|
Help save yourself
— join CLT
today! |
CLT introduction and membership application |
What CLT saves you from the auto excise tax alone |
Make a contribution to support
CLT's work by clicking the button above
Ask your friends to join too |
Visit CLT on Facebook |
Barbara Anderson's Great Moments |
Follow CLT on Twitter |
CLT UPDATE
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
Good and bad news for taxpayers
|
"I am thankful that the Legislature took
action on several important pieces of legislation ... I will
continue to work across the aisle with our partners in the
Legislature to make Massachusetts a better place to live,
work and raise a family."
— Gov. Baker on the passage of several bills at the
recent rare weekend marathon sessions held by the
Legislature.
"This isn't sausage-making, which requires
some skill. It's tossing meat into a grinder and punching
the 'on' button before walking away."
— Chip Ford, Executive Director of Citizens
for Limited Taxation, on the marathon sessions.
Beacon Hill Roll Call
Sunday, August 7, 2016
Heard on Beacon Hill
Time can be a friend or foe. And depending
on your perspective this week, it probably wore both hats.
Legislative leaders guided their two-year
policy agenda to a harried and bumpy landing in the early
minutes of Monday morning, pushing a deadline to its
breaking point and extending it by 15 minutes before banging
the gavel with an arm full of accomplishments to tout as
they shifted to re-election (or vacation) mode.
But even the deals cut in the waning hours
of formal sessions had more of a take-what-you-can-get feel
than one of satisfying compromise, a perception only
reinforced by the back-biting between the branches that
followed in the days after the lobbyists, television cameras
and bleary-eyed staffers had vacated the State House's
halls.
State House News Service
Friday, August 5, 2016
Weekly Roundup - Everyone to their corners
Formal legislative sessions are over but
that doesn’t mean the state’s budget problems have been
resolved. In fact the frenzy of activity that ran until just
after midnight on the final day of the legislative session
made it more difficult to fix the state’s nagging fiscal
problems — and dumped much of the responsibility for doing
so into Gov. Charlie Baker’s lap.
Responding to a slowdown in expected
revenues for the fiscal year that began July 1, Baker had
trimmed $265 million in spending from the $39.1 billion
budget. The administration’s analysis determined that the
budget was underfunded in several areas, prompting Baker to
get out the red pen.
Always thinking optimistically about
revenues — it makes spending easier — lawmakers restored
nearly all of that spending in the final days of the
legislative session, including hundreds of earmarks. Then
they headed off to the campaign trail, where they can crow
about the funds they managed to secure for the local harvest
festival or gazebo repair.
And Baker will be left to make the numbers
add up.
The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, in
its budget analysis, said “the extent of this year’s
spending overrides increases the likelihood of midyear
budget cuts.”
And rest assured many lawmakers will be
front-and-center complaining about those cuts, should they
come to pass.
A Boston Herald editorial
Tuesday, August 9, 2016
More budget roulette
When Gov. Charlie Baker signs a highway and
small bridge repair funding bill on Wednesday, the
Republican governor plans to nix a proposed pilot program to
test a system that would charge drivers based on how many
miles they drive.
Labeling the vehicle-miles-traveled pilot
program a "tax," Baker said he will veto the section of the
infrastructure bill that lawmakers had hoped to use to test
a possible alternative to the gas tax.
"We've already said that we don't support
the vehicle miles traveled tax and we're going to veto that
section of the bill, but we're really pleased with a number
of other elements in that bill that's going to make it
possible once again to work collaboratively with our
colleagues in local government to do a lot of important work
on small bridges and the projects associated with the
Complete Streets program," Baker told reporters on Tuesday.
State House News Service
Tuesday, August 9, 2016
Baker will veto pilot aimed at testing vehicle miles
traveled tax
Perhaps Democrats on Beacon Hill thought
Gov. Charlie Baker was just so eager to collaborate that
he’d go along with just about anything — including the
Senate’s wish for a tax on every mile driven by a
Massachusetts motorist. On that issue, we’re pleased to say,
they would be wrong.
Baker plans to sign a highway funding bill
this morning, but said yesterday he will veto a section that
lays the groundwork for a vehicle-miles-traveled tax.
Lawmakers, who have adjourned formal sessions for the year,
needn’t scramble to override it.
The bill requires the state Department of
Transportation to apply for a federal grant to run a pilot
program, which would analyze the “VMT” (yes, of course it
has an acronym), including its impact on gas tax revenues.
But Baker isn’t biting.
A Boston Herald editorial
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
Driving tax derailed
The array of devices on the large, new metal
gantries you’ve been driving under along the Massachusetts
Turnpike will soon be electronically collecting tolls. But
they are already quietly capturing and storing information
on how fast you’ve been driving.
Officials with the state Department of
Transportation say the data need to be gathered for the new
toll system to work properly and that there is no plan to
use the data to crack down on speeding motorists.
But privacy advocates worry that the state
could change its mind someday. They are also concerned that
data captured by electronic tolling could, regardless, wind
up being used against drivers, if it is turned over for use
in criminal or civil court cases or stolen by hackers....
The network of gantries, which has been in
test mode since the start of June and is scheduled to go
live in October, will replace tollbooths on the Pike as the
state makes the transition to all-electronic, open-road
tolling.
Drivers will no longer have to stop, or even
slow down, to pay tolls. Instead, vehicles with E-ZPass
transponders will be charged automatically when they pass
under sensors installed on the gantries.
Vehicles without transponders will have
their license plates photographed by cameras mounted on the
gantries, and a bill will be mailed to car owners....
[Kade Crockford, director of the Technology
for Liberty Project at the American Civil Liberties Union of
Massachusetts] said there’s always the fear that, down the
line, the Transportation Department or other state leaders
may change course and decide they do want to use the speed
data to ticket drivers.
She said her organization is still
researching whether current laws allow the state to use
electronic tolling data to issue tickets for speeding or
other traffic infractions. But, citing existing language in
a state statute, she said it appears the data could not be
used for such purposes without action by lawmakers....
Elsewhere in the country, automated
technology is used to ticket speeding drivers. Illinois,
Maryland, and Oregon use speed cameras in construction
zones, and communities across 12 other states and
Washington, D.C., also use speed cameras, according to the
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
But automated speed enforcement has
generated controversy amid claims it is unconstitutional and
an invasion of privacy, prompting some jurisdictions to stop
doing it.
Thirteen states have passed laws prohibiting
the use of speed cameras, according to the Governors Highway
Safety Association. The group lists Massachusetts as one of
28 states with no law specifically addressing the use of
speed cameras.
The Boston Globe
Sunday, August 7, 2016
What those gantries on the Pike are secretly doing
. . . Besides increasing our electricity
costs, the Senate bill has some other onerous new ideas. One
section creates a new “energy auditing requirement” for the
sale of your home. A home energy rating and labeling system
would be developed by the Mass. Department of Energy
Resources and the score for your home would be based on
energy consumption, costs and greenhouse gas emissions. The
score for your home would have to be disclosed to the buyer
before a sale could take place. I’ll bet the real estate
brokers love this one! ...
Let’s now turn to the main subject of this
column, heating oil. As S.2374 was being debated, over 100
amendments were offered. One, Amendment 61, was co-sponsored
by Senator James Eldridge (D-Acton), Senator Linda D. Forry
(D-Boston) and Senator Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester). The
amendment sets up an Oil Heat Fuel Energy Efficiency Trust
Fund to support oil heat energy efficiency programs. To fund
this new program, a tax of 2½ cents/gal would be assessed on
every gallon of home and commercial heating oil. Senator
Eldridge is reported saying that the tax would raise $20
million annually but would save $120 million annually by
making homes more energy efficient.
Yeah, right. Aren’t you glad that government
is always saving us money by giving us a new tax?
Boston Broadside
Thursday, August 4, 2016
Massachusetts Senate pushes 2½ cent/gal. home heating oil
tax
by Ted Tripp, Senior Political Reporter
|
|
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
Ted Tripp, a longtime CLT member and activist, has been following (and
writing about) a few proposed new burdens to be put upon homeowners in the
recent slew of legislation, as he reported above. Last Thursday he
informed me: "The new energy bill, H.4568, passed Sunday night and sent to
Governor Baker, does not have the fuel oil tax in it. Nor does it have the
home energy audit before sale or the $25 million decommissioning penalty for
Pilgrim. It seems that cooler heads prevailed and the Senate got almost
nothing of what it wanted." Taxpayers and homeowners dodged another
bullet. Good news for taxpayers.
Governor Charlie Baker this afternoon vetoed the Legislature's proposal that
would take the first step toward a new tax, its so-called
"vehicle-miles-traveled pilot program," more good news for taxpayers. In
our CLT Memo to the Legislature and statewide news release on July 29th (" No
New Taxes!") we advised:
An amendment quietly
inserted by the Senate Ways and Means Committee would have Massachusetts
apply for federal funding to test a tax on vehicle miles traveled
scheme. This is the first step toward a new tax on motorists. Whether it
would be in addition to, or on top of the current gas tax is unknown,
but if past is prelude we can assume the worst.
We strongly urge legislators and the governor to reject this first step
toward a new tax.
With legislators having vacated the State House until January
— on vacation and out campaigning for re-election
— there's nobody around to override his veto, so
taxpayers are safe from that step toward new taxes —
for now.
But the insatiable demand from the tax-borrow-and-spend cabal for more, more,
always more revenue never abates, and they are relentless, never wavering.
This is but a speed-bump to them.
Over two years ago, in the CLT Update of June 20, 2014 (" Congratulations
Tank The Gas Tax!"), I observed:
The battle over the automatic increases in the
gas tax will be on the ballot, where it stands a good chance of being
repealed — but look! — already they're scheming for a new
way to pick motorists' pockets. The latest plan is to start
automatically tolling drivers, gas tax or not, for the use of our
roads and highways.
All that's needed for this scheme to work is installation of
"all-electronic toll gantries," first on the Turnpike then around the
state. Don't have an E-ZPass transponder in your vehicle? No problem:
the gantry-mounted camera overhead will take a photo of your license
plate as you drive beneath and, like magic, the bill will arrive in your
mail. Fail to pay that bill, no problem either: they can always suspend
your driver's license or refuse to renew it until you pay it — just as
they already do with unpaid parking tickets, excise taxes, etc.
It begins on the Turnpike in two years. How many more years before
electronic toll gantries start spreading over a road or highway near
you?
The Boston Globe reported:
Patrick Jones, executive director and chief
executive of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike
Association — it’s an organization that represents owners and
operators of toll facilities — said that switching to all-electronic
tolling could also open the door to new ways of thinking about
tolling: congestion pricing, for instance. Under it, tolls
fluctuate, based on the time of day or the number of cars on the
road.
“All-electronic tolling allows for a more nuanced, more precise
tolling based on a number of factors,” Jones said.
If this is the future, the only question is:
will it be in-place-of the gas tax — or in-addition-to the
gas tax?
This being Taxachusetts, I believe we all know the answer. When the
state needs more "revenue" they'll just erect a few more toll gantries.
Watch for incremental mission creep, until toll gantries blot out the
sky!
Incremental revenue mission creep is insidious, pervasive, and invidious.
It is also predictable. What allegedly was a system solely intended to
streamline toll-taking is becoming a multi-faceted platform to shove
government's hand deeper into our pockets from many directions. And with
that capability comes the accompanying threat to our privacy
— the ability to travel freely without government
tracking our every move.
In 1992 — twenty-five years ago before the public
had become widely aware of the potential threats provided by an expanding
technology — I wrote an article warning of things
to come, if we were not vigilant. I think about it when I see what has
happened to our rights and privacy since then, how much we have lost or
surrendered to government, incrementally of course, one small nibble at a time.
I closed " High
Tech and the Age of Intrusion" with a warning from Supreme Court Justice
Louis D. Brandeis (Olmstead v. United States, 1928):
"Experience should teach
us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's
purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert
to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The
greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of
zeal, well-meaning, but without understanding."
|
 |
 |
|
Chip Ford
Executive Director |
|
|
|
|
State House News Service
Friday, August 5, 2016
Weekly Roundup - Everyone to their corners
By Matt Murphy
Time can be a friend or foe. And depending on
your perspective this week, it probably wore
both hats.
Legislative leaders guided their two-year policy
agenda to a harried and bumpy landing in the
early minutes of Monday morning, pushing a
deadline to its breaking point and extending it
by 15 minutes before banging the gavel with an
arm full of accomplishments to tout as they
shifted to re-election (or vacation) mode.
But even the deals cut in the waning hours of
formal sessions had more of a
take-what-you-can-get feel than one of
satisfying compromise, a perception only
reinforced by the back-biting between the
branches that followed in the days after the
lobbyists, television cameras and bleary-eyed
staffers had vacated the State House's halls.
"No one moves their position until the end.
Nobody changes their position until they have to
because we all think we're right and have the
right ideas. What drives compromise is the
timeline," House Majority Leader Ronald Mariano
said.
Legislators walked away from the formal portion
of the 2015-2016 session having finished work on
a major energy diversification bill and coming
to terms on a regulatory structure for the
app-based ride-hailing industry, an economic
development bill, municipal finance reform and
gender pay equity.
Still, while the House and Senate were able to
compromise on five of six major bills they
prioritized in the final weeks of the session,
the work product showed off just how little they
really agree upon, be that politics, policy or
process.
The energy bill, calling for significant new
procurement of hydroelectric and offshore wind
power, disappointed many in the Senate who felt
the final legislation did do enough to advance
the cause of renewable energy production and
power conservation. Sen. Marc Pacheco, who sat
on the conference committee, refused to even
sign off on the compromise as he hoped to try
and amend the deal on the floor before he ran
out of time and didn't want to risk killing the
bill outright.
Another compromise bill - economic development -
was barely approved and left out Senate
proposals to expand a tax break for low-income
families and pay for it with a new tax on
short-term apartment and vacation rentals.
"I hate 'em. I hate 'em," Rosenberg said,
referring to late-night sessions, in a Herald
Radio interview this week. "I don't think we're
worse than college students but we should
definitely not be doing what we did this year
for sure. Look, there's always going to be
crunch at the end of session but this year we
had six major bills all being negotiated in the
final couple of weeks of the session all the way
up to midnight on the last night. That was way
too much. These things should be spread out over
the course of the year."
The result, he said, was good bills instead of
great ones. It wasn't the first time in the week
that the Amherst Democrat, shepherding the
Senate through its first end-of-session under
his leadership, griped about the timing issue.
Amid the crazed weekend sessions, he blamed the
House for waiting too late in the session to act
on major policy.
Sens. Benjamin Downing and Daniel Wolf, both
retiring, also questioned House Speaker Robert
DeLeo's motivations, suggesting a cozy
relationship with the state's business community
has caused him to lose sight of working
families.
Needless to say, House leaders blasted back and
DeLeo was content to let his soldiers do the
fighting. Mariano said senators like Downing and
Wolf who never served in the House don't
understand the "art of negotiation" and the
Senate's lack of discipline and focus when
legislating made deal-making difficult at the
wire.
Infighting among Democrats aside, Gov. Charlie
Baker seemed pretty pleased with how things
turned out. On Monday, he inked a gender pay
equity bill at a made-for-campaign-ad signing
ceremony on the Grand Staircase that caught the
attention of the New York Times, followed by a
more low-key signing of the Uber bill Friday.
Energy appears to be up next for Baker's
signature on Monday, and the others probably
won't be far behind.
A major bill that came up short dealt with
limits on the use of non-compete agreements
between employers and employees, an important
issue in the tech world, but one that will have
to wait until next year.
Wolf said the Senate had bent toward the House's
proposal to limit non-competes to one year, but
refused to break over a clause that would have
forced employees to negotiate "garden leave" -
or their terms of compensation during the
restricted period - up front instead after their
dismissal or when they leave a job.
With the legislating season entering a lighter
but still active phase, expect the ballot
campaigns to pick up steam.
Groups on both sides of the charter school
expansion debate are going on air with
television ads to sway voters, and the battle
over whether to legalize and regulate the adult
use of marijuana heated up with Boston City
Council President Michelle Wu headlining a rally
for the Yes on 4 campaign while 119 legislators
formally threw in with Baker, Boston Mayor Marty
Walsh and others in opposition.
Campaigning for these questions, as well as the
200 seats in the Legislature and nine seats in
Congress, will begin to grab more headlines in
the weeks to come, but for now some were looking
forward to a breather before jumping into the
fray.
"I hope we can all go home and take a big nap
over the summer and hit refresh," Provincetown
Democrat Rep. Sarah Peake said.
STORY OF THE WEEK: All stories must end, but
characters in this book are still trying to
figure out whether it was a happy ending.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, August 9, 2016
A Boston Herald editorial
More budget roulette
Formal legislative sessions are over but that
doesn’t mean the state’s budget problems have
been resolved. In fact the frenzy of activity
that ran until just after midnight on the final
day of the legislative session made it more
difficult to fix the state’s nagging fiscal
problems — and dumped much of the responsibility
for doing so into Gov. Charlie Baker’s lap.
Responding to a slowdown in expected revenues
for the fiscal year that began July 1, Baker had
trimmed $265 million in spending from the $39.1
billion budget. The administration’s analysis
determined that the budget was underfunded in
several areas, prompting Baker to get out the
red pen.
Always thinking optimistically about revenues —
it makes spending easier — lawmakers restored
nearly all of that spending in the final days of
the legislative session, including hundreds of
earmarks. Then they headed off to the campaign
trail, where they can crow about the funds they
managed to secure for the local harvest festival
or gazebo repair.
And Baker will be left to make the numbers add
up.
The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, in its
budget analysis, said “the extent of this year’s
spending overrides increases the likelihood of
midyear budget cuts.”
And rest assured many lawmakers will be
front-and-center complaining about those cuts,
should they come to pass.
Among the vital spending measures lawmakers
voted to restore was nearly $8 million for the
Massachusetts Cultural Council, which provides
grants to arts organizations. Baker had trimmed
funding for the program by half, understanding
that when times are tough the taxpayers should
perhaps not be forced to pay for new seats at
the Citi Wang Theater, or to prop up the budget
of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Lawmakers won
that fight, though, insisting small
organizations would suffer most.
Lawmakers also restored funds to the office of
Secretary of State William Galvin, who had
irresponsibly misled the public into believing
the state’s new early-voting program was under
threat.
Baker’s approach to budgeting is, generally, to
plan for the worst and hope for the best. In
this instance the Legislature is planning for
the best and hoping the worst doesn’t come to
pass. It’s a risk we wish they wouldn’t take.
State House News Service
Tuesday, August 9, 2016
Baker will veto pilot aimed at testing vehicle
miles traveled tax
By Matt Murphy and Michael Norton
When Gov. Charlie Baker signs a highway and
small bridge repair funding bill on Wednesday,
the Republican governor plans to nix a proposed
pilot program to test a system that would charge
drivers based on how many miles they drive.
Labeling the vehicle-miles-traveled pilot
program a "tax," Baker said he will veto the
section of the infrastructure bill that
lawmakers had hoped to use to test a possible
alternative to the gas tax.
"We've already said that we don't support the
vehicle miles traveled tax and we're going to
veto that section of the bill, but we're really
pleased with a number of other elements in that
bill that's going to make it possible once again
to work collaboratively with our colleagues in
local government to do a lot of important work
on small bridges and the projects associated
with the Complete Streets program," Baker told
reporters on Tuesday.
The bill (H 4557) authorizes $750 million in
highway spending and creates a new $50 million
grant program to help cities and towns repair
some of the 1,300 municipally owned bridges of
not more than 20-feet in length. The bill also
updates the two-year-old Complete Streets
programs, which encourages communities to design
streets that are friendly to not just cars but
bicyclists, pedestrians and others.
The bill agreed to by the House and Senate
included a Senate plan directing the
Massachusetts Department of Transportation to
apply to the federal government for a grant to
pilot a vehicle-miles-traveled program with no
more than 500 volunteer participants.
During a Senate debate in July, Sen. Jason
Lewis, of Winchester, said both Oregon and
California are piloting vehicle-miles-traveled
programs, and the federal funding would help the
state test the program's impact on gas
consumption and gas tax revenues.
Sens. Lewis and Thomas McGee and Rep. Tricia
Farley-Bouvier wrote a letter to Baker on Aug. 3
encouraging him to consider the pilot.
"This pilot will help inform the Legislature and
your Administration on the viability of VMT as a
policy solution to solve the problem of our
steadily declining and somewhat unfairly
balanced gas tax. If ever implemented statewide,
we expect that a VMT programs would replace the
gasoline tax," the legislators wrote.
Lewis, McGee and Farley-Bouvier said the fee for
use of state and interstate highways could be
designed to avoid over-burdening residents from
some parts of the state that are more dependent
on the highway system, and could take into
account the time of day of travel and road
congestion with higher prices charged on more
traveled roads.
At a hearing in June focused on ways to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions, Transportation
Secretary Stephanie Pollack said no state had
adopted a vehicle miles traveled tax. The idea
"has been around a long time" and state
officials are monitoring pilot programs, she
said, adding that such proposals have also
surfaced "a lot of privacy issues."
"While vehicle miles traveled are rising in
Massachusetts, last time I checked they are
actually down per capita," Pollack told
lawmakers. "So the assumption that, you know,
gas taxes are going away because we're not using
gas and vehicle miles traveled will go up
forever, I'm not sure that's actually consistent
with the greenhouse gas conversation we're
having today." She later added, "If we do not
make sure that people in communities throughout
the Commonwealth have ways to get where they're
going other than driving, there is a real
fairness problem with increasing the cost of
driving. In too many parts of this Commonwealth
driving is not a choice. It is a necessity and
the only way to go."
Saying the gas tax was producing "diminishing
returns," Farley-Bouvier (D-Pittsfield) raised
the vehicle miles traveled tax with Pollack,
touting it as "a way to replace a tax, not add a
tax."
"If we were to tax by vehicle miles traveled we
could do a number of things," Farley-Bouvier
said. "It would be a more stable way of
collecting the tax. And we could then help to
shape people's behavior because we could have
lower tax for example on non-peak travel."
At the same hearing, in response to questions
from lawmakers about a vehicle miles traveled
tax and carbon fees, Energy and Environmental
Affairs Secretary Matthew Beaton said the Baker
administration has "reservations around taxes
and fees obviously," but added: "We aren't
necessarily ruling any solution out, but really
need to apply that thorough analysis to
everything that we would consider down the road.
There just needs to be some more questions
answered relative to the true impacts and we
continue to work with other states as they
analyze these types of programs."
In the wake of a court ruling calling for
economy-wide carbon emissions reductions,
Pollack in June expressed to lawmakers a general
commitment to reducing emissions from vehicles,
while acknowledging that only 20 percent of the
state's capital spending plan is dedicated to
environmentally friendly expansion initiatives
in the areas of transit, biking and walking.
State lawmakers and the Baker administration are
trying to reduce carbon emissions to meet the
requirements of the 2008 Global Warming
Solutions Act, with the administration facing a
Supreme Judicial Court ruling requiring
emissions cuts across multiple sources. Pollack
said 40 percent of emissions come from
transportation and she feels a responsibility to
come up with solutions.
Facing questions from members of the House and
Senate Global Warming and Climate Change
committees, Pollack said state transportation
officials were taking steps to integrate hybrid
and plug-in vehicles into the state's fleet and
to facilitate development near rapid transit
systems so people can bike, walk or take trains
to work.
Fifty percent of people who live within a half
mile of transit systems walk, bike or use
transit to get to work, she said, a higher rate
than among populations living more than half a
mile from transit. To hasten
transportation-related emission reductions, she
said, the state needs to figure out how to make
those travel options more accessible to more
people.
"If we want to succeed in changing
transportation greenhouse gas emissions we have
to give more people the ability to walk, bike
and use transit in more communities throughout
Massachusetts. It can't be limited just to
people who are lucky enough to be able to afford
to live in Boston or Cambridge or Brookline,"
Pollack said, mentioning the importance of the
Green Line Extension and South Coast Rail.
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
A Boston Herald editorial
Driving tax derailed
Perhaps Democrats on Beacon Hill thought Gov.
Charlie Baker was just so eager to collaborate
that he’d go along with just about anything —
including the Senate’s wish for a tax on every
mile driven by a Massachusetts motorist. On that
issue, we’re pleased to say, they would be
wrong.
Baker plans to sign a highway funding bill this
morning, but said yesterday he will veto a
section that lays the groundwork for a
vehicle-miles-traveled tax. Lawmakers, who have
adjourned formal sessions for the year, needn’t
scramble to override it.
The bill requires the state Department of
Transportation to apply for a federal grant to
run a pilot program, which would analyze the
“VMT” (yes, of course it has an acronym),
including its impact on gas tax revenues.
But Baker isn’t biting.
“We’ve already said that we don’t support the
vehicle-miles-traveled tax and we’re going to
veto that section of the bill, but we’re really
pleased with a number of other elements in that
bill,” he said yesterday.
The idea of a miles-driven tax is popular among
some policymakers who are unhappy that gas tax
revenues — the traditional source of funding for
highway and bridge repair and maintenance —
aren’t keeping up with demand. More efficient
cars and fluctuating gas prices make the
per-gallon gas tax less reliable, they argue.
A tax on miles-driven could be a more reliable
source of revenue, supporters say, and would
spread the tax burden more fairly, because those
who drive more then pay more to maintain the
roads.
But that assumes that people will continue to
drive in the future as much as they do today.
Consider that the folks who are championing the
idea of a VMT are the same folks who are eager
to get us all out of our cars and onto public
transportation to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions. How do the numbers add up if they’re
successful?
Lawmakers who back the VMT also insist that it
would *replace* the gas tax. Considering that
they just battled to the death to increase the
gas tax, then fought a popular movement to
repeal automatic annual increases, it’s highly
unlikely they’d be willing to just walk away
from that revenue stream.
A handful of other states are piloting a
vehicle-miles-traveled tax, to which we say,
good for them. We’ll be happy to look over their
results. But we don’t need to join them for the
ride.
The Boston Globe
Sunday, August 7, 2016
What those gantries on the Pike are secretly
doing
By Matt Rocheleau
The array of devices on the large, new metal
gantries you’ve been driving under along the
Massachusetts Turnpike will soon be
electronically collecting tolls. But they are
already quietly capturing and storing
information on how fast you’ve been driving.
Officials with the state Department of
Transportation say the data need to be gathered
for the new toll system to work properly and
that there is no plan to use the data to crack
down on speeding motorists.
But privacy advocates worry that the state could
change its mind someday. They are also concerned
that data captured by electronic tolling could,
regardless, wind up being used against drivers,
if it is turned over for use in criminal or
civil court cases or stolen by hackers.
“This information is very sensitive data showing
when and where people traveled and how they were
traveling,” said Kade Crockford, director of the
Technology for Liberty Project at the American
Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. “We need
to make sure this data is protected.”
The network of gantries, which has been in test
mode since the start of June and is scheduled to
go live in October, will replace tollbooths on
the Pike as the state makes the transition to
all-electronic, open-road tolling.
Drivers will no longer have to stop, or even
slow down, to pay tolls. Instead, vehicles with
E-ZPass transponders will be charged
automatically when they pass under sensors
installed on the gantries.
Vehicles without transponders will have their
license plates photographed by cameras mounted
on the gantries, and a bill will be mailed to
car owners.
MassDOT spokeswoman Jacquelyn Goddard said in an
e-mail that the “primary reason” for capturing
and storing speed and other toll transaction
data “is to bill the customer correctly.” On the
question of why speed data is needed to do that,
Goddard referred the Globe to technical passage
from a project contract indicating the data are
used to synchronize cameras that record each
license plate.
Another reason to capture the data is for
research, Goddard said.
“Noncustomer identifying transaction data is
also being stored in the interest of identifying
traffic patterns,” she said.
The data are being stored indefinitely, at least
for now. But MassDOT’s record-keeping practices
may change.
The department said it plans to seek guidance
from the state Records Conservation Board to
determine what it should keep and for how long.
“Until RCB approval of the length of time to
store the data is received, MassDOT will
continue to collect and retain speed data,”
Goddard said. “Once the RCB provides guidance,
MassDOT will act accordingly and purge the
MassDOT system of all data that no longer needs
to be retained.”
The department views keeping all the data as the
best solution for now, officials said. It is
forbidden for state agencies to destroy records
without approval of the board, which sets
standards for the management and preservation of
government records in Massachusetts.
“MassDOT has made this decision out of an
abundance of caution to ensure MassDOT is within
whatever amendments may be made by the RCB,”
Goddard said.
Crockford said she and her colleagues at the
ACLU this past week filed a public records
request with the Transportation Department
asking for its policy on the collection and
handling of electronic tolling data.
The move to all-electronic, open-road tolling
statewide began two years ago when the switch
was made on the Tobin Bridge. Officials from the
Transportation Department did not respond to
questions from the Globe about whether that
system has also been collecting speed data.
In other contexts, and particularly for
cellphone users, leaving trails of data has
become almost a routine part of contemporary
life — one that many people think little about.
Still, Crockford said the state should be more
transparent with the Pike-driving public about
what exactly is being collected and what is
being done to protect the data from hackers and
to limit access to the data by state employees,
law enforcement officials, and lawyers.
“Information like this in a centralized database
is a target for hackers and it could also be
used internally by people at the Department of
Transportation,” said Crockford.
“If I’m a divorce lawyer, I might want to know
if my client’s husband got off a certain exit at
a certain time,” she added. “And law enforcement
could have plenty of reasons to want access to
this information.”
E-ZPass records have been used in court cases
before, including in Massachusetts, according to
many media reports.
Goddard, the Transportation Department
spokeswoman, acknowledged that the agency would
surrender toll transaction data if it was
“legally required to do so, for example, in the
event MassDOT would receive a subpoena for
information.”
Crockford said there’s always the fear that,
down the line, the Transportation Department or
other state leaders may change course and decide
they do want to use the speed data to ticket
drivers.
She said her organization is still researching
whether current laws allow the state to use
electronic tolling data to issue tickets for
speeding or other traffic infractions. But,
citing existing language in a state statute, she
said it appears the data could not be used for
such purposes without action by lawmakers.
State law says that MassDOT “shall maintain the
confidentiality of all information including,
but not limited to, photographs or other
recorded images and credit and account data
relative to account holders who participate in
its electronic toll collection system. Such
information shall not be a public record . . .
and shall be used for enforcement purposes only
with respect to toll collection regulations.”
The collection of speed data from the Pike
gantries was first reported by MassLive.com.
Elsewhere in the country, automated technology
is used to ticket speeding drivers. Illinois,
Maryland, and Oregon use speed cameras in
construction zones, and communities across 12
other states and Washington, D.C., also use
speed cameras, according to the Insurance
Institute for Highway Safety.
But automated speed enforcement has generated
controversy amid claims it is unconstitutional
and an invasion of privacy, prompting some
jurisdictions to stop doing it.
Thirteen states have passed laws prohibiting the
use of speed cameras, according to the Governors
Highway Safety Association. The group lists
Massachusetts as one of 28 states with no law
specifically addressing the use of speed
cameras. |
| |
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes
only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Citizens for Limited Taxation ▪
PO Box 1147 ▪ Marblehead, MA 01945
▪ 508-915-3665
BACK TO CLT
HOMEPAGE
|