Time for Action! 
Please check our "Take Action"
section often for legislative updates. You'll find relevant
information on bills, news clips, our position, and how you can help to
bring about smart and fair growth to all Maryland residents. You can also download fact sheets and talking points if you'd like to help rally your community and your legislators around our priority issues!
Featured Legislative Priority:
Estate Tax Burden on Maryland Farmers
Please help us keep farmers farming in Maryland by contacting your elected 
officials in support of legislation that would ease the estate tax burden on farmers. There are several bills that tackle this critical issue, ranging from relief of the estate tax burden for all farmers who chose to keep the land in farming (SB592/HB221), to bills that would apply only to working family farms permanently preserved (SB155/HB160 and SB790).
If you want more information on our Keep Farmers Farming program, please click here. You can also visit our "Take Action" section for farms and rural lands.
Smart Growth, Transit, and Planning Events:
PlanMaryland Public Forums Scheduled for Central MD
PlanMaryland is a new planning process designed to create a better and more sustainable future for Maryland. The state legislature created the authority for such a plan in the 1970s, but a broader recognition of the costs of unsustainable types of land use has grown in recent years to the point where such a plan is now urgently needed. We need to do a better job of steering development toward areas that already have roads, schools and other public infrastructure.
Thursday, March 18th - 6:00 to 9:00 p.m., Coppin State University, 2500 West North Avenue · Baltimore, MD 21216-3698
Wednesday, March 24th - 6:00 to 9:00 p.m., UMD Universities at Shady Grove, 9630 Gudelsky Drive · Rockville, MD 20850
To RSVP, please email rjosephson AT mdp.state.md.us
UPDATE: PlanMaryland has a new website!
3rd Annual Baltimore Regional Transit-Oriented Development Summit
Thursday March 11, 7 PM to 9 PM
John Rangos Building, 855 N Wolfe Street, Baltimore (a new,
state of the art biotech building in the East Baltimore Development
Inc. redevelopment north of the Johns Hopkins Medical Center)
Light refreshments will be provided
Featured speakers:
- Senator Catherine Pugh, Maryland General Assembly invited
- Shelley Poticha, US Department of Housing and Urban Development
- Scott Levitan, Forest City – New East Baltimore Partnership
- Joe McNeely, Central Baltimore Partnership
- Otis Rolley III, Central Maryland Transportation Alliance
A forum of ideas, new opportunities and challenges for the many
people working to see more transit-oriented development in the
Baltimore region. Please RSVP to web@cmtalliance.org . You can also download a flyer for distribution.
Sustainable Communities Advocacy Day Roundup
A standing-room only crowd came to the Sustainable Communities Advocacy 
Day in Annapolis to show their support for the Sustainable Communities Act. A diverse list of speakers explained the importance of the Act, including representatives of half a dozen different agencies, environmental groups, historic preservation advocates, and developers. The varied backgrounds of the speakers reflected the variety of supporters in the room.
Jennifer Bevan-Dangel, Deputy Director of 1000 Friends of Maryland, 
explained the importance of the Act for investing in smart growth, investing in stronger communities, and investing in local jobs. No other tool has had the direct and meaningful impact in making smart growth a reality in the same way this tax credit program has. By stimulating private investment in our historic neighborhoods, the program has made an investment in stronger communities, in sustainable communities, in people.
The Sustainable Communities Act will reauthorize the Heritage Structure Rehabilitation Tax Credit, expand the program to include more of our critical neighborhoods, and increase interaction and involvement between State agencies. The tax credit has been proven to spur investment in communities from Cumberland to Easton, with a return of $8 in private investment for every $1 of state credit. It is critical to pass this legislation this year, because otherwise the tax credit will completely expire.
Environmental Summit Draws Broad Support for Green Agenda
Maryland's environmental leaders announced their legislative agenda for the 2010 session to a crowd of hundreds of supportive citizens from across the state. Speakers encouraged the crowd to take action today to protect the green budget, promote transportation reform, and address polluted runoff.
“This event shows support for environmental reform both from key leaders in the State House and from people across Maryland. Every year over 350 people come to this event to learn about the issues and send a clear message that protecting our air, land, water, and people matters,” said Jennifer Bevan-Dangel, Chair of the Citizens Campaign of the Environment. “It is invigorating that our federal partners have now truly engaged in this effort, while we are here pushing for state-level reform.”
Three priority issues were announced:
- The green budget
- Promoting smarter transportation investnments
- Protecting and restoring our local water and the Chesapeake Bay.
The environmental community will track other legislation this session in addition to the priority issues mentioned tonight. Other issues will include:
- Public disclosure of energy use in buildings;
- Creating a comprehensive energy plan;
- Keeping farmers farming through estate tax reform;
- Investing in our historic places through the Sustainable Communities Tax Credit;
- Stopping coal ash from contaminating our water;
- Promoting renewable energy;
- Accountability through reporting for pesticide and fertilizer use; and
- Keeping children safe from toxics such as Bisphenol A.
From the report: "In the last 15 years, more than 76,000 Americans have
been killed while crossing or walking along a street in their
community. More than 43,000 Americans – including 3,906 children under
16 – have been killed this decade alone. This is the equivalent of a
jumbo jet going down roughly every month, yet it receives nothing like
the kind of attention that would surely follow such a disaster."