As if it wasn't hot enough already, some green groups and their business allies turned up the heat today on the O'Malley administration and state lawmakers, issuing a report saying Maryland's efforts to reduce climate-warming pollution are falling short and warning of more flooding like that pictured above.

Only one of the top 10 programs for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the state's 2008 Climate Action Planis on track, according to the report by Environment Maryland, a statewide green group.  Five have shown mixed results, the report says, while the state has made "minimal progress" in one area and no progress at all in three others.

"We've made some progress, but not enough," said Tommy Landers, campaign director for Environment Maryland. To illustrate the need for climate action to avoid rising sea level, he and the others released the report at a press conference on the waterfront in Fells Point, where they displayed a photo of the area under water in the wake of Tropical Storm Isabel in 2003.

The state's participation with other northeastern states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which caps carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants, is the only program that's essentially on track, Landers said.  Even that, though, needs to be tightened to have more impact, he said, and the tens of millions of dollars raised by making utilities buy pollution "allowances" should be spent more on promoting energy efficiency and renewables.

The decision announced last week that New Jersey would withdraw from the regional greenhouse-gas effort complicates matters, but doesn't mean it still can't benefit Maryland, the activists say.

The state has been slow to get started and has underfunded programs to help homeowners and businesses improve their energy efficiency, the report says.  Peter Van Buren, head of Terra Logos Energy Group, a Baltimore energy improvement firm, said nearly 500 homeowners have taken advantage of the rebates offered by the Maryland Energy Administration for home efficiency investments, but those funds are about to run out.