuclear plant that was actually built, and the obstacles to a new generation of plants seemed daunting.

Heather Harlan Warnack ― Baltimore Business Journal

The state has hiked the unemployment insurance tax, doubling the amount that companies and nonprofits of all sizes will pay per employee starting next year.

The annual tax will increase from the minimum rate of 0.3 percent on the first $8,500 earned by an employee to a minimum of 0.6 percent, said Thomas E. Perez, secretary of the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation. That means most companies will pay $51 per worker, instead of the existing $25.50. The department is just beginning to notify employers that the tax will take effect Jan. 1, he said.

Congressional delegations from Maryland and Virginia are urging Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez to immediately release $30 million in fishery disaster assistance for Chesapeake Bay watermen.

Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski said Friday watermen are dealing not only with a decline in the crab population but a shortened season imposed in response to the drop. Mikulski and other members of the delegation made the plea in a letter sent to the commerce secretary.

JASON BABCOCK ― Enterprise

Two years ago a family earning $75,700 or less could not afford a median-priced home in St. Mary’s County, back when the median home sales price was $337,501.

Now a family must earn $97,951 or more to afford a median-priced home, and 60 percent of local families cannot afford that, according to a task force studying workforce housing.

I read a joke not long ago. It said all the politicians running for president are promising change to the American people.

We send them billions and billions of tax dollars and they send us the change.

Funny? Not really; there is too much truth in it to be funny.

But that got me to thinking, they all promise change.

I am a resident of Charles County. I have a concern in regard to the public defenders in our county, as they are the only ones I have witnessed in court.

I have not seen any one of them fight for their clients as nonpublic lawyers do. Why is that? They are paid, by us, the public. Do they see their jobs as just steppingstones and don’t care about the people they are representing?