South Baltimore has long been Maryland’s environmental sacrificial lamb to the whims of industrialization and expansive capitalism. If Maryland Democrats have been better than Republicans on environmental justice issues affecting Baltimore, it’s not by much. It was the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE), under the administration of former Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, that finally pulled the permit for the O’Malley-favored Energy Answers incinerator. 

That was only after young people occupied MDE Secretary Benjamin Grumbles’ office in protest of the state’s failure to recognize that the permit had expired. Under Hogan, MDE also put the brakes on a proposal to ship Bakken crude oil by train through a terminal in South Baltimore after derailments of trains carrying the oil caused major explosions elsewhere in North America. Advocates fought hard for these victories, but the agency’s decisions had real benefits for the surrounding communities, safeguarding residents from more toxic air pollution and the risk of additional explosions.

Now it’s 2024 and we have another Democratic governor, Wes Moore, who wants to look like a climate champion – announcing massive spending on climate – but disregarding major environmental health issues affecting Baltimore. For example, communities are facing uphill battles to eliminate trash incineration from the RPS and restore the Red Line transit project as light rail. 

A study released by Red Line transit advocates and scientists in September 2021 identified the critical importance of transit improvements needed to reduce toxic emissions from the transportation sector in Baltimore neighborhoods. Despite the study’s national acclaim, the state’s government has not taken heed. And it remains to be seen whether MDE under Moore’s administration will act to address the black dust blown over Curtis Bay from the millions of tons of coal exported through the community, which also negates a sizable part of the greenhouse gas reductions from Maryland’s much-touted climate plan. Both Democrats and Republicans have refused to meaningfully address the coal dust problem even though it was also brought to regulators’ attention under O’Malley.

Then there’s the environmental justice bill  Gov. Moore’s MDE has promoted (HB24/SB96). It’s advertised as an environmental justice bill. Still, it sells out and fails to prioritize the impoverished and overburdened communities like those living in South Baltimore who truly need legislation to protect them from the cumulative impacts of toxic stationary emissions. 

The bill would allow environmental justice concerns to be considered when issuing just about every type of water pollution permit, but very few air pollution permits, even though these permits impact public health in Baltimore communities more directly. The bill has been opposed by leaders from two well-known Maryland areas that have experienced environmental injustice, South Baltimore and the Brandywine community in Prince George’s County. This legislative strategy is a cynical attempt to make it look like the Democrats are acting on environmental justice while directing even more state resources away from people who simply want to be able to breathe clean air.

It’s disheartening to think that this is who Maryland’s Democratic decision-makers are: uninterested in the real-world impacts of their environmental decisions, beholden to the private sector through campaign donations and failing to prioritize the needs of the state’s most vulnerable communities. 

It’s time for a real change. Maryland Democrats must stand for environmental justice by advancing legislation that would actually protect our most vulnerable instead of legislation that only appears to. 

Nicole Fabricant is a Professor of Anthropology at Towson University. 

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