Another “with friends like these, who needs enemies” stories when it comes to fracking in Maryland. It had seemed as though fracking in the Old Line state might take off–perhaps not soon, but at least at some point in the next year or two (see Maryland Gets Ready to Frack! Gov O’Malley Files New Regulations). We should have known former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, a lefty Democrat, only issued new fracking regs on his way out of office because he wants to run for president (he never wanted fracking). Still, we take our victories any way we can get them. But then the House and Senate started larding up the issue by passing all sorts of bills that would throttle or even prevent fracking. Last week the Maryland House passed a moratorium for three years, and on Monday of this week, the Maryland Senate passed a mortatorium for two years. The curious thing is that Maryland Republican State Senator George Edwards, whose district in Western Maryland is about the only district that would conceivably see fracking, voted FOR the two year moratorium! He supposedly supports fracking. Wait…did we miss something? Did logic and common sense just go out the window? More politics as usual?…
