Upgrade Maryland’s climate action plan
Switch-hitter to bat only on 1 side of the plate; does that alter the outfield mix?
Polls show most Maryland residents recognize that climate change is a man-made disaster in the making. Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, has certainly acknowledged that. And so have the Democrats running the General Assembly. Yet there’s clearly been some backsliding in the effort to reverse it. A decade ago, Maryland was viewed as a leader in the nation’s war on climate change. Today, it’s more like a decent, well-meaning, middle-of-the-pack ally.
Now that the election of Joe Biden as president and the United States has formally returned the country to the Paris climate agreement, the time is ripe for the state to set a more ambitious target. At some level, Gov. Hogan and Democrats in Annapolis would seem in agreement. The Hogan administration wants to see greenhouse gas emissions reduced by 50% by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2045. Legislation pending before the General Assembly, the Climate Solutions Now Act of 2021, seeks that same net zero target.
The difference is that the version moving through the state Senate is significantly more ambitious in the short term, with a goal of reducing emissions by 60% from 2006 levels and planting 5 million trees by 2030. And it anticipates a greater policy input from low-income and minority communities, groups often more negatively impacted by air pollution.
If all this seems quite reasonable, there’s a reason for that — it is. Yet, environmentalists fear that some in the State House do not quite grasp the urgency. As Sen. Paul Pinsky, the lead sponsor of the Senate bill, has pointed out, the Hogan administration’s talk about climate tends to surpass its actions. Note for example, that the governor’s climate bill, House Bill 1362, was submitted several weeks past the legislative deadline (and yet little changed from a bill the administration offered one year ago).
More broadly, it’s not hard to see the issue being lost in the more pressing concerns associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet climate change poses the bigger long-term danger to the health and well-being of the state. Rising sea level alone represents an existential threat for many living in low-lying areas, with Chesapeake Bay waters projected to be two feet higher by 2050. Even now, places like Dorchester County on the Eastern Shore are more frequently getting flooded, their farm fields ruined by the intrusion of brackish water. By the end of the 21st century, experts fear the bay could be a 3.7 feet higher, which means a lot of coastal towns could be wiped out in a storm well before that moment. There’s just so much sea walls can hold back.
Lawmakers need to take this seriously. Those who claim Maryland risks job losses if tougher emissions standards are pursued have it exactly wrong. The far greater danger is in doing nothing. How many jobs are lost when whole communities are flooded? When drinking water supplies are lost? When
farms are ruined? When weather becomes more extreme? When human health suffers as ground-level ozone increases? Maryland, a coastal state, is at greater risk than much of the country. It ought to be a leader in finding solutions.
Providing career opportunities for displaced fossil fuel industry workers is a worthy goal. It ought to be part of the plan. So should ending policies that give tax credits to companies that burn trash to create power. But the single most important element in Maryland’s response is to reduce emissions and increase offsets, like with trees that absorb carbon dioxide. Mr. Hogan has sought a 50% reduction by 2030. That’s just not good enough. Not when Maryland is so vulnerable. And certainly not when Mr. Hogan’s own Department of the Environment recognizes that the move away from greenhouse gas emissions would be a net jobs creator.
We would urge the Maryland Senate to give final approval to Senate Bill 414 and for the House of Delegates to follow suit with House Bill 583. The state is certainly capable of meeting these targets. Last Tuesday, the state’s largest school system committed to becoming the nation’s largest operator of electric school buses, a climate-friendly choice that already significantly boosts Maryland toward its emissions goal. A Maryland League of Conservation Voters poll found that at least two-thirds of voters statewide favor such measures as requiring new homes to be emissions free, requiring utilities to use renewable energy only and billing fossil fuel companies a carbon tax. And those are among the most controversial policies. Simply moving faster toward tougher emissions standards should be an easy call. And it should be approved right now.
The Democratic Party is often called the party of government Ideologically, this is so obviously true it’s not worth belaboring. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. We have a federal government for a reason, and there are things it should do. Reasonable people can debate what those things are.
But there’s a difference between being the party of government in the ideological sense and being the party of government in the literal sense. A core constituency of the Democratic Party, both in terms of voters and donors, is people who work for the government.
Members of teachers’ unions regularly constitute around 10% of delegates to Democratic Party conventions. There are about 3.5 million public school teachers in America, comprising about 1% of the U.S. population. That means teachers’ union members are overrepresented among the activist base of the Democratic Party by a factor of about 1,000%. In 2019-2020, according to Open Secrets, of the roughly $52 million that the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association spent on political donations, $130,000 went to Republicans or Republican groups, and the rest went to Democrats or Democratic groups — a ratio of about 400 to 1.
Of course, it’s not just teachers’ unions. In the 2020 election cycle alone, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) dedicated 99.1% of its political spending to Democrats. The American Federation of Government Employees gave 95.6% to Democrats.
At the state and local level, public-sector unions are often the biggest contributors to Democrats, not just in terms of money but also in terms of organizational effort.
No wonder that one of the first things Joe Biden did after being elected was issue an executive order repealing a Trump administration policy that restricted government employees from spending more than 25% of their time doing union business while on the job. It can now go back to 100%.
Of course, part of the Democratic Party’s preference for government unions can be explained by the central role organized labor has played in Democratic politics going back to at least the New Deal. In 2020, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, 90% of all labor spending on federal elections ($219 million) went to Democrats. Public-sector unions only comprised about a third of that ($68.5 million).
But there’s a difference between private-sector and public-sector unions. The former need a private sector to exist, which is why rank-and-file union members are less enthusiastic about Democrats than their unions’ political donations would suggest. Mr. got only 57% of the union household vote. Leading up to the election, members of building trade unions were evenly split between Donald Trump and Mr. .
The difference between public-sector and private-sector unions isn’t trivial. Coal miners, factory workers, etc., formed unions in response to brutal working conditions, using their collective bargaining power to force important reforms from businesses. There is no similar history justifying public sector unions. There was no tragic Department of Motor Vehicles ceiling collapse that prompted government workers to organize.
Being pro-labor doesn’t require being pro-government labor union. Franklin D. Roosevelt, arguably the most pro-labor president in history, believed that “the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.” George Meany, the first head of the AFL-CIO, held that it was “impossible to bargain collectively with the government.”
Sure, government workers deserve some basic protections, but civil service laws were already providing those when John F. Kennedy lifted the ban on government unions. If they were inadequate, politicians could have passed laws to boost them without creating a permanent constituency for more government and more government spending.
The crux of the problem is that government isn’t a business. It doesn’t have to run at a profit. It can keep borrowing (or printing) money almost indefinitely. Actual businesses need to keep the lights on by making a profit. That tension imposes discipline on both management and workers when it comes to private-sector unions. There is no similar countervailing pressure to keep labor costs in line or work rules efficient for government union labor. Since 1960, inflation-adjusted spending on education has increased by some 280%. Have we seen the quality of education improve 280%?
The party of government, and often government itself, is dominated by a constituency that, to put it charitably, has divided loyalties between what is good for the public and what is good for them.
With a simple lineup card that showed Orioles outfielder Cedric Mullins as a lefthanded hitter instead of a switch-hitter, the team’s crowded outfield picture took on a different look.
The move, which manager Brandon Hyde confirmed Sunday, is first and foremost a way for the Orioles to get the best out of Mullins, but could have implications for the rest of their outfield mix entering the season as well.
Simply put, it’s a way to make Mullins a more productive hitter and put him in the best position to succeed. He’s faced them far more often, but Mullins has been much better over his professional career against right-handed pitchers batting lefty than the otherwayaround.Beforehemadehismajor leaguedebutin2018,hehit.280withan.820 OPS and 148 extra-base hits in 1,288 at-bats asalefty.Fromtherightside,hehit.210with a.615OPSin428at-bats.Thosesplitscarried over to the big leagues, as he hit .305 with a .796 OPS as a lefty and .171 with a .502 OPS fromtherightside.WhenhittingcoachDon Long spoke of Mullins’ progress in 2020, he noted how much improved the outfielder’s left-handed swing was compared with the right-handedswing,whichhecalledawork in progress.
Hyde said abandoning the right-handed swing was a possibility he brought up with Mullins in the player’s first spring with the Orioles in 2019, before his nightmare season sent him back to Double-A to find himself.
“It’s something that he came to us about that he really wanted to just commit to one side of the plate and that was the left
handed side, so we’re going to back him and support him with it,” Hyde said. “It’s obviously the side that he’s a lot more comfortable hitting and he’s had more success in the big leagues swinging left-handed.”
While it’s tidy to look at Mullins in a roster conversation as a possible platoon in center fieldwiththeright-handedhittingAustinHays, Haysdoesn’thavesuchdrasticstrugglesagainst same-side pitching as one might think.
He’s hitting .273 with an .805 OPS and 51 homerunsagainstrightiesand.316withan.896 OPS against lefties, although he was far worse against lefties in 2019 at Triple-A Norfolk. In the big leagues, Hays has an .802 OPS against righties and a .583 OPS against lefties, albeit in a smaller sample size.
Ifthemorerecentperformanceisconsidered an anomaly, playing Hays more often against lefties and giving Mullins the opportunities against righties would be a simple route. But such a strict platoon would likely limit Hays’ offensive impact for the sake of being better as a team against left-handed starters, something the Orioles could easily consider.
But there are other factors at play. The Orioles could teeter on the verge of having too many players who are best suited to play against righties but offer little against lefties. Left-handed hitter DJ Stewart is one such player in the outfield. So is Chris Davis, who is presumably in the mix to be the designated hitter against righties considering the past two Orioles regimes have given him 49 starts against righties over the past three seasons.
The switch-hitting Anthony Santander is quite capable against both sides but fares better from the left side against righties, though he was far better in 2020 as a left-handed hitter. Fellow outfielder Ryan Mountcastle hasn’t had any major issues against right-handed pitching with his right-handed swing either in the high minors or in the big leagues, so he’s someone the Orioles will want to play everyday.
If anything, Mullins’ decision to bat lefthanded only limits the Orioles from using his ability to hit from the right side to play him against lefties and thus insert a weaker bat into thelineup.Itdoesn’tdomuchtochangethefact that with Trey Mancini locked into first base and Davis not going anywhere, they essentially have six players who on most nights will have a claim to be in the lineup, but only four spots to put them.