There’s been a lot of complaining and finger-pointing at government and regulatory agencies for forcing pollution diets, punishing watermen, strangling agriculture, and such recently. But in reality, there’s an awful lot of bottom-up government going on.
Take the Watershed Implementation Plan, for instance. Forced by the EPA to develop state-wide plans to address water pollution in the Bay, the seven states in the Chesapeake watershed have been hustling to develop their Phase 2 plans by the March 30th deadline. Maryland’s plan is devised from individual county plans, and those plans are being made by your neighbors, right here on the Eastern Shore. The draft plans are open now for public comment until March 9th. Have you read your county’s draft Watershed Implementation Plan? Now is your chance to get acquainted with it. Click here.
The blue crab fishery offers another example of bottom-up regulations in the works. In 2010, the Department of Natural Resources convened the Blue Crab Design Team, made up of individuals from waterman’s associations around the state, representatives from the seafood packing and restaurant industries as well as the Chesapeake Bay Commercial Fisherman’s Association. With a mandate to create crabbing regulations that are responsive to both government and the industry, this design team is creating policy based on the knowledge and experience of local watermen. This is a big change from traditional top-down state regulations.
The Spy will take a close look at each of these bottom-up endeavors, and watch the process as our neighbors create the policies with which we’ll all be living in the future. Government is shifting to be more responsive and inclusive. You’re invited. Are you participating?
S Pennington says
> Government is shifting to be more responsive and inclusive.
It’s a warm and fuzzy thesis, but I’m going to have to go ahead and disagree with you on this.
While in theory this is how things should happen, the reality is not so much. The history of environmental regulation (among many other regulations and laws, like that juggernaut called Obamacare) in this country since the founding of the EPA has been top-down command and control, course-corrected by special interests with enough money to influence the process. And in any area where Washington has forgotten to tell us how to live our lives, the junior dictators in Annapolis (mostly, but not exclusively, Democrat) are happy to step right in and finish the job.
Alas, the days of personal responsibility and individual liberty (which go hand in hand, let me point out, before someone here insists that they’re mutually exclusive) are behind us.
But I’m willing to read what you have to say. You’ve got your work cut out for you!