Maryland LCV scorecard bias : Part 2, water qualtiy

Here are LCV's gubernatorial Water Quality grades for the past three administrations:

97 ]]]]]]]] . . . . .B- (Glendening/DEM)
01 ]]]]]]]]]] . . . B+ (Glendening/DEM)
04 ]]]]]]]]] . . . .B (Ehrlich/GOP) <----------------
06 ]]]] . . . . . . . D+ (Ehrlich/GOP
08 ]]]]]]]]]]]] . A (O'Malley/DEM)

Note especially Bob Ehrlich's "B" grade in 2004. LCV gave him this grade shortly after his Bay restoration fund (aka the "flush tax") was enacted. Here's what the the ACB's Bay Journal wrote about the Bay Restoration Fun shortly after it passed:

In what environmentalists called Maryland’s biggest step toward cleaning the Chesapeake Bay in decades, the General Assembly approved new levies on sewer users and septic owners to fund nutrient reduction programs in the state.
. . .

“This is a huge victory for the Bay, the most significant environmental advance in Maryland in nearly 20 years,” said Chesapeake Bay Foundation President Will Baker.

Hmmm. The "most significant environmental advance" in nearly 20 years, and LCV can muster only a B for Ehrlich? Two years later they reverted to their norm -- where Republicans are rated roughly two letter grades below Democrats -- and bumped him down to a D+.

But what exactly have Democrats accomplished to merit their far superior grades?

To help answer this question, I turned to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's annual State of the Bay reports covering 1999 through 2008. Specifically, I looked at CBF's overall measure of bay health as well as the numbers for (1) nitrogen (2) phosphorous, (3) dissolved oxygen, (4) water clarity, and (5) toxics.

For Glendening, I compared the CBF numbers for the last three years of his second term (2002 vs 1999). For Ehrlich, I looked at 2006 vs 2002, and for O'Malley I crunched the numbers for 2008 vs 2006.

Here are the results: Based solely on this CBF data -- surprise!!! -- Ehrlich had the best actual results. Here they are:

OVERALL BAY HEALTH

Ehrlich............. ]]]]]]] 7% improvement
O'Malley.......... ]]] 3% improvement
Glendening [[[[ 4% worse


NITROGEN

Ehrlich.............. ]]]]]] 6% improvement
O'Malley........... 0% change
Glendening....... 0% change


PHOSPHOROUS

Ehrlich............................]]]]]]]]]]]]] ~~~~]]]]]]]] 81% improvement
Glendening.................... 0% change
O'Malley........... [[[~[[[[ 21% worse


DISSOLVED OXYGEN

Ehrlich................. ]]]]]]] 7% improvement
Glendening...;...... 0% change
O'Malley... [[~[[ 13% worse


WATER CLARITY

Glendening.......... 0% change
Ehrlich......... [[[[[[ 6% worse
O'Malley.... [[[[[[[ 7% worse


TOXICS

O'Malley .................. 0% change
Ehrlich................ [[[[ 4% worse
Glendening.... [[[[[[[ 7% worse

Perhaps there is something wrong with these numbers. If so, I'd love to hear about it from the Maryland LCV (or anyone else out there), especially Cindy Schwartz or Frederick Hoover.

Environmentalists need to think more like engineers and statisticians

This item appeared recently in The Economist's Bagehot column:

Political commentators, in other words, have concerned themselves with what will happen; what has happened; and what should happen. Few have addressed what is happening—that is, whether policies work and how the country is changing.

The author was talking about the state of political commentary, but the insight made me think of environmental watchdogs like the Maryland League of Conservation Voters and Environment Maryland.

Such groups tend to operate in their heads, theorizing and dreaming about laws, politics and programs. They really should spend more time thinking like pragmatic engineers and creative statisticians.

They should also keep one foot in the real measurable world by putting more effort into improving monitoring methods, collecting new data and finding better ways to analyze it and present it.

Bias at Maryland LCV: scorecards seem to measure intentions instead of results

Here are LCV's grades on Air Quality for the past three administrations:

97 ]]]]]]]]]]]] A (Glendening/DEM)
01 ]]]]]]]]]]] A- (Glendening/DEM)
04 ]]]]] ......... C- (Ehrlich/GOP)
06 ]]]]]]......... C (Ehrlich/GOP)
08 ]]]]]]]]]]]] A (O'Malley/DEM)

An O'Malley administration report (Improving Maryland'sAir Quality 1990-2008) describes air quality progress under Ehrlich and O'Malley as follows:

For the past 6 years [4 under Ehrlich and 2 under O'Malley] this improvement has been nothing short of dramatic. Ozone and fine particle levels have never been lower. Carbon monoxide and lead levels in the air have pretty much been eliminated. Toxic air pollutants like benzene and acetaldehyde have been cut by over half.

In contrast, LCV's report card tarred Ehrlich with these words:

[Ehrlich's] record on allowing poor air quality to continue and worsen is serious problem that directly affects public health and the environment.

LCV did not back up this statement with any numbers or specifics that I could find.

Their contention of worsening air quality under Ehrlich is dubious because air quality has steadily improved across the US for almost every pollutant in almost every state under almost every governor since the the original Clean Air Act passed 40-odd years ago during Richard Nixon's first term.

The O'Malley report gives numbers only for ozone and particulates. Both improved under Ehrlich between 2002 and 2006.

So if Glendening and O'Malley didn't do any better than Ehrlich in improving the measurable quality of Maryland's air, what exactly did they do to get marks two full letter grades higher than Ehrlich's?

They "supported" certain programs. They "testified" and "pushed" for certain legislation. They provided "outreach and education". They also "promoted" certain technologies--something that governments should stay away from because the results have been so poor.

And what did LVC overlook in granting an A- on Air Quality to Glendening? In the LCV's own words, the Glendening administration

had "cooked the books" on the data in the Baltimore region in order to show compliance with the Clean Air Act.

I don't know what LCV is referring to here--they don't give any details. But what sin in environmental protection is worse than faking the data? How could LCV give an A- to an administration that faked data? LCV gave failing marks to Ehrlich in Baltimore City for shutting down a few ozone monitoring stations. But for faking data, Glendening got a free pass and an A-.

But wait, there's more.

LCV trashed Ehrlich on asthma:

Maryland's Department of Health issued a report in 2003 that concluded air pollution has created a growing epidemic of asthma in the state. In that year alone, there were 32,000 emergency room visits, 8,000 hospitalizations, and 88 deaths reported due to asthma--nearly double the amounts reported in 1980. As a result of the Ehrlich administration's failure to aggressively address these air pollution problems, more than 80 percent of Marylanders are forced to contend with ozone and smog levels higher than the federal air standards deemed to be healthy.

To recap, Governor Ehrlich published a report during his second year in office that identified a serious problem. After only two years in office, LCV gave him a low grade for not fixing this problem which had been growing under Democratic administrations for 20+ years. One of two pollutants linked to asthma by LCV (ozone) actually improved during Ehrlich's term of office: 10% better for the 1-hour standard and 11% better for the 8-hour standards*.

And what did LCV say about asthma in report cards for Glendening and O'Malley?

Nothing in 1997 for Glendening. Nothing in 2001 for Glendening. This is somewhat understandable because it seems to have been Ehrlich who did the heavy lifting that uncovered the problem, after Glendening left office. But what did LCV say about O'Malley's record on asthma--the asthma "epidemic" that was such a serious problem under Ehrlich ?

Nothing.

Cindy Schwartz and Frederick Hoover are you listening?


*Numbers estimated from graphs in O'Malley administration report.

Scrutinizing Maryland LCV's environmental scorecards

In my previous post I listed a decade's worth of environmental grades for the gubernatorial administrations of Parris Glendening, Bob Ehrlich and Martin O'Malley.

It seems to me that LCV's scorecards have focused far too much on intentions and far too little on results. It also seems to me that LCV is unfairly biased against those who are inclined to favor small government.

In some upcoming posts, I plan to scrutinize LCV's scorecards to see if I'm on target.

Maryland LCV grades on environment for Governors Glendening, Ehrlich and O'Malley

Since the late 1990s, the Maryland League of Conservation Voters (LCV) has issued scorecards that grade the environmental records of Maryland's governors. Below, I've graphed the grades over time across three administrations:

Overall Environmental Grades
-------------------------------
97 ]]]]]]]]] B (Glendening/DEM)
01 ]]]]]]]]]] B+ (Glendening/DEM)
04 ]]] D+ (Ehrlich/GOP)
06 ]] D (Ehrlich/GOP)
08 ]]]]]]]]]]] A- (O'Malley/DEM)

Air Quality Grade
------------------
97 ]]]]]]]]]]]] A (Glendening/DEM)
01 ]]]]]]]]]]] A- (Glendening/DEM)
04 ]]]]] C- (Ehrlich/GOP)
06 ]]]]]]C (Ehrlich/GOP)
08 ]]]]]]]]]]] A (O'Malley/DEM)

Water Quality Grade
---------------------
97 ]]]]]]]] B- (Glendening/DEM)
01 ]]]]]]]]]] B+ (Glendening/DEM)
04 ]]]]]]]]] B (Ehrlich/DEM)*
06 ]]]] D+ (Ehrlich/GOP
08 ]]]]]]]]]]]] A (O'Malley/DEM)

To see the individual scorecards, follow these links:
Glendening 1997, Glendening 2001, Ehrlich 2004, Ehrlich 2006, O'Malley 2008.


*This grade was given shortly after the Bay Restoration Fund, aka the "Flush Tax," was enacted.

NOTE: In addition to air quality and water quality, the LCV scorecards give grades for a handful of other subcategories: Administration & Appointments, Climate Change, Energy, Fisheries & Wildlife, Smart Growth, and Transportation).

Del. Mike Smigiel critiques Maryland LCV's scorecard

Some highlights:

He wonders what an early voting bill has to do with the environment:

three years ago, in the 2005 – 2006 “scorecard” the League rated legislators on whether they were good or bad environmentalist based on how they voted on the “early voting bill” (SB-478) and a second score was given on whether the legislators voted to over ride the Governor’s veto on the “early voting bill”. . . . it is no accident that these two votes, which have nothing to do with the environment, were rated as pro environmental votes to make sure Republicans got at least two more bad votes on the environment than their Democratic counterparts.

He goes on to note another bias in LCV's scorecard that is less obvious but no less egregious:

the League of Conservation Voters does something inexplicable that usually will help Democrats and hurt Republicans. The League of Conservation Voters is only counting the first vote on bills and not the later vote on the same bill, after amendments, which is passed and then sent to the governor for his signature, where it then becomes law. It would seem if your intent is tell the public where a legislator is on the environment it would be better to tell them where he or she ended up and not where they started out. It is much more likely that Democrats would vote for a bill that is full of what Republicans may consider to be excessive regulations or taxes when it is first introduced. It is usually after a public hearing and an opportunity to amend bills in committee and on the floor that Republicans would come on board and find that the bill, having gone through compromise, is now acceptable.