Effort Along I-95 to Boost Environmental, Economic Vitality
By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 30, 2008; B03
Top political leaders from Maryland, Virginia and the District announced an effort yesterday to make the area a leader in "green" energy and increase its competitiveness in the global economy.
The Chesapeake Crescent initiative will bring together officials from the federal government, the region's congressional delegations, states and cities in addition to members of the business community.
They will work on issues related to the environment, transportation, economic development and housing in the "crescent," which runs along the Interstate 95 corridor from the northeastern corner of Maryland to Hampton Roads in Virginia, officials said. The effort will be funded by $1.5 million from a group of entrepreneurs, $250,000 each from Maryland and Virginia and $100,000 from the District.
The announcement was made in Washington at a news conference at the Capitol.
One project calls for promoting plug-in hybrid vehicles, which are expected to be commercially available in 2010. U.S. Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) said at the news conference that he and Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) have asked the Government Accountability Office to study whether federal buildings have enough infrastructure to support such vehicles.
If it is determined that they do, the congressmen say they will introduce legislation to encourage federal agencies to increase their use of the cars to jump-start broader acceptance of them, he said. Herb Miller, a D.C. developer who co-founded the initiative, said entrepreneurs could work to ensure that plug-in cars are available at shopping malls and other sites.
Miller said he hopes the area will become the "Silicon Valley of clean energy," with environmental projects that create jobs and reduce pollution.
Officials said that the region has enormous possibilities because it includes the three largest concentrations of federal workers in the country, around the District, Baltimore and Hampton Roads. The region has an educated workforce and dozens of universities and government laboratories.
But it also suffers from traffic jams, pollution, a shortage of affordable housing and an "absent culture of economic entrepreneurship," according to the description of the initiative.
"What you have is the realization that the problems in this region aren't designated by the artificial boundaries set up in the 1700s and 1800s," said Miller, who is co-chairing the project with George Vradenburg, a prominent area businessman and philanthropist.
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) said the work will go beyond projects undertaken by regional trade and government groups. "It is an effort by government and business together to expand our definition of community beyond any one metro area," he said.
O'Malley, Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) and D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) have held regular meetings on cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay for years. "We realized, in the course of that dialogue, there's much more we can do" as a region, Kaine said.
Officials said they are refining the initiative. Fenty said one idea is that officials could get ideas from their peers in other jurisdictions.
"We'll steal best practices from one another," he said.
U.S. House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) also attended the news conference.
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