Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, has appealed the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s denial of nearly $34 million in disaster relief to help Western Maryland areas recovering from a devastating flood earlier this year. Maryland’s sole Republican member of Congress said Moore should look to his own budget before appealing to the federal government for help.
Rep. Andy Harris, a Republican who represents the 1st District, told Maryland Matters that the flooding is “a tragedy,” but said federal aid was not warranted in this instance.
“Federal emergency aid really should be for very, very large disasters that states can’t afford to cover on their own,” Harris, the chair of the House Freedom Caucus, said this week. “The governor just raised taxes $1.6 billion. He probably could find $30 million to send out to Western Maryland.”
“Extreme rainfall” from May 12-14 led to flooding that inundated parts of Allegany and Garrett counties. Midland, Lonaconing and Westernport in Allegany County were among the hardest-hit communities, with floodwaters inundating homes, schools and businesses, washing out roads and damaging pipelines.
The affected counties are all rural, majority Republican and economically challenged areas of the state. The 17.2% poverty rate in Allegany County trails only Baltimore City and Somerset County, both at 20.1%, according to 2023 estimates in the Maryland Manual Online. Maryland’s overall poverty rate is 11.1%.
President Donald Trump has called FEMA “a disaster” and said states should handle disaster recovery with the federal government reimbursing some of the costs.
The comments made Monday appear to represent a reversal for Harris, who three weeks ago joined the other nine members of the state’s congressional delegation, all Democrats, asking Trump to approve the aid request.
“We appreciate the congressman’s stated support for getting the FEMA funding that Western Maryland deserves,” Maureen Regan, a Moore spokesperson, said in a statement responding to Harris’ latest comments. “FEMA funding will be a critical boost to the nearly $1.5 million in disaster recovery and energy assistance that the state has already provided. We just hope the president will listen to the pleas of Mountain Marylanders to help rebuild their towns.”
Deadline? What’s that?
There are many words to describe the letter from 23 members of Congress to the Executive Council of the Chesapeake Bay Program regarding the latest multiyear proposal to clean up the bay: thoughtful, bipartisan, forceful, forward-looking, thorough.
Late.
The letter is dated Sept. 11, even though the official public comment period for the “Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement Beyond 2025 Revision Draft” closed on Sept. 1, ending a 90-day comment period. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said “our goal was to get it in” by the deadline, but apparently it takes a while to get 23 House and Senate members in line.
The letter is generally appreciative of the work the Bay Program has done to prepare the document, but says it needs more specifics, and it needs to be written in plain language that regular folks understand. And it says the plan needs to be both broad-based to cover all the challenges the bay currently faces, but also flexible enough to meet challenges that can’t be predicted yet, as new environmental problems crop up.
The letter is signed by eight senators including Van Hollen, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and 15 House members, including six Maryland Democrats: Reps. Kweisi Mfume, Steny Hoyer, Glenn Ivey, Sarah Elfreth, Johnny Olszewski and April McClain Delaney. All 23 signers are from states in the bay watershed.
Despite the date, Van Hollen’s not too worried about the work behind the letter going to waste.
“From our perspective, we believe that when you’ve got this many members of Congress on a bipartisan basis weighing in that, you know, we expect these views to be taken into account,” he said.
Leave her alone
That was the thrust of an open letter from Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown and 20 other Democratic attorneys general to the U.S. Justice Department recently over its investigation of New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat.
The letter accuses the department of “pursuing a pattern of harassment and intimidation” after James won a financial fraud lawsuit against President Donald Trump, then a private citizen. Trump has appealed the ruling that ordered him to pay about a half-billion dollars. That award has since been rejected as excessive by a New York state appellate court, which otherwise upheld the ruling against him.
In February 2025, just weeks after Trump was sworn in to his second term in office, Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed a “weaponization working group” to investigate “all departments or agencies exercising civil or criminal enforcement authority of the United States over the last four years.” Specifically it was directed to investigate James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Special Counsel Jack Smith, as well as prosecution of Jan. 6 riot defendants and people accused of blocking access to abortion clinics, among other targets.
“Every aspect of the department’s campaign against AG James makes plain that it is not rooted in any legitimate suspicion of wrongdoing: President Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi are both on record having made public threats against AG James,” the Democratic attorneys general wrote.
The letter also criticizes Edward Martin Jr., a Trump loyalist heading the Justice Department’s working group, pointing to a “crude letter” Martin wrote to James’ personal attorney, calling for her to resign, and later showing up at James’ home to pose for press photographs, according to video obtained by CNN.
“Mr. Martin’s antics and actions amount more to those of a showman than to those of a representative of the United States government charged with ensuring that impartiality, integrity and fairness are the cornerstones of criminal investigation and enforcement,” the attorneys general wrote.
A representative with the department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Other attorneys general who signed the letter are from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
When being called bench-warmer is a good thing
Gov. Wes Moore this week tapped “two remarkable servants of the law” to fill vacancies on two circuit court benches, with James J. Dietrich appointed in Montgomery County and Kristina L. Watkowski in Worcester County.
“Throughout their legal careers, James Dietrich and Kristina Watkowski have demonstrated an unwavering dedication to integrity and justice that will serve the people of Maryland well for years to come,” Moore said in a statement Wednesday announcing the appointments.
Dietrich has spent close to 30 years as a prosecutor, beginning his career in the Howard County State’s Attorney’s Office, where he served for 21 years and was part of the circuit court trial team for 10 years. For the last seven years he has been a prosecutor with the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office, serving on the major crimes and post-conviction units.
Dietrich teaches courses on evidence, criminal procedure and trial practice as an adjunct professor at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law, where he received his law degree. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Le Moyne College.
Watkowski began her legal career clerking for Judges Theodore R. Eschenburg Sr. and Thomas C. Groton III in Worcester County Circuit Court, before moving to the Maryland Office of the Public Defender, where she eventually became supervising attorney for the Worcester County office. Since 2022, she has worked as an attorney with Booth, Cropper & Marriner, with a practice primarily focused on civil litigation with a concentration in land use and zoning.
Watkowski earned an associate degree from Howard Community College and her bachelor’s degree from Salisbury University, before getting her law degree at Widener University’s Delaware Law School.
Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501(c)(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: scrane@marylandmatters.org. Follow Maryland Matters on Facebook and Bluesky.