Impending Global Warming Hysteria induced Economic Cataclysm somewhat averted

I bet you that the people of Western Maryland won't give a lick about global warming if this happens:

A bill being considered in Annapolis today would require businesses across the state to cut their average emissions of pollutants that cause global warming by 25 percent by 2020 and by 90 percent by 2050.

Gary Curtis, a vice president of NewPage, said these limits could mean he would have to replace coal with natural gas - which creates less carbon dioxide but costs five times as much.

He said he could try to make his machinery more energy-efficient, but that would shave only a few percentage points off his fuel consumption. Substituting wind or solar power for coal wouldn't work, he said, because they are not reliable enough to run his wood pulping machines 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

"It would basically put us out of business," said Curtis, as he watched a clattering conveyor belt carry logs into a machine with whirling blades.

"We need to have [pollution] goals that are aggressive but achievable - and forcing us to do this much would be disastrous," he said.

With 950 employees, NewPage is the largest industrial employer in Western Maryland. And it's one of several businesses in the state, including the former Bethlehem Steel mill and power plants, that have complained that the Global Warming Solutions Act could make it impossible for them to compete by imposing limits that do not exist in other states or countries.

I'm glad that the O'Malley Administration is so dedicated to global warming that they plan on finishing off the state's economy once and for all in the process. And the impending economic disaster will be far worse for places in Western Maryland, where there are fewer industrial related jobs than it will in the Baltimore area. Places like Luke (population: 80) are dependent on these jobs to keep their economies above water., and it is something that impacts their entire region:

"This is one of the lone remaining heavy industries in the whole region," said Matt Diaz, director of economic development for Allegany County. "If it closed, it would have a ripple effect all over Western Maryland, impacting not only mill workers, but also a lot of loggers and coal miners and truck drivers."

The fact that the O'Malley Administration is content to kill off economies across Maryland for a visionless plan based on junk science should give all Marylanders pause...

....which made it even more curious to see this today:

The O'Malley administration today proposed paring back a bill aimed at reducing global warming pollution after Maryland industries warned the legislation could put them out of business.

Instead of mandating a 90 percent cut in greenhouse gases statewide by 2050, an amended version of the bill would set this as a goal that the state should write a plan to try to reach, officials said.

"The Maryland Department of the Environment will institute the planning process to get to the 2050 goal ... but we want to clarify that the bill does not require a straight out 90 percent reduction," Maryland Environment Secretary Shari Wilson told a joint hearing of State House committees this afternoon.

Which means this bill is actually even more pointless than before. However at least we have seen at least some capability of common sense to seep into Annapolis before we try to close the last remaining industrial wage-earning jobs we have here in Maryland.

This crisis has been averted, hopefully because legislators realized the damaging consequences to Maryland's working families.