Council Members Bring Home Global Warming, Trans Fats

New Montgomery County Council members are jumping out in support of some increasingly popular positions on big issues: trans fats and global warming.

County Council member Duchy Trachtenberg (D-At Large) has introduced a bill to ban trans fats in Montgomery's hundreds of restaurants.

She quickly won the backing of the big guy on the block, Marriott, which announced last month that it will ban trans-fat cooking oils from its more than 2,300 hotels in North America.

Fellow newbie Roger Berliner (D-Potomac-Bethesda) last week sponsored a seminar, moderated by several of his colleagues, to discuss how the county could do its part to reduce global warming, increasingly viewed as harming the environment (see onetime presidential hopeful Al Gore's flick "An Inconvenient Truth" for visuals).

"We were trying to get leading experts to come and share their thoughts with us as a prelude to legislation," Berliner said. "The next step is to move it to legislation."

Among the possibilities, he said, are looking at ways to provide low-interest loans to homeowners who could refit their homes with energy-efficient products. He also wants to encourage the school system and other big government users of diesel fuels to look at soy-based diesel, something he said Arlington already is using.

Meanwhile, the county's library system is getting into the global warming issue, sponsoring an eight-part series beginning next month at the Rockville Library, 21 Maryland Ave.

The series will begin at 7 p.m. April 12 with Save the Planet: What You Can Do About "An Inconvenient Truth" featuring a presentation by Lise Van Susteren, a Bethesda resident and spokeswoman for Gore's traveling global warming show.

Eric Coffman and Susan Kirby of the Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection will present "Taking the First Steps in Applying Energy Efficiency and Clean Energy in Your Life." As a reward to those who show up, Coffman and Kirby will hand out energy-saving, compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Council Bill Could Clarify Policy on McMansions

The debate over mansionization in Montgomery County shows no sign of slowing. As officials continue to hear complaints about builders tearing down older houses and replacing them with bigger ones, two County Council members are proposing a bill they say will help clarify county policies.

The bill, introduced by Berliner and council President Marilyn Praisner (D-Eastern County) is aimed at spelling out the distance between houses on lots laid out in 1928 or earlier.

It's significant because many new, larger homes are replacing smaller, older houses on older lots, and residents frequently complain that they are too close, block sunlight because of their proximity and occupy too much of the lot.