GUEST ENDORSEMENTS:

Sierra Club Picks Ruppersberger, Townsend

"We're confident that everyone on our list will work to promote Smart Growth, bring back a healthy Bay, and make our air safe to breathe. But in the Baltimore area, we're focusing above all on helping these two candidates. Their victories will make the most difference, and they're in the tightest races," said Cliff Terry, political co-chair for the club's Greater Baltimore Group.

"We can see what to expect from Dutch Ruppersberger in Congress by what he's done as County Executive. Under his stewardship Baltimore County is a leader in preserving and protecting our open spaces, forests, farmlands, wetlands, and pure drinking water. In designing its Smart Growth program, the state used many of Dutch's ideas," Terry said.

Ruppersberger's opponent, Republican Helen Delich Bentley, on the other hand, "has sided consistently with corporate polluters and against programs that could have improved the Chesapeake Bay and protected our health," Terry said.

The 2nd Congressional District takes in the Bay shore and peninsulas from Havre de Grace to Pasadena and Severn and beyond, and a branch extends through Parkville, Timonium, and Cockeysville to then curl south to include much of Randallstown.

In endorsing Townsend for governor, Terry said she "is committed to Smart Growth, preserving land, and protecting the Chesapeake Bay. She knows the health impacts and costs from air pollution and, for example, she'll pursue Maryland's petition to make the Federal government further reduce pollution by out-of-state power plants."

Terry said Townsend's opponent, Republican current 2nd District Congressman Robert Ehrlich, has the worst environmental record of Maryland's Congressional delegation. "He voted against stricter auto mileage and emission standards, against stricter limits on arsenic in our drinking water, and for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling."

Following are the Sierra Club's endorsements in statewide races and in districts that are at least partly in Baltimore or Baltimore County:

GOVERNOR: Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (D)
LT. GOVERNOR: Charles Larson (D)
ATTORNEY GENERAL: Joseph Curran Jr. (D) CONGRESS:

1 Wayne Gilchrest (R)
2 Dutch Ruppersberger (D)
3 Ben Cardin (D)
6 Don DeArmon (D)
7 Elijah Cummings (D)

MARYLAND SENATE:

6 Norman Stone (D)
10 Delores Kelley (D)
11 Paula Hollinger (D)
40 Ralph Hughes (D)
41 Lisa Gladden (D)
42 Jim Brochin (D)
43 Joan Carter Conway (D)
44 Verna Jones (D)
45 Nathaniel McFadden (D)

HOUSE OF DELEGATES:

5B Steve Kirsch (D)
6 Paul Blitz (R)
7 Randy Cogar (D)
10 Adrienne Jones (D)
     Shirley Nathan-Pulliam (D)
11 Dan Morhaim (D)
     Robert Zirkin (D)
40 Salima Siler Marriott (D)
     Howard Rawlings (D)
41 Nathaniel Oaks (D)
     Sandy Rosenberg (D)
42 Jim Campbell (D)
     Steve Lafferty (D)
43 Ann Marie Doory (D)
     Maggie McIntosh (D)
44 Ruth Kirk (D)
     Jeffrey Paige (D)
45 Hattie Harrison (D)
46 Carolyn Krysiak (D)
     Brian McHale (D)

BALTIMORE COUNTY COUNCIL:

3 T. Bryan McIntire (R)