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Maryland Tobacco Farmers
Take Buy Out With Reservations

By PAUL SCHULER
Capital News Service

ANNAPOLIS - More than half of Maryland's tobacco farmers have signed contracts not to produce tobacco next year as part of the state's buy-out program.
By Tuesday, 452 farmers representing 4.5 million pounds of tobacco took the buy out. Gov. Parris N. Glendening initiated the buy-out program in 1999 as part of an effort to eliminate smoking in the state. He is expected to announce the numbers on Monday in St. Mary's County.
However, some farmers and legislators are worried the farmers won't get the money.
Farmers who accept the buy out receive $1 per pound of tobacco typically grown on their land every year for 10 years. By the Feb. 22 deadline, 695 farmers applied for contracts for next year's program. If all sign them, the state would owe them $6.75 million next year.
Funding for the program, however, is provided only year by year, which is what worries farmers and Southern Maryland legislators.
"There's a certain number of farmers, especially the younger ones, who are skeptical of the buy out," said Delegate Van T. Mitchell, D-Charles.
In response to these concerns, Glendening has proposed a bill offering farmers the option of taking an up-front payment of $7.74 per pound. The money would come from a bond backed by part of the $4.4 billion dollar settlement the state won from the tobacco companies in 1998.
Some legislators oppose that option because it will take money away from other health programs funded by the settlement.
  "Just because the farmers don't believe us is not a good enough reason to do it this way," said Sen. Barbara Hoffman, D-Baltimore. She was "ethically" opposed to taking money away from programs such as cancer research to fund the farmers.
The buy-out program consumes 5 percent of the settlement money.
The governor's bill was heard Wednesday in the House Appropriations Committee.
"There are several delegates on the House Appropriations Committee . . . who point-blank don't want to see the buy out," said Delegate Van T. Mitchell, D-Charles. "They don't want to see our farmers get the money."
Treasurer Richard Dixon also opposed the bond during the hearing, though he does support reducing the tobacco grown in Maryland. Dixon and Glendening are two of the three votes on the state's Board of Public Works, which controls all state spending. The third vote is Comptroller William Donald Schaefer.
"I'm opposed to doing it by this method," Dixon said. "This is the wrong way to do it."
The funding crunch for the buy out is partly due to a disagreement between the state and lawyer Peter Angelos on how to split the money. Angelos negotiated for Maryland in the tobacco settlement.
Because of the conflict, the state must keep 25 percent of the settlement money in escrow.
Tobacco farmers who testified before the committee said they supported the bill, but didn't take sides on how to fund it. They want money appropriated for the other programs accompanying the buyout, such as grants for alternative crop research and agricultural land preservation, and the guarantee that they will be paid.
The land is at risk of development without that crop conversion funding, said Christine Bergmark, director of the Tri-County Council, which administers the buy out.
"If we just have the buy out," she said, "we run the risk of losing agriculture in Southern Maryland."

Maryland Professor's Research May Give Dying Tobacco Market New Life
By PAUL SCHULER
Capital News Service
ANNAPOLIS - Tobacco may actually be able to help reduce lung cancer and air pollution -- if only cars would start smoking it.
The University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute presented to the Southern Maryland Delegation Friday a way to produce the clean-burning fuel, ethanol, more efficiently by using genetically engineered tobacco.
The research could create an unlikely alliance of tobacco farmers looking for alternative markets for their crop and environmental and health advocates wanting to reduce air pollution. However, the researchers still have a long way
to go to convince the two sides to back their efforts, said University of Maryland associate professor Jonathan Arias.
The genetically altered tobacco could be an alternative crop for the 452 farmers who have agreed not to produce the crop as part of the state tobacco buy-out program, according to Arias.
Gov. Parris N. Glendening created the buy-out program in 1999 to rid the state of tobacco growing as part of his anti-smoking campaign.
Under the buyout contract, farmers receive $1 for each pound of tobacco they produced in previous years in exchange for not growing it. However, the contract stipulates only that farmers not produce tobacco for human consumption.
They could produce the genetically altered tobacco and still receive the money.
"This is really going to help farmers improve their profit,"Arias said.
The research could also drastically reduce the price of producing ethanol, which would be a boost to advocates of the clean-burning fuel, Arias said.
The cleaner E85 gasoline - a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent petroleum - has had trouble building a demand in the United States, and particularly Maryland, as an alternative to pure gasoline.
No stations in Maryland sell the E85 fuel, though it could cut greenhouse gas emissions from cars by 35 percent, according to the American Lung Association.
"[Ethanol] is not going to get more competitive without a change in the process," said Arias.
Ethanol is made from a sugar created by mixing enzymes with corn, which is then fermented with bacteria into pure ethanol.
The expensive part of the process is creating the enzymes to mix with the corn. Now, they are produced in large metal vats that are very expensive to build, according to Arias. However, tobacco engineered with a heat-resistant
gene found in bacteria in hot springs at Yellowstone National Park could produce enzymes capable of working with corn more cheaply and in larger quantities.
"The cost of production is more favorable because you're using the power of agriculture to make something," Arias said.
The Southern Maryland Delegation was interested, yet somewhat pessimistic
at Friday's briefing. The University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute wanted $500,000 over the next three years to accelerate their research and make the
technology available more quickly to the farmers.
Delegate Van T. Mitchell, D-Charles, said he supported the research, but he thought Arias was speaking to the wrong people.
"I definitely think it's a good alternative," Mitchell said. "I think
anytime you can create a positive out of a negative it's a good thing."
However, Arias needs to convince the Montgomery County delegation, particularly Delegate Kumar Barve, D-Montgomery, chairman of the Economic Matters subcommittee on science and technology, he said.
Arias expected wariness from the legislators.
"I think they have a right to be skeptical," he said. "I would have been amazed if they just warmly embraced it."
The genetically engineered tobacco won't be available for at least three years, Arias said. He still needs to run tests to find out whether the crop is safe for the environment. He doesn't think there are any potential hazards, but he hasn't ruled the possibility out yet.
"We don't know the answer to that," he said. "I'm not God. We don't believe there's any."
Many farmers are also skeptical of Arias' research.
Jeff Griffith, owner of 85 acres of tobacco, is one of the few open to the idea.
"I'd always like an alternative use for tobacco," Griffith said. "What's holding ethanol back right now is it's too expensive to produce."
If the new crop did become available, it could help bring ethanol to the East Coast, particularly Southern Maryland and the Southeast United States, where tobacco is grown, said the American Coalition for Ethanol.
"I think having a local industry would definitely help," said Trevor Guthmiller, a coalition member.
Ethanol is primarily used in the Midwest, where there is an abundance of corn. However, on the East Coast, where there are fewer corn farmers, the petroleum companies, who aren't anxious to see ethanol's popularity rise, have more influence, according to ethanol advocates.
Many people aren't aware many cars can use the cleaner fuel, including, for example, the most popular cars in Ford's 2001 line.
The closest station to Maryland to sell the fuel is the Navy Exchange Citgo station, 801 S. Joyce Street in Arlington. There the fuel goes for $1.60 a gallon, but there's been little demand.
The Citgo gets about 10 customers a day for E85, said Barbara Johnson, who works there. The 9,000 gallons of E85 fuel they received in June lasted until January.
Many people don't know their cars can use E85, or even what E85 is, she said.
"I think the word needs to get out more," Johnson said. "We could do better."
It could be a while before the American Lung Association starts spreading the news.
"I can say it would be a better use of tobacco than smoking it," said Tim Drelach of the American Lung Association. However, he wouldn't go on the record supporting the crop until he sees the research become a reality.

Federal Report Gives Maryland
Middling Grade for its Anti-Smoking Efforts

By JONATHAN SHEIR
Capital News Service

WASHINGTON- Maryland's spending on tobacco prevention and reduction was in the middle of the pack in fiscal 2001, according to a national report on states' anti-tobacco spending.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last week that
Maryland spent $21.4 million, or $4.05 per person, the 17th-highest per capita spending in the nation.
"Investments in Tobacco Control -- State Highlights 2001" also said that
Maryland was spending only 71 percent of the amount the CDC recommends for the state, ranking it 11th highest in the nation.
State government and health advocates blamed Maryland's disappointing rankings on first-year growing pains for its anti-tobacco programs and reverberations from a legal fee dispute with the law firm of Peter G. Angelos.
"While we may be criticized right now, we're concentrating on long-term
spending," said Raquel Guillory, deputy press secretary for Gov. Parris
Glendening. She said it was the first year of funding, and the spending will be ramped up over the course of the 10-year program.
Maryland did well compared to its neighbors. Delaware spent $4.61 per
person, which was only 42 percent of the CDC-recommended spending for that state. Virginia spent $1.98, or 36 percent of its target, and Washington, D.C., spent $1.67, just 13 percent of its goal.
Pennsylvania spent only 10 cents per person and just 2 percent of its
recommended level, the worst levels in the nation. Ohio was No. 1, spending $20.82 per person and almost four times the minimum CDC-recommended level.
The report, which looked at state spending on smoking cessation and
prevention programs, compiled totals from tobacco settlement funds, excise taxes, other government sources and non-government sources such as the American Legacy Foundation. The non-profit foundation issues grants to government and private agencies using money from the tobacco settlement.
Kari Appler, project director for Smoke Free Maryland, a coalition of over
90 organizations concerned with tobacco issues, blamed Maryland's ranking on the lawsuit over Angelos' legal fees.
Angelos agreed to represent Maryland in its lawsuit against the tobacco
industry for 25 percent of any award. But government officials balked when they realized the fee would be more than $1.1 billion of the state's $4.6 billion
settlement, or about $30,000 per hour worked by Angelos' firm.
A judge has ordered 25 percent of the state's federal funds be held in
escrow while it challenges Angelos' fee.
"Although the governor requested $30 million, some funds are going into
escrow and won't be available," Appler said.
Linda Frisch, assistant executive director of the American Lung
Association of Maryland, said the state's ranking is not as bad as it could have been. Even though it allocated $21.4 million, she said, the state is unlikely to spend all of that money this fiscal year.
Frisch noted that the state had to do a baseline study, which was
completed this month, before funds could be spent. And the deadline for plans by local health departments is in March, which means much of the allocated money probably won't be spent by June, she said.
John Hammond, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, conceded that the state is "still really gearing up."
Despite Maryland's relatively poor showing, health advocates remained
hopeful.
"Things are beginning to gel," Frisch said. "I'm cautiously optimistic.
It's just going to take some time."
Appler was disappointed that Maryland didn't do better but was pleased
overall.
"Maryland is a leader in so many other ways," Appler said. "We'd like to
be ranked higher.  We'd like to be a national leader on this."
The advisory report was requested by the states as a way to show state
legislators how they are doing and to inform them of what other states were doing legislatively.
It established unique spending goals for each state based on nine
components, including population, the state's number of smokers and the number of children in the state's schools. Successful, large-scale efforts in states
such as California, Massachusetts and Oregon were used as models, according to
Terry Pechacek, one of the authors of the study.
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St. Clement's Island Lighthouse, which was formerly known as Blackiston Island, was blown to bits by the U. S. Navy which used it as target practice after the government decided to save money on maintenance during the Great Depression.  This photo is supplied courtesy of the U. S. Coast Guard Historian's Office and the Chesapeake Bay Chapter of the U. S. Lighthouse Society.

Cobb Bar Lighthouse stood at the mouth of the Wicomico River until about 1938 when a Dutchman's stove in the lighthouse let some sparks fly loose and caused the structure to catch fire, according to Mrs. Quade at Bushwood Wharf who saw the fire burning out on the river as girl.   Mrs. Quade runs Quade's store, makes the best crabcakes around and rents small boats with motors for fishing, sells tackle and bait.    Photo courtesy of U. S. Coast Guard Historians' Office and the Chesapeake Chapter of the U. S. Lighthouse Society