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CLT UPDATE
Monday, December 28, 2020
The More Things Change . . .
Jump directly
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Most Relevant News Excerpts
(Full news reports follow
Commentary)
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Though only
Massachusetts and three of the 13 state and city governments
that had been part of discussions around creating a regional
effort to staunch vehicle emissions along the East Coast
agreed Monday to be part of the program from the get-go,
Gov. Charlie Baker said it is "a pretty good place to
start."
Twelve states and
Washington, D.C. began the process more than two years ago
of developing a regional "cap-and-invest" program to reduce
carbon pollution from cars and trucks and generate the
resources needed to expand clean transit options and improve
public health. On Monday, the leaders of four jurisdictions
-- Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Washington,
D.C. -- signed on to be the program's initial members....
"It's my hope that
over the course of the next couple of years you'll see
additional people come aboard, but you got to start
somewhere," Baker said Monday afternoon. "The price of doing
nothing is very big." ...
The coalition
settled on a carbon emission reduction target of 26 percent
by 2032, which could add an estimated 5 to 9 cents to the
price of a gallon of gas, according to officials involved in
the effort. The program is expected to generate annual
proceeds for the participating governments that could exceed
$366 million by 2032. That money would be reinvested into
low-carbon transportation initiatives, clean energy and
public health improvements....
Among the other
groups that welcomed the news Monday were Our Transportation
Future, Environmental League of Massachusetts, Mass.
Taxpayers Foundation, Massachusetts Business Roundtable,
NAIOP Massachusetts, Ceres, the Union of Concerned
Scientists, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, Alliance
for Business Leadership, MassPIRG, the 495/MetroWest
Partnership, and more....
The reduction in
emissions will almost certainly come at a cost to drivers in
the form of higher gasoline and diesel prices passed along
from the distributors. Energy and Environmental Affairs
Secretary Kathleen Theoharides, who chairs the TCI
coalition, said Monday that updated modeling projects the
potential cost to consumers to be about five cents per
gallon with "an absolute maximum estimated at nine cents."
At 5 to 9 cents,
the estimated increase in fuel costs for drivers falls below
the high-end forecast of 17 cents per gallon that TCI states
gave last year. The Center for State Policy Analysis at
Tufts University has suggested it could be even higher
depending on how aggressive states choose to be in reducing
emissions.
While numerous
energy and environmental groups praised the states that
signed the initial TCI framework Monday, much of the
opposition focused on the possibility of gas price increases
for consumers and businesses.
"The same small
businesses that have faced shutdowns, countless
restrictions, new regulations, and capacity limits will now
face higher fuel costs due to Massachusetts joining the
TCI," Christopher Carlozzi, Massachusetts director of the
National Federation of Independent Business said. He added,
"Higher fuel costs as a result of TCI will not just impact
struggling small businesses attempting to grow jobs and
rebuild the shattered Massachusetts economy, it will hurt
the wallets of workers who must commute to their jobs in
vehicles every day."
Trade groups
representing the "retail fuels industry" -- the National
Association of Truck Stop Owners, National Association of
Convenience Stores and the Society of Independent Gasoline
Marketers of America -- flatly claimed, "The TCI program, as
currently constructed, will not work. The program will
result in higher costs without any meaningful environmental
benefit." ...
The Massachusetts
Fiscal Alliance, which has been a vocal opponent of TCI for
months, said Massachusetts' participation in TCI dooms any
future aspirations of Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito.
"With Gov. Charlie
Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito supporting TCI and entering
Massachusetts into the scheme, I don't see a path for either
of them being able to win an election in 2022. People are
hurting right now and the administration's obstinance on
this issue is insensitive to their plight and tone-deaf to
their ongoing struggles," Mass. Fiscal spokesman Paul Craney
said. "TCI is bad policy and even worse politics."
TCI is a central
part of Baker's transportation and climate agenda, and is
"critical" to the efforts that will be needed to achieve his
administration's goal of net-zero emissions by 2050,
Theoharides said.
Mass. Fiscal cited
the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University
report that found the cost of TCI on drivers could be as
high as 38 cents per gallon and said it would expect the
cost to "likely be much higher" since a fraction of the
states joined. But Theoharides said the program includes
protections "in terms of ensuring that prices won't raise
above sort of a five-to-nine-cents range." ...
The potential cost
of the program for consumers scared off New Hampshire a year
ago -- Gov. Chris Sununu called it a "financial boondoggle"
-- and opponents argue the emissions reductions sought by
the cap are not worth the impact on gas prices, particularly
because TCI's own projections previously showed emissions
were on track to decrease by 19 percent by 2032 even without
any action from the compact states.
A year ago,
Theoharides said the TCI coalition had not examined how many
states it would take to make a regional pact work, but said
that a "critical mass" of participation from the original 12
states and the District of Columbia would be necessary to
make TCI successful.
"One of the big
pieces for us is getting as many states on board as we can,"
she said last December.
On Monday, she
said having Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and
Washington, D.C., onboard represented enough of a critical
mass and that the TCI program "can absolutely be effective
with three states and the District of Columbia." ...
Sen. Michael
Barrett, the Senate chair of the Telecommunications,
Utilities and Energy Committee, said Monday that he was
disappointed in the paltry number of states that have signed
onto TCI and said he wants Massachusetts to consider, as a
Plan B, joining an existing market for carbon with
California.
"You'd get
critical mass for trading purposes and present a more
attractive proposition to the states that are holding back,"
he said.
Senate President
Karen Spilka welcomed the news Monday that Massachusetts
would be among the initial states to launch TCI and said she
expects that other states will soon follow suit.
"I believe that
Massachusetts needs to look at all policy through the lens
of climate change and its long-term effects, and so I
applaud our efforts to enter into a regional TCI MOU," she
said. "The MOU is such a positive start for our region, and
I do believe that if we build it, others will come."
State House News
Service
Monday, December 21, 2020
Transpo Emissions Compact Starts With Room to Grow
Gas Price Increases a Tradeoff for Emission Reductions
Gov. Charlie Baker
signed up Bay State taxpayers for a controversial carbon tax
initiative praised by climate activists and blasted by
businesses and residents concerned an up to 9-cent hike per
gallon of gas could hit their bottom line as the state
struggles to rebound from the coronavirus pandemic.
The “trailblazing”
multistate Transportation and Climate Initiative sets a goal
to reduce motor vehicle pollution by at least 26% and
generate over $1.8 billion for climate causes in
Massachusetts by 2032, Gov. Charlie Baker said in a
statement announcing the partnership on Monday.
The cap-and-invest
program will set a cap on vehicle emissions and mandate fuel
distributors to buy permits for the carbon dioxide they emit
— a cost businesses say will be handed down to the drivers
at the gas pump.
“The revenue
raised by TCI will come from the residents and businesses of
participating states, not the fuel companies where the fee
is applied,” the New England Convenience Store Owners and
Energy Marketers Association said in a statement.
The program will
increase the cost of gas somewhere between 5 cents and “an
absolute maximum” of 9 cents per gallon — lower than the
17-cent cap the state floated last year, Energy and
Environmental Affairs Secretary Kathleen Theoharides said
Monday.
In a joint
statement, three trade groups including the National
Association of Convenience Stores that represent 90% of
retail fuel distributors said “the program will result in
higher costs without any meaningful environmental benefit.
These higher costs will be most acutely felt by the
northeast region’s low-income communities.”
Supporters reject
calling the program a tax, explaining the price tag comes
with myriad benefits including improved public health and
billions for green transportation....
The agreement
between Baker and Democratic governors from Connecticut,
Rhode Island and Washington, D.C., includes just a quarter
of the 12 states initially expected to participate. The
other Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states expressed ongoing
support for the program but did not sign on to the
Memorandum of Understanding.
Baker said his
“hope” is that more will come aboard later on.
The Boston Herald
Monday, December 21, 2020
Baker signs on to climate fees program
On Monday,
Massachusetts Republican governor Charlie Baker, Rhode
Island Democratic governor Gina Raimondo, Connecticut
Democratic governor Ned Lamont, and Washington D.C.
Democratic mayor Muriel Bowser signed the Transportation and
Climate Initiative memorandum of understanding....
Initial estimates
said the proposal could tack 17 cents onto the price of each
gallon of gasoline and diesel consumers purchased. However,
a recent report from the Beacon Hill Institute and the
Fiscal Alliance Foundation projected that it would add 18
cents per gallon to the price of gasoline and 35 cents per
gallon for on-the-road diesel.
These increases
would officially go into effect in 2023, but could start in
2022.
The governor said
the agreement will help address climate change....
Christopher
Carlozzi, Massachusetts director of the National Federation
of Independent Businesses, said the carbon fee on fuel
amounts to yet another expense for businesses and workers
who already have plenty of them.
“The same small
businesses that have faced shutdowns, countless
restrictions, new regulations, and capacity limits will now
face higher fuel costs due to Massachusetts joining the
TCI,” Carlozzi said in a written statement. “Restaurants
require fuel to deliver food orders, plumbers and
electricians must drive to job sites, construction companies
utilize fuels to operate their equipment, and now TCI will
make it more expensive to run these types of small
businesses.
“Higher fuel costs
as a result of TCI will not just impact struggling small
businesses attempting to grow jobs and rebuild the shattered
Massachusetts economy, it will hurt the wallets of workers
who must commute to their jobs in vehicles every day,” he
added.
Meanwhile, Paul
Craney, spokesman of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, said
that the move could hurt Baker and Republican lieutenant
governor Karyn Polito politically. If they seek re-election,
both will be running again in 2022.
“With Gov. Charlie
Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito supporting TCI and entering
Massachusetts into the scheme, I don’t see a path for either
of them being able to win an election in 2022,” Craney said.
“People are hurting right now and the administration’s
obstinance on this issue is insensitive to their plight and
tone-deaf to their ongoing struggles. TCI is bad policy and
even worse politics.” ...
Baker
administration officials have suggested that the
administration already has the authority to implement a
carbon on fuel thought the state’s Global Warming Solutions
Act of 2008.
But several GOP
state legislators say that the carbon fee would amounts to a
new tax, and therefore should need approval from the state
Legislature in order to take effect.
The New Boston
Post
Monday, December 21, 2020
Charlie Baker Signs Carbon-Fee-on-Fuel Memorandum of
Understanding
With Rhode Island and Connecticut
New Jersey has
opted out of a regional climate program that could have
raised state gas taxes by as much as 17 cents per gallon....
Connecticut,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia
all signed on to the Transportation and Climate Initiative
Program, a cap-and-trade initiative that could have also
meant $750 million a year in revenue to New Jersey for
infrastructure projects. The program was initially proposed
by the Georgetown Climate Center for 13 states and the
District.
Gov. Phil Murphy
said Monday he liked the idea "conceptually" but the
"devil's in the details a little bit, and I'm conscious of
the sticker shock potentially, because it would require some
amount of payment at the gas pump."
Murphy said he was
reluctant to burden New Jersey residents with higher gas
taxes in an economic crisis spurred by the pandemic and
related economic shutdowns.
"To say it's an
unusual economic environment is the understatement of the
day," Murphy said.
New Jersey 101.5
FM
Monday, December 21, 2020
NJ opts out of climate program that could have raised gas
tax 17 cents
Massachusetts
Governor Charlie Baker, not content with destroying
thousands of businesses with his COVID-19 restrictions, is
coming for the rest with a new regional gas tax in his quest
to control the climate....
Baker's TCI would
raise an additional $1.8 billion from taxpayers over the
next 12 years in what Citizens for Limited Taxation
calls a "boondoggle." The Administration argues that Baker's
initiative "provides a critical opportunity to improve air
quality throughout the Commonwealth, create jobs for
Massachusetts residents, and help our state and regional
economies recover." CLT says it will do nothing of the sort.
In a statement,
CLT said the agreement does "nothing to create jobs for
Massachusetts residents" and will do "very little if
anything whatsoever to reduce pollution or affect the
climate around the world." Executive Director Chip Ford
accuses Baker of simply "leading a crusade."
Transportation
under Charlie Baker is a nightmare. We already invest
billions for transportation projects that are misspent or
cannot be accounted for. In addition, voters have made it
abundantly clear that they oppose new gas taxes.
When fuel costs go
up, the cost of everything goes up. This is not a time to be
increasing the burden on business and consumers for some
mythical quest to lower the oceans. Balance the budget. That
would impress me.
I'm not sure
Massachusetts can survive two more years of King Charles and
his policies.
WBSM AM-1420
Tuesday, December 22, 2020
Baker delivers another blow to Massachusetts businesses
By Barry Richard
Cheers of joy were
heard in recent days from progressive corners about the
arrival of a new climate-change age with the imminent
signing of the multistate Transportation and Climate
Initiative, a cap-and-invest program that sets limits on
vehicle emissions and mandates that fuel distributors buy
permits for the carbon dioxide they generate.
However, only
Massachusetts, two other New England states and Washington,
D.C., opted in on this previously touted major effort to
reduce transportation emissions.
Gov. Charlie Baker
put Bay State taxpayers on the hook for helping pay for this
controversial carbon tax initiative, praised by climate
activists and panned by businesses and residents concerned
with facing up to a 9-cent per gallon of gas increase.
“The revenue
raised by TCI will come from the residents and businesses of
participating states, not the fuel companies where the fee
is applied,” the New England Convenience Store Owners and
Energy Marketers Association said in a statement.
The “trailblazing”
multistate TCI sets a goal of reducing motor-vehicle
pollution by at least 26% and generating over $1.8 billion
for climate causes in Massachusetts by 2032, according to
Baker’s statement announcing the partnership on Monday.
Massachusetts
Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Kathleen
Theoharides predicts the program will increase the cost of
gas between 5 cents and “an absolute maximum” of 9 cents per
gallon.
That projection
apparently ignores a Tufts University study that projects a
gas increase of 13 to 24 cents.
Only Rhode Island,
Connecticut and the District of Columbia joined
Massachusetts in this effort, a far cry from the dozen
states that initially expressed interest....
So, fewer
motorists will pay disproportionately higher gas prices for
climate-change programs that probably are no longer needed.
The governor’s TCI
commitment either demonstrates a willingness to chase
windmills, or a belief that if you join it, other states
will eventually come on board.
Higher gas prices
are the only certainty we can see.
A Boston Herald editorial
Tuesday, December 22, 2020
TCI’s bluster only amounts to gas-price hike
Charlie Baker, as he was running for
governor, protesting the gas tax. Courtesy photo
Having had such
amazing success controlling the virus, why wouldn’t the
three police states of Maskachusetts, Rhode Island and
Connecticut now propose to save the planet by doubling or
tripling the tax on gasoline and diesel fuel?
What could
possibly go wrong?
In case you missed
it, on Monday of Christmas week, the three aforementioned
failed states announced a bold, probably unconstitutional
agreement to screw motorists and what’s left of the private
sector.
They mean to
further lay waste to the region’s economy by jacking up
gasoline taxes, with no legislative or voter approval. The
payoff: billions for an endless supply of phony-baloney
no-show jobs for their pals and relatives.
Basically, the
payroll patriots’ plan is to talk global warming to death,
at seminars and conferences in assorted sunny places for
shady people.
It would seem a
daunting challenge, to affect the climate of the planet,
especially when only these three small states have signed
on, while the hacks were hoping for a dozen to jump-start
their latest mad scheme to beggar the middle class.
Independent
studies have indicated that Maskachusetts’ greed could tack
somewhere between 14 and 38 cents more tax on every gallon
of gasoline sold (or not sold, if you’re within easy driving
distance of New Hampshire).
The hacks, though,
now say the additional gas tax will “only” amount to 9 cents
per gallon.
Of course these
low-ball numbers are concocted by the same government that
falsified 65,000 criminal drug tests, has allowed the State
Police to become an organized-crime family, once promised
that the Mass Pike tolls would end in 1989 and said that the
“temporary” 1989 income tax hike would be gone in 18 months.
(It lasted 30 years.) ...
The TCI plan is to
not call the taxes taxes, but to impose “levies” on fuel
suppliers.
They will then
pass on their added costs to that ever-dwindling number of
people who haven’t fled what was once known as southern New
England, but could now more accurately be called the Warsaw
Pact West, or perhaps Greater Albania....
As you might have
expected, the planet was a little warmer after all the hot
air expended Monday by all of the principals in this latest
soak-the-poor grift.
Pay-to-Play Polito
said the shakedown will “create jobs for Massachusetts
residents, and help our state and regional economies
recover.”
Surely she meant
to say “hack jobs.” And imagine her audacity to claim an
obscene tax hike will help the economy recover — after
Polito’s own administration drove it over a cliff, for no
good reason....
Bottom line:
Charlie Parker was first elected on the coattails of a
taxpayers’ revolt against the insatiable greed of the
hackerama. He owes his political career to opponents of a
confiscatory gas tax.
Yet now he
proposes to triple the gasoline tax on the very people who
(once) elected him.
Can’t wait for
2022.
We’ll remember,
not in November, but in September, at primary time. Charlie
rode in on a referendum, there’s no reason he can’t ride out
on one the same damn way.
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, December 23, 2020
Charlie Baker’s TCI tax saves hack jobs, not environment
Hint: It’s leaving your pocket
By Howie Carr
One veteran House
lawmaker said on Monday that Ron Mariano’s ascension as
speaker has been one of the smoothest, most unified, most
calm transitions he has ever witnessed.
That’s because
this speaker transition is following a script that has been
honed and crafted for years. As House Speaker Robert DeLeo
prepares to hand off the speakership to his majority leader,
the two men have left very little to chance.
The transition,
according to sources, began several years ago when Mariano
and his allies began lining up support. It was done quietly,
with rumors only occasionally surfacing. No one would say
anything on the record about the vote-gathering, but in
retrospect the most important thing about it was that DeLeo
let it happen....
In the past, DeLeo
dealt with potential threats to his leadership decisively.
In January 2011, he demoted Charlie Murphy, his Ways and
Means chair, and James Vallee, his majority leader, who
reportedly were building their own power bases in the House.
Both men left the House the next year.
Brian Dempsey, the
former chair of the Ways and Means Committee and the man who
many considered the heir apparent to DeLeo, left the House
in 2017 to take up lobbying. Rep. Russell Holmes of Boston
took note of Dempsey’s departure and suggested the Black and
Latino Caucus “should be strong and united in our selection
of the next speaker of the House.” For that remark, he lost
his vice chairmanship of the Housing Committee.
Yet DeLeo did
nothing when Mariano began soliciting support, suggesting
the speaker had given his blessing to his majority leader.
To be sure, Mariano and his allies were not seeking to
topple DeLeo. They were only gathering pledges of support,
preparing for the day when DeLeo, the state’s
longest-serving speaker, would decide it was time to move
on....
A couple veteran
lawmakers who are retiring this year, Reps. Jonathan Hecht
of Watertown and Denise Provost of Somerville, raised
concerns about the wired transition in an op-ed in
CommonWealth. But everybody else on Beacon Hill kept their
mouth shut. In truth, the decision about who would be the
next speaker of the House was made long ago and now the
House is just going through the motions.
CommonWealth
Magazine
Tuesday, December 22, 2020
House members following DeLeo-Mariano script
Good politicians,
smart politicians, know when to exit. And Bob DeLeo —
however old-school he may be — is a smart politician.
He’s had a good
run — 12 years as Massachusetts House speaker and, unlike
three of his predecessors, he was never convicted of a
felony by the feds. (Although he was named an unindicted
coconspirator in the wide-ranging case involving the state’s
probation department.) Around here, that’s actually
groundbreaking. So it makes sense for DeLeo to leave while
his reputation is intact and with a few rather progressive
bills, like the Roe Act and police reform, he can claim
credit for....
DeLeo has had 30
years on Beacon Hill, and for the last 12 of those years he
has reigned from atop the good ol’ boys pyramid he created.
And he has left more than a few bodies in his wake....
It would all be
rather shameful — that is, if the House were anything
resembling a democracy. But it has been an autocracy for so
long that no one within the State House bubble thinks this
is at all unusual.
The sheeple will
once again fall into line in the Great and General Court.
Long live the sheeple!
The Boston Globe
Friday, December 18, 2020
DeLeo looks to exit as the sheeple graze toward Mariano
Autocracy reigns in the Massachusetts House —
that freshman class of 2020 won’t know what hit ’em.
By Rachelle G. Cohen
It is the night
before Christmas and all week through the House, Bob DeLeo
was stirring. Want to know more? Ask the mouse.
After DeLeo's
disclosure last Friday that he would begin negotiating
post-politics employment with Northeastern University, the
speaker went silent, leaving Beacon Hill to guess how long
before he steps down.
Hours? Days?
Weeks?
Some people
thought it was a sure thing that by the time Christmas
morning arrived there would be a new speaker at the State
House. Majority Leader Ron Mariano has been waiting in the
wings, his bag already loaded with votes to succeed DeLeo
and his only opponent, Rep. Russell Holmes, just hoping to
force his colleagues to consider why that is.
"This is my lunch
counter," said the Black lawmaker. "So I'm going to fight."
Holmes and some
progressive lawmakers, including retiring Reps. Jonathan
Hecht and Denise Provost, have blasted what has been
unfolding over the past week as backroom deal-making at its
shadiest. Others just want to get it over with....
But for now, the
leadership question hangs over the House like the Sacred Cod
and it's still jolly old Bob DeLeo overseeing a raft of
budgetary veto overrides and the delivery of police reform
and abortion access legislation to Gov. Charlie Baker's
desk....
Maybe it was the
finalizing of police reform, or the ROE Act. Or maybe it was
as simple as running out of time. But there were signs that
the legislative logjam was starting to break up.
With those two
pieces out of the way, the conference committee negotiating
a telehealth bill reached a deal Tuesday night to cement
telehealth's place in the care delivery system by requiring
coverage and payment on par with in-person services for at
least two years.
The health care
bill, incidentally, was negotiated for the House by none
other than Leader Mariano, two years after his talks with
the Senate over a measure to stabilize community hospital
finances fell apart on the final night of the session.
Baker hopes one of
the next conference committees to finalize negotiations will
be the one led by House Ways and Means Chairman Aaron
Michlewitz and Sen. Eric Lesser focused on economic
development.
"The clock is
ticking on the end of the session with respect to that, but
the clock is also ticking for businesses here in the
commonwealth that would benefit from those resources if we
could get them across to our desk, sign them, and put them
to work," the governor said.
That quote was
uttered one day before Baker announced a new round of
business restrictions in the hope of preventing Christmas
from spreading more than cheer.
Facing pressure to
take more aggressive action to slow the surge of COVID-19,
Baker on Tuesday said that beginning Saturday businesses
would be required to limit their capacity to 25 percent. He
also dialed back outdoor gatherings from a maximum of 50
people to 25, and lowered the limit for indoor gatherings at
private residences and event spaces to 10.
The restrictions
will be in place for a minimum of two weeks, but Baker said
the idea is that they will be temporary as long as people
follow the rules, limit Christmas celebrations to their
household and prevent the type of post-holiday surge the
state saw after Thanksgiving.
"It's just for one
year, and there are brighter days around the corner," Baker
said about the holidays....
Massachusetts is
also expecting to receive tens of millions of dollars
annually starting in 2023 by being one of the three states,
as well as the District of Columbia, to get in on the ground
floor of the Transportation Climate Initiative.
The regional
compact to cap emissions from vehicles and require fuel
suppliers to buy and trade carbon allowances was finalized
this week with a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions
by 26 percent by 2032.
Despite setting a
more ambitious carbon reduction goal than contemplated just
a year ago, the developers of the program said that at most
it will add 9 cents to the price of a gallon of gas and
generate $366 million annually for participating states to
invest in clean energy.
Still, of the 13
jurisdictions that put the program together only Connecticut
and Rhode Island saw fit to join Massachusetts and D.C. in
the program right away. Other states will have time to think
about it before the program starts in earnest in 2023.
"The price of
doing nothing is very big," Baker said.
State House News
Service
Thursday, December 24, 2020
Weekly Roundup - July At Christmastime
With COVID-19
still surging, Gov. Charlie Baker wants people to pause
their activities and reduce their mobility in the two weeks
spanning both sides of New Year, but Beacon Hill has other
things in mind.
Temporary capacity
and gathering limits
As of December 26,
2020, all businesses must adhere to the following capacity
limitations due to the surge in COVID-19 cases.
A change in House
leadership -- from Speaker Robert DeLeo to Majority Leader
Ron Mariano -- appears in the cards to close out 2020, and
is likely to come as lawmakers are trying to wrap up major
legislative loose ends. Both branches have formal sessions
on Monday and additional formal sessions seem likely next
week....
The reduction in
allowable capacity at most businesses to just 25 percent
takes effect Saturday, and while struggling companies next
week will begin to see the flow of grants under a new $668
million small business relief program, it's unclear whether
Democrats will finally put aside differences and agree on an
economic development bill (H 4887 / S 2874) that's been
stuck in conference committee talks since July.
The last full week
for formal sessions for this iteration of the General Court
is also crunch time for climate change (H 4933 / S 2500) and
transportation spending (H 4547 / S 2836) bills that are
similarly lodged in conference. On the climate front, the
Baker administration plans any day now to release what it is
commonly referred to as a "roadmap" to get to net zero
emissions by 2050.
State House News
Service
Thursday, December 24, 2020
Advances - Week of Dec. 27, 2020
States are lining
up against Massachusetts and siding with New Hampshire in
the lawsuit over the Bay State’s policy taxing the income of
out-of-state residents telecommuting for Bay State companies
amid the pandemic.
The Granite State
had sued Massachusetts in October in the ongoing income-tax
border battle over a temporary rule that imposes the state’s
5% income tax on employees of Massachusetts companies living
and working remotely in other states. New Hampshire Gov.
Chris Sununu and his state sued, asking the U.S. Supreme
Court to take up the case after Gov. Charlie Baker extended
the pandemic-era rule.
New Hampshire
continues to petition the Supreme Court to weigh in.
Massachusetts has
radically redefined what constitutes Massachusetts-sourced
income in order to tax earnings for work performed entirely
outside its borders,” New Hampshire Attorney General Gordon
Macdonald fumed earlier this week in the state’s latest
submission to the Supreme Court. “This does not maintain the
status quo. It upends it.”
And now the
Granite State has allies: Ohio, Arkansas, Indiana,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma,
Texas, Utah, New Jersey, Connecticut, Hawaii and Iowa all
signed amicus briefs backing New Hampshire, insisting that
the Supreme Court is the only place where this dispute can
be worked out.
The Boston Herald
Friday, December 25, 2020
14 states side with New Hampshire in tax suit against
Massachusetts
LIAR, LIAR,
PANTS ON FIRE!
Dr. Anthony Fauci,
while hailed as a hero by many for his leadership during the
COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, has made several
critical missteps that have undermined his own credibility
and contributed to the deep divisions in the nation over the
response to the virus.
Fauci, has, since
March, engaged in a number of deliberate half-truths and
distortions regarding public health that have likely had
disastrous consequences for the public trust in scientific
and medical expertise. The latest of these was just this
week....
Did the good
doctor feel any pang of regret for the misguided advice that
could have led to increased disease spread early on?
Well, in his own
words, no.
“I don’t regret
anything I said then,” Fauci later told “60 Minutes”
correspondent Norah O’Donnell in a July InStyle magazine
interview. “Because in the context of the time in which I
said it, it was correct. We were told in our task force
meetings that we have a serious problem with the lack of
PPEs and masks for the health providers who are putting
themselves in harm’s way every day to take care of sick
people.”
In other words,
Fauci knew masks worked, he just didn’t want the general
public to have them before medical professionals. He knew
supplies were low. So he lied. And he doesn’t regret it....
The same thing
happened later in March in an interview with ABC’s Jonathan
Karl, who asked the doc when we could expect our lives to
return to normal.
“It’s going to be
a matter of several weeks to a few months, for sure,” Fauci
glibly told the host.
And a New York
Times article this week about the level of vaccination that
will be needed to achieve herd immunity noted that Dr. Fauci
has slowly been raising his public estimate over time, from
60 to 70% to 70 to 75% and even now up to 75, 80, 85%.
So why the shift?
The country, Fauci
told the Times in a phone interview, is finally ready to
hear what he really thinks.
Once again, he has
been withholding information from the public based on his
own personal assessment of what the American people can
handle. Likely, his intentions are noble. But easily
discovered untruths do a disservice to the public health
profession, and have doubtless led to the rampant distrust
for the official guidance from government sources.
A Boston Herald editorial
Sunday, December 27, 2020
Fauci falters on consistent coronavirus message
White House Wuhan Coronavirus Taskforce member Dr. Fauci
admitted in a recent New York Times interview that he has
been changing the numbers on herd immunity for the public
based on "a gut feeling" Americans can now handle the truth.
From the story (bolding is mine):
Recently, a figure to whom millions of Americans
look for guidance — Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, an adviser
to both the Trump administration and the incoming
Biden administration — has begun incrementally
raising his herd-immunity estimate.
In the pandemic’s early days, Dr. Fauci tended to
cite the same 60 to 70 percent estimate that most
experts did. About a month ago, he began saying “70,
75 percent” in television interviews. And last week,
in an interview with CNBC News, he said “75, 80, 85
percent” and “75 to 80-plus percent.”
In a telephone interview the next day, Dr. Fauci
acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately
been moving the goal posts. He is doing so, he
said, partly based on new science, and partly on
his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to
hear what he really thinks.
Hard as it may be to hear, he said, he believes that
it may take close to 90 percent immunity to bring
the virus to a halt — almost as much as is needed to
stop a measles outbreak.
Dr. Fauci said that weeks ago, he had hesitated
to publicly raise his estimate because many
Americans seemed hesitant about vaccines, which they
would need to accept almost universally in order for
the country to achieve herd immunity.
Early on in the pandemic, Fauci declared that Americans
should not wear masks. Now, he demands they wear one, nearly
at all times, and says they should continue to do so even
after they are vaccinated. From a CNN interview last
weekend:
TAPPER: Once somebody has been
immunized -- I guess, for Pfizer, it's two doses.
I'm not sure what it is for Moderna or the other
vaccines coming down the pike.
But once it's -- once the process is complete, does
that mean they can take off their masks, they don't
have to social distance, they can just go about
their lives as before?
FAUCI: I would recommend that that is
not the case. I would recommend you have an added
area of protection.
Obviously, with a 90-plus percent effective vaccine, you
could feel much more confident. But I would recommend to
people to not abandon all public health measures just
because you have been vaccinated, because even though, for
the general population, it might be 90 to 95 percent
effective, you don't necessarily know, for you, how
effective it is.
Townhall
Friday, December 25, 2020
Dr. Fauci Admits to Misleading the Public on Health
Information
By Katie Pavlich
Recently, a figure
to whom millions of Americans look for guidance — Dr.
Anthony S. Fauci, an adviser to both the Trump
administration and the incoming Biden administration — has
begun incrementally raising his herd-immunity estimate.
In the pandemic’s
early days, Dr. Fauci tended to cite the same 60 to 70
percent estimate that most experts did. About a month ago,
he began saying “70, 75 percent” in television interviews.
And last week, in an interview with CNBC News, he said “75,
80, 85 percent” and “75 to 80-plus percent.”
In a telephone
interview the next day, Dr. Fauci acknowledged that he had
slowly but deliberately been moving the goal posts. He is
doing so, he said, partly based on new science, and partly
on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear
what he really thinks.
Hard as it may be
to hear, he said, he believes that it may take close to 90
percent immunity to bring the virus to a halt — almost as
much as is needed to stop a measles outbreak....
Dr. Fauci said
that weeks ago, he had hesitated to publicly raise his
estimate because many Americans seemed hesitant about
vaccines, which they would need to accept almost universally
in order for the country to achieve herd immunity.
Now that some
polls are showing that many more Americans are ready, even
eager, for vaccines, he said he felt he could deliver the
tough message that the return to normal might take longer
than anticipated.
“When polls said
only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was
saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent,” Dr. Fauci
said. “Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more
would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I
went to 80, 85.”
The New York
Times
Thursday, December 24, 2020
How Much Herd Immunity Is Enough?
U.S. Senator
Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tweeted
|
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
What a weekend! I confess: I
took Christmas Day off, time-off being an extremely rare event for me.
It wasn't exactly voluntary. I began the morning as usual, at my
desk as soon as I had a cup of coffee in hand, chasing down news reports
that affect taxpayers before starting in on this update. I made a phone
call and mid-conversation the line went dead. I tried calling back
the party but was informed by a recording "Your call cannot be completed
at this time. Please try again later." I tried a few more
times before giving up.
Then I heard that a huge explosion had
occurred in Nashville, Tennessee — 65 miles
south of my location in southern Kentucky. I still had a broadband
internet connection, discovered what had happened. My AT&T cell
phone service was dead, and now I knew why. The bomb in an RV
vehicle had detonated outside a major AT&T hub facility in downtown
Nashville. Cell service was finally restored yesterday (Sunday)
afternoon. (AT&T also owns WarnerMedia, which in turn owns CNN.)
I wonder why AT&T is downplaying the extent
of the outage, initially claiming it was only affecting Nashville and a
few surrounding towns? In fact service was lost in most of
Tennessee and Kentucky, much of Indiana and Alabama, some of Georgia,
Illinois, and Missouri (1,166 zip codes; see a list of
zip
codes where service was lost).
Then yesterday morning I went out to
finally put some air in one of the tires on my vehicle that suffers a
very slow leak. When I got out to my 2001 Honda CRV (inherited
from Barbara Anderson) I found the driver's door locked but slightly
ajar. The alarm remote went crazy when I tried to disarm the
system and unlock the door, had to use the key to open it. Turned
out the battery was utterly dead — I didn't
close the door tightly on Thursday when I got back from grocery shopping
so the interior dome light stayed on, for two days. What I
initially expected to be maybe a 20 minute distraction filling a tire turned into
a half-day project, sheesh.
So that explains why this update is a bit
late this week. Some things are beyond our control, so many
lately.
On Tuesday of last week I got a call from
Barry Richard, talkshow host on WBSM AM-1420 in New Bedford, in response
to
CLT's news release the day before. We had a lengthy on-air discussion
on "Baker's Boondoggle," his Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI)
that he signed on Monday with Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Washington,
D.C. After our conversation he wrote an op-ed for the station's
website, "Baker delivers another blow to Massachusetts businesses."
Here's an excerpt from it:
. . . Baker's TCI would raise an
additional $1.8 billion from taxpayers over the next 12
years in what Citizens for Limited Taxation calls
a "boondoggle." The Administration argues that Baker's
initiative "provides a critical opportunity to improve
air quality throughout the Commonwealth, create jobs for
Massachusetts residents, and help our state and regional
economies recover." CLT says it will do nothing of the
sort.
In a statement, CLT said the
agreement does "nothing to create jobs for Massachusetts
residents" and will do "very little if anything
whatsoever to reduce pollution or affect the climate
around the world." Executive Director Chip Ford
accuses Baker of simply "leading a crusade."
Transportation under Charlie Baker
is a nightmare. We already invest billions for
transportation projects that are misspent or cannot be
accounted for. In addition, voters have made it
abundantly clear that they oppose new gas taxes.
When fuel costs go up, the cost of
everything goes up. This is not a time to be increasing
the burden on business and consumers for some mythical
quest to lower the oceans. Balance the budget. That
would impress me.
I'm not sure Massachusetts can
survive two more years of King Charles and his policies.
There was a lot of coverage of "Baker's
Boondoggle" (TCI) over the past week, much of it in the full news
reports that follow. Here are a few excerpts of some to the best
comments:
From a Boston Herald editorial on Tuesday ("TCI’s bluster
only amounts to gas-price hike"):
. . .
However, only Massachusetts, two other New England states and
Washington, D.C., opted in on this previously touted major effort to
reduce transportation emissions.
Gov.
Charlie Baker put Bay State taxpayers on the hook for helping pay
for this controversial carbon tax initiative, praised by climate
activists and panned by businesses and residents concerned with
facing up to a 9-cent per gallon of gas increase.
“The
revenue raised by TCI will come from the residents and businesses of
participating states, not the fuel companies where the fee is
applied,” the New England Convenience Store Owners and Energy
Marketers Association said in a statement.
The
“trailblazing” multistate TCI sets a goal of reducing motor-vehicle
pollution by at least 26% and generating over $1.8 billion for
climate causes in Massachusetts by 2032, according to Baker’s
statement announcing the partnership on Monday.
Massachusetts Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Kathleen
Theoharides predicts the program will increase the cost of gas
between 5 cents and “an absolute maximum” of 9 cents per gallon.
That
projection apparently ignores a Tufts University study that projects
a gas increase of 13 to 24 cents.
Only
Rhode Island, Connecticut and the District of Columbia joined
Massachusetts in this effort, a far cry from the dozen states that
initially expressed interest....
So,
fewer motorists will pay disproportionately higher gas prices for
climate-change programs that probably are no longer needed.
The
governor’s TCI commitment either demonstrates a willingness to chase
windmills, or a belief that if you join it, other states will
eventually come on board.
Higher gas prices are the only certainty we can see.
Excerpts from
Boston Herald columnist and WRKO talkshow host Howie Carr on
Wednesday ("Charlie
Baker’s TCI tax saves hack jobs, not environment
— Hint: It’s leaving your
pocket"):
Having had such amazing success
controlling the virus, why wouldn’t the three police
states of Maskachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut
now propose to save the planet by doubling or tripling
the tax on gasoline and diesel fuel?
What could possibly go wrong?
In case you missed it, on Monday of
Christmas week, the three aforementioned failed states
announced a bold, probably unconstitutional agreement to
screw motorists and what’s left of the private sector.
They mean to further lay waste to
the region’s economy by jacking up gasoline taxes, with
no legislative or voter approval. The payoff: billions
for an endless supply of phony-baloney no-show jobs for
their pals and relatives.
Basically, the payroll patriots’
plan is to talk global warming to death, at seminars and
conferences in assorted sunny places for shady people.
It would seem a daunting challenge,
to affect the climate of the planet, especially when
only these three small states have signed on, while the
hacks were hoping for a dozen to jump-start their latest
mad scheme to beggar the middle class.
Independent studies have indicated
that Maskachusetts’ greed could tack somewhere between
14 and 38 cents more tax on every gallon of gasoline
sold (or not sold, if you’re within easy driving
distance of New Hampshire).
The hacks, though, now say the
additional gas tax will “only” amount to 9 cents per
gallon.
Of course these low-ball numbers
are concocted by the same government that falsified
65,000 criminal drug tests, has allowed the State Police
to become an organized-crime family, once promised that
the Mass Pike tolls would end in 1989 and said that the
“temporary” 1989 income tax hike would be gone in 18
months. (It lasted 30 years.) ...
The TCI plan is to not call the
taxes taxes, but to impose “levies” on fuel suppliers.
They will then pass on their added
costs to that ever-dwindling number of people who
haven’t fled what was once known as southern New
England, but could now more accurately be called the
Warsaw Pact West, or perhaps Greater Albania....
As you might have expected, the
planet was a little warmer after all the hot air
expended Monday by all of the principals in this latest
soak-the-poor grift.
Pay-to-Play Polito said the
shakedown will “create jobs for Massachusetts residents,
and help our state and regional economies recover.”
Surely she meant to say “hack
jobs.” And imagine her audacity to claim an obscene tax
hike will help the economy recover — after Polito’s own
administration drove it over a cliff, for no good
reason....
Bottom line: Charlie Parker was
first elected on the coattails of a taxpayers’ revolt
against the insatiable greed of the hackerama. He owes
his political career to opponents of a confiscatory gas
tax.
Yet now he proposes to triple the
gasoline tax on the very people who (once) elected him.
Can’t wait for 2022.
We’ll remember, not in November,
but in September, at primary time. Charlie rode in on a
referendum, there’s no reason he can’t ride out on one
the same damn way.
I came across a
report from New Jersey in my research over last week that I
found interesting and think you might as well. On
Monday New Jersey 101.5 FM reported "NJ opts out of climate
program that could have raised gas tax 17 cents"
— and The Garden State has
always been a more voracious taxaholic than Massachusetts!
New
Jersey has opted out of a regional climate program that could have
raised state gas taxes by as much as 17 cents per gallon....
Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the District of
Columbia all signed on to the Transportation and Climate Initiative
Program, a cap-and-trade initiative that could have also meant $750
million a year in revenue to New Jersey for infrastructure projects.
The program was initially proposed by the Georgetown Climate Center
for 13 states and the District.
Gov.
Phil Murphy said Monday he liked the idea "conceptually" but the
"devil's in the details a little bit, and I'm conscious of the
sticker shock potentially, because it would require some amount of
payment at the gas pump."
Murphy said he was reluctant to burden New Jersey residents with
higher gas taxes in an economic crisis spurred by the pandemic and
related economic shutdowns.
"To
say it's an unusual economic environment is the understatement of
the day," Murphy said.
If you so choose, you can read all the full reports on TCI
from last week below.
The coronation of a new Speaker of the
House seems to be pretty well a done deal, with current Speaker Robert
DeLeo handing off his scepter to his chosen successor, majority leader
Rep. Ron Mariano. There have been a lot of interesting reactions
to this transfer of power, some from unexpected sources.
CommonWealth
Magazine reported on Tuesday ("House members following DeLeo-Mariano
script"):
A couple veteran
lawmakers who are retiring this year, Reps. Jonathan Hecht of
Watertown and Denise Provost of Somerville, raised concerns about
the wired transition in an op-ed in CommonWealth. But everybody else
on Beacon Hill kept their mouth shut. In truth, the decision about
who would be the next speaker of the House was made long ago and now
the House is just going through the motions.
Rachelle Cohen, formerly with The Boston
Herald, now an opinion writer for The Boston Globe, wrote on Friday ("DeLeo
looks to exit as the sheeple graze toward Mariano; Autocracy reigns in
the Massachusetts House — that freshman class of 2020 won’t know what
hit ’em"):
Good politicians, smart
politicians, know when to exit. And Bob DeLeo — however
old-school he may be — is a smart politician.
He’s had a good run — 12 years as
Massachusetts House speaker and, unlike three of his
predecessors, he was never convicted of a felony by the
feds. (Although he was named an unindicted coconspirator
in the wide-ranging case involving the state’s probation
department.) Around here, that’s actually
groundbreaking. So it makes sense for DeLeo to leave
while his reputation is intact and with a few rather
progressive bills, like the Roe Act and police reform,
he can claim credit for....
DeLeo has had 30 years on Beacon
Hill, and for the last 12 of those years he has reigned
from atop the good ol’ boys pyramid he created. And he
has left more than a few bodies in his wake....
It would all be rather shameful —
that is, if the House were anything resembling a
democracy. But it has been an autocracy for so long that
no one within the State House bubble thinks this is at
all unusual.
The sheeple will once again fall
into line in the Great and General Court. Long live the
sheeple!
The State House News Service reported in
its Weekly Roundup on Christmas Eve Day:
It is the night before Christmas
and all week through the House, Bob DeLeo was stirring.
Want to know more? Ask the mouse.
After DeLeo's disclosure last
Friday that he would begin negotiating post-politics
employment with Northeastern University, the speaker
went silent, leaving Beacon Hill to guess how long
before he steps down.
Hours? Days? Weeks?
Some people thought it was a sure
thing that by the time Christmas morning arrived there
would be a new speaker at the State House. Majority
Leader Ron Mariano has been waiting in the wings, his
bag already loaded with votes to succeed DeLeo and his
only opponent, Rep. Russell Holmes, just hoping to force
his colleagues to consider why that is.
"This is my lunch counter," said
the Black lawmaker. "So I'm going to fight."
Holmes and some progressive
lawmakers, including retiring Reps. Jonathan Hecht and
Denise Provost, have blasted what has been unfolding
over the past week as backroom deal-making at its
shadiest. Others just want to get it over with.
In Massachusetts the more things change the
more they remain the same — same ole same
ole.
Again, for those who so choose, more
details and information on the "Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss"
transition can be found in the full news reports below.
More states have joined New Hampshire's
U.S. Supreme Court challenge of the Baker policy of taxing Granite
Staters employed in Massachusetts but no longer commuting out of New
Hampshire. The Boston Herald reported on Christmas Day ("14
states side with New Hampshire in tax suit against Massachusetts"):
States are lining up against
Massachusetts and siding with New Hampshire in the
lawsuit over the Bay State’s policy taxing the income of
out-of-state residents telecommuting for Bay State
companies amid the pandemic.
The Granite State had sued
Massachusetts in October in the ongoing income-tax
border battle over a temporary rule that imposes the
state’s 5% income tax on employees of Massachusetts
companies living and working remotely in other states.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and his state sued,
asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case after
Gov. Charlie Baker extended the pandemic-era rule.
New Hampshire continues to petition
the Supreme Court to weigh in.
Massachusetts has radically
redefined what constitutes Massachusetts-sourced income
in order to tax earnings for work performed entirely
outside its borders,” New Hampshire Attorney General
Gordon Macdonald fumed earlier this week in the state’s
latest submission to the Supreme Court. “This does not
maintain the status quo. It upends it.”
And now the Granite State has
allies: Ohio, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky,
Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah,
New Jersey, Connecticut, Hawaii and Iowa all signed
amicus briefs backing New Hampshire, insisting that the
Supreme Court is the only place where this dispute can
be worked out.
Hey, how about that —
Kentucky is among them. I love it!
ALERT!
LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE!
Hubris is often the downfall of the mighty,
or those who presume to be such. They reach such a pinnacle of
conceit that they begin to believe themselves to be untouchable,
ultimately convinced that they can say and do anything without
consequence.
Remember Joe Biden
boasting on camera before a live audience about how he had
threatened then had the Ukrainian state prosecutor fired for
investigating his son's illicit business dealings?
Hubris.
The sanctimonious Saint Anthony of Fauci
just ran full speed into his own brick wall of hubris.
He has publicly admitted he's been
exaggerating the data pertaining to vaccinations and herd immunity based
on his own opinion of what we the American people "can handle" and how
he can bring us to heel, force us to comply with his desires.
Among other outlets (see full news reports
below), a Boston Herald editorial yesterday ("Fauci
falters on consistent coronavirus message") exposed his arrogance and
pomposity:
Dr.
Anthony Fauci, while hailed as a hero by many for his leadership
during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, has made several
critical missteps that have undermined his own credibility and
contributed to the deep divisions in the nation over the response to
the virus.
Fauci,
has, since March, engaged in a number of deliberate half-truths and
distortions regarding public health that have likely had disastrous
consequences for the public trust in scientific and medical
expertise. The latest of these was just this week....
Did
the good doctor feel any pang of regret for the misguided advice
that could have led to increased disease spread early on?
Well,
in his own words, no.
“I
don’t regret anything I said then,” Fauci later told “60 Minutes”
correspondent Norah O’Donnell in a July InStyle magazine interview.
“Because in the context of the time in which I said it, it was
correct. We were told in our task force meetings that we have a
serious problem with the lack of PPEs and masks for the health
providers who are putting themselves in harm’s way every day to take
care of sick people.”
In
other words, Fauci knew masks worked, he just didn’t want the
general public to have them before medical professionals. He knew
supplies were low. So he lied. And he doesn’t regret it....
The
same thing happened later in March in an interview with ABC’s
Jonathan Karl, who asked the doc when we could expect our lives to
return to normal.
“It’s
going to be a matter of several weeks to a few months, for sure,”
Fauci glibly told the host.
And a
New York Times article this week about the level of vaccination that
will be needed to achieve herd immunity noted that Dr. Fauci has
slowly been raising his public estimate over time, from 60 to 70% to
70 to 75% and even now up to 75, 80, 85%.
So
why the shift?
The
country, Fauci told the Times in a phone interview, is finally ready
to hear what he really thinks.
Once
again, he has been withholding information from the public based on
his own personal assessment of what the American people can handle.
Likely, his intentions are noble. But easily discovered untruths do
a disservice to the public health profession, and have doubtless led
to the rampant distrust for the official guidance from government
sources.
In her Friday Townhall online column Katie
Pavlich reported ("Dr. Fauci Admits to Misleading the Public
on Health Information"):
White House Wuhan Coronavirus
Taskforce member Dr. Fauci admitted in a recent New York
Times interview that he has been changing the numbers on
herd immunity for the public based on "a gut feeling"
Americans can now handle the truth. From the story
(bolding is mine):
Recently, a figure to whom
millions of Americans look for guidance — Dr.
Anthony S. Fauci, an adviser to both the Trump
administration and the incoming Biden
administration — has begun incrementally raising
his herd-immunity estimate.
In the pandemic’s early
days, Dr. Fauci tended to cite the same 60 to 70
percent estimate that most experts did. About a
month ago, he began saying “70, 75 percent” in
television interviews. And last week, in an
interview with CNBC News, he said “75, 80, 85
percent” and “75 to 80-plus percent.”
In a telephone interview
the next day, Dr. Fauci acknowledged that he
had slowly but deliberately been moving the goal
posts. He is doing so, he said, partly based
on new science, and partly on his gut feeling
that the country is finally ready to hear what
he really thinks.
Hard as it may be to hear,
he said, he believes that it may take close to
90 percent immunity to bring the virus to a halt
— almost as much as is needed to stop a measles
outbreak.
Dr. Fauci said that weeks
ago, he had hesitated to publicly raise his
estimate because many Americans seemed
hesitant about vaccines, which they would need
to accept almost universally in order for the
country to achieve herd immunity.
Early on in the pandemic, Fauci
declared that Americans should not wear masks. Now, he
demands they wear one, nearly at all times, and says
they should continue to do so even after they are
vaccinated. From a CNN interview last weekend:
TAPPER: Once
somebody has been immunized -- I guess, for
Pfizer, it's two doses. I'm not sure what it is
for Moderna or the other vaccines coming down
the pike.
But once it's -- once the
process is complete, does that mean they can
take off their masks, they don't have to social
distance, they can just go about their lives as
before?
FAUCI: I would
recommend that that is not the case. I would
recommend you have an added area of protection.
Obviously, with a 90-plus percent
effective vaccine, you could feel much more confident.
But I would recommend to people to not abandon all
public health measures just because you have been
vaccinated, because even though, for the general
population, it might be 90 to 95 percent effective, you
don't necessarily know, for you, how effective it is.
U.S. Senator
Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tweeted
When someone starts believing and internalizing
the fawning accolades and a messiah complex grows and consumes, the fall is not far ahead.
If you don't hear from me before the next
holiday weekend (oh god, I hope the next one isn't as trying as the last
— I need more than a week to recover from
"time-off"!), I wish each and every one of you if not necessarily a
Happy New Year — at least a better
one than 2020 has been! I don't dare ask if it can possibly be any
worse . . .
|
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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Full News Reports Follow
(excerpted above) |
|
State House
News Service
Monday, December 21, 2020
Transpo Emissions Compact Starts With Room to Grow
Gas Price Increases a Tradeoff for Emission Reductions
By Colin A. Young
Though only Massachusetts and three of the 13 state and city
governments that had been part of discussions around
creating a regional effort to staunch vehicle emissions
along the East Coast agreed Monday to be part of the program
from the get-go, Gov. Charlie Baker said it is "a pretty
good place to start."
Twelve states and Washington, D.C. began the process more
than two years ago of developing a regional "cap-and-invest"
program to reduce carbon pollution from cars and trucks and
generate the resources needed to expand clean transit
options and improve public health. On Monday, the leaders of
four jurisdictions -- Massachusetts, Rhode Island,
Connecticut and Washington, D.C. -- signed on to be the
program's initial members.
The program would set a limit on vehicle emissions, and hold
auctions for fuel suppliers that transport gasoline into
Massachusetts and other states to purchase allowances for
every ton of carbon dioxide that the fuel they are carrying
would emit when burned.
"It's my hope that over the course of the next couple of
years you'll see additional people come aboard, but you got
to start somewhere," Baker said Monday afternoon. "The price
of doing nothing is very big."
Baker continued: "If you think about the amount of money
that the federal government, state government and local
governments spend these days on weather events -- far more
significant weather events than anything anybody used to see
on a very regular basis. I mean they had the most brutal
hurricane season they've ever had through the south this
year, the droughts in California and the high winds
translated into fires and an overhang associated with fires
that you could see across most of the American west. We have
many instances here in Massachusetts and around the rest of
New England where flash storms will flood out whole parts of
some of our downtowns for days and sometimes a week at a
time where people don't have to make the investments to
clean up the mess but don't actually get to the point where
they make the investment that would make that area resilient
so that it wouldn't happen the next time it occurs."
The coalition settled on a carbon emission reduction target
of 26 percent by 2032, which could add an estimated 5 to 9
cents to the price of a gallon of gas, according to
officials involved in the effort. The program is expected to
generate annual proceeds for the participating governments
that could exceed $366 million by 2032. That money would be
reinvested into low-carbon transportation initiatives, clean
energy and public health improvements.
"Reducing transportation pollution is of paramount
importance if we are to meet our climate commitments and
protect frontline communities. TCI will provide valuable
investment opportunities to accelerate progress for
economy-growing clean transportation vehicles, systems, and
infrastructure by leveraging private capital and
innovation," New England Clean Energy Council President
Peter Rothstein said.
Among the other groups that welcomed the news Monday were
Our Transportation Future, Environmental League of
Massachusetts, Mass. Taxpayers Foundation, Massachusetts
Business Roundtable, NAIOP Massachusetts, Ceres, the Union
of Concerned Scientists, the Metropolitan Area Planning
Council, Alliance for Business Leadership, MassPIRG, the
495/MetroWest Partnership, and more.
"Massachusetts has a proud history of national leadership on
major public policy issues and Governor Baker has maintained
that tradition by becoming a founding signatory to a program
that will make real progress on climate change, one of the
most pressing issues of our time," Chris Dempsey, director
of Transportation for Massachusetts, said. "Perhaps more
importantly, he has created a program that will bring
significant public health, environmental, and economic
benefits to residents of Massachusetts."
The reduction in emissions will almost certainly come at a
cost to drivers in the form of higher gasoline and diesel
prices passed along from the distributors. Energy and
Environmental Affairs Secretary Kathleen Theoharides, who
chairs the TCI coalition, said Monday that updated modeling
projects the potential cost to consumers to be about five
cents per gallon with "an absolute maximum estimated at nine
cents."
At 5 to 9 cents, the estimated increase in fuel costs for
drivers falls below the high-end forecast of 17 cents per
gallon that TCI states gave last year. The Center for State
Policy Analysis at Tufts University has suggested it could
be even higher depending on how aggressive states choose to
be in reducing emissions.
While numerous energy and environmental groups praised the
states that signed the initial TCI framework Monday, much of
the opposition focused on the possibility of gas price
increases for consumers and businesses.
"The same small businesses that have faced shutdowns,
countless restrictions, new regulations, and capacity limits
will now face higher fuel costs due to Massachusetts joining
the TCI," Christopher Carlozzi, Massachusetts director of
the National Federation of Independent Business said. He
added, "Higher fuel costs as a result of TCI will not just
impact struggling small businesses attempting to grow jobs
and rebuild the shattered Massachusetts economy, it will
hurt the wallets of workers who must commute to their jobs
in vehicles every day."
Trade groups representing the "retail fuels industry" -- the
National Association of Truck Stop Owners, National
Association of Convenience Stores and the Society of
Independent Gasoline Marketers of America -- flatly claimed,
"The TCI program, as currently constructed, will not work.
The program will result in higher costs without any
meaningful environmental benefit."
The New England Convenience Store Owners and Energy
Marketers Association said its concerns about the design of
the program were not addressed in the MOU signed Monday,
particularly around the point of regulation and "the lack of
clarity" for allowances.
"NECSEMA and its members understand the importance of
reducing emissions from the transportation sector, but
getting it right is more important than acting swiftly. This
program's lack of detail for regulated businesses and
allowance availability does not instill confidence, and,
most importantly, risks upsetting an essential industry
while affecting the public," the organization said. "This
impact has the potential to go well beyond the cost to
consumers by disrupting the free flow, availability and
competitiveness of motor fuels."
The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, which has been a vocal
opponent of TCI for months, said Massachusetts'
participation in TCI dooms any future aspirations of Baker
and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito.
"With Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito
supporting TCI and entering Massachusetts into the scheme, I
don't see a path for either of them being able to win an
election in 2022. People are hurting right now and the
administration's obstinance on this issue is insensitive to
their plight and tone-deaf to their ongoing struggles,"
Mass. Fiscal spokesman Paul Craney said. "TCI is bad policy
and even worse politics."
TCI is a central part of Baker's transportation and climate
agenda, and is "critical" to the efforts that will be needed
to achieve his administration's goal of net-zero emissions
by 2050, Theoharides said.
Mass. Fiscal cited the Center for State Policy Analysis at
Tufts University report that found the cost of TCI on
drivers could be as high as 38 cents per gallon and said it
would expect the cost to "likely be much higher" since a
fraction of the states joined. But Theoharides said the
program includes protections "in terms of ensuring that
prices won't raise above sort of a five-to-nine-cents
range."
"Some of the price projections that were in studies as
recently as this year did not include those price
protections that have been a key component of programs like
the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and are absolutely a
critical component of this program," she said.
Even if the average price of a gallon of gasoline increases
by 9 cents in Massachusetts, the Bay State could still have
cheaper gas than other neighboring states that have not
agreed to join TCI. The average price of gas here was $2.17
a gallon Monday, AAA said, which would rise to $2.26 per
gallon under the "absolute maximum" that Theoharides
outlined Monday. At $2.17, AAA said the average price was up
5 cents over last week.
At a post-TCI average price of $2.26 per gallon,
Massachusetts would still have cheaper gas than New York
(average $2.30 as of Monday), New Jersey ($2.35), and
Pennsylvania ($2.53). It would be essentially the same as
the current average price of gas in Maine, $2.25 per gallon,
but would be more than a dime higher than New Hampshire's
current average price of $2.14 per gallon.
The potential cost of the program for consumers scared off
New Hampshire a year ago -- Gov. Chris Sununu called it a
"financial boondoggle" -- and opponents argue the emissions
reductions sought by the cap are not worth the impact on gas
prices, particularly because TCI's own projections
previously showed emissions were on track to decrease by 19
percent by 2032 even without any action from the compact
states.
A year ago, Theoharides said the TCI coalition had not
examined how many states it would take to make a regional
pact work, but said that a "critical mass" of participation
from the original 12 states and the District of Columbia
would be necessary to make TCI successful.
"One of the big pieces for us is getting as many states on
board as we can," she said last December.
On Monday, she said having Massachusetts, Rhode Island,
Connecticut and Washington, D.C., onboard represented enough
of a critical mass and that the TCI program "can absolutely
be effective with three states and the District of
Columbia."
"The states and the District participating in this program
are getting the same emission reductions that were expected
if all states joined and significant proceeds to invest back
into clean transportation in our economies and in our
transportation systems," she said. "All four of us have
state and city goals, aggressive goals, in terms of reducing
climate emissions, improving public health and then
investing in clean transportation choices. And this program
allows us to do that, allows us to get things started while
continuing to work to get other states on board so they can
realize those same benefits in their states."
Though only three states and D.C. signed the MOU on Monday,
Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina,
Pennsylvania, Vermont and Virginia all signed a statement of
support for the concept of TCI and pledged to continue to
partner with states that sign onto the compact.
Sen. Michael Barrett, the Senate chair of the
Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy Committee, said
Monday that he was disappointed in the paltry number of
states that have signed onto TCI and said he wants
Massachusetts to consider, as a Plan B, joining an existing
market for carbon with California.
"You'd get critical mass for trading purposes and present a
more attractive proposition to the states that are holding
back," he said.
Senate President Karen Spilka welcomed the news Monday that
Massachusetts would be among the initial states to launch
TCI and said she expects that other states will soon follow
suit.
"I believe that Massachusetts needs to look at all policy
through the lens of climate change and its long-term
effects, and so I applaud our efforts to enter into a
regional TCI MOU," she said. "The MOU is such a positive
start for our region, and I do believe that if we build it,
others will come."
The Boston
Herald
Monday, December 21, 2020
Baker signs on to climate fees program
Gas hit could be 9 cents a gallon, administration says
By Erin Tiernan
Gov. Charlie Baker signed up Bay State taxpayers for a
controversial carbon tax initiative praised by climate
activists and blasted by businesses and residents concerned
an up to 9-cent hike per gallon of gas could hit their
bottom line as the state struggles to rebound from the
coronavirus pandemic.
The “trailblazing” multistate Transportation and Climate
Initiative sets a goal to reduce motor vehicle pollution by
at least 26% and generate over $1.8 billion for climate
causes in Massachusetts by 2032, Gov. Charlie Baker said in
a statement announcing the partnership on Monday.
The cap-and-invest program will set a cap on vehicle
emissions and mandate fuel distributors to buy permits for
the carbon dioxide they emit — a cost businesses say will be
handed down to the drivers at the gas pump.
“The revenue raised by TCI will come from the residents and
businesses of participating states, not the fuel companies
where the fee is applied,” the New England Convenience Store
Owners and Energy Marketers Association said in a statement.
The program will increase the cost of gas somewhere between
5 cents and “an absolute maximum” of 9 cents per gallon —
lower than the 17-cent cap the state floated last year,
Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Kathleen
Theoharides said Monday.
In a joint statement, three trade groups including the
National Association of Convenience Stores that represent
90% of retail fuel distributors said “the program will
result in higher costs without any meaningful environmental
benefit. These higher costs will be most acutely felt by the
northeast region’s low-income communities.”
Supporters reject calling the program a tax, explaining the
price tag comes with myriad benefits including improved
public health and billions for green transportation.
Past studies have shown transportation accounts for more
than 40% of Massachusetts’s greenhouse gas emissions and is
the largest source of air pollution.
Chris Dempsey, director of transportation for Massachusetts,
praised the agreement, saying it “will bring significant
public health, environmental, and economic benefits to
residents of Massachusetts.”
Baker at a news conference on Monday touted the program that
he said will chart a path toward addressing climate change
while rebuilding green transportation infrastructure.
“The price of doing nothing is very big,” the Republican
governor said as he detailed the flooding, hurricanes and
other climate-exacerbated weather events.
The agreement between Baker and Democratic governors from
Connecticut, Rhode Island and Washington, D.C., includes
just a quarter of the 12 states initially expected to
participate. The other Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states
expressed ongoing support for the program but did not sign
on to the Memorandum of Understanding.
Baker said his “hope” is that more will come aboard later
on.
The New Boston
Post
Monday, December 21, 2020
Charlie Baker Signs Carbon-Fee-on-Fuel Memorandum of
Understanding
With Rhode Island and Connecticut
By Tom Joyce
Gasoline and diesel could soon be more expensive in
Massachusetts.
On Monday, Massachusetts Republican governor Charlie Baker,
Rhode Island Democratic governor Gina Raimondo, Connecticut
Democratic governor Ned Lamont, and Washington D.C.
Democratic mayor Muriel Bowser signed the Transportation and
Climate Initiative memorandum of understanding. Several
other states reportedly may join as well.
The proposed pact would implement fees on fuel providers
based on their carbon emissions. That revenue would then go
towards funding public transportation. The idea is that
higher fuel prices reduces carbon emissions, as does
increased access to public transportation.
Initial estimates said the proposal could tack 17 cents onto
the price of each gallon of gasoline and diesel consumers
purchased. However, a recent report from the Beacon Hill
Institute and the Fiscal Alliance Foundation projected that
it would add 18 cents per gallon to the price of gasoline
and 35 cents per gallon for on-the-road diesel.
These increases would officially go into effect in 2023, but
could start in 2022.
The governor said the agreement will help address climate
change.
“As a commonwealth, we have an obligation to address climate
change head on and a challenge this great requires action
across our region and nation,” Baker said in a statement.
“That’s why I am proud to join Governor Lamont, Governor
Raimondo, and Mayor Bowser to launch this trailblazing
program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while building
the clean, resilient transportation system of the future.
“By partnering with our neighbor states with which we share
tightly connected economies and transportation systems, we
can make a more significant impact on climate change while
creating jobs and growing the economy as a result,” he
added. “Several other Transportation and Climate Initiative
states are also committing to this effort today and we look
forward to these partners moving ahead with us as we build
out this first in the nation program.”
Baker made the announcement despite last month expressing
some reservations about the timing of implementing a carbon
fee on fuel, since traffic congestion is down because of the
coronavirus emergency.
“TCI was based on a certain set of assumptions about volume,
right? And congestion. And it may be that at some point –
you know, I don’t know when that would be, down the road –
we’ll be back to where we were with respect to that. But I
think at this point in time it’s important to sort of
reexamine a lot of assumptions that went into what the
impact would be in terms of carbon reduction, based on the
changing nature of transportation generally,” Baker said
November 23. “And I think that is an important element, not
just for us but for the other states that are participating
in this conversation. If you pursue a price on carbon
associated with transportation, what do you get for that
price on carbon, in a world that looks a lot different now —
and potentially will stay a lot different for the next
several years — relative to the one we thought we were
living in a year ago?”
Baker’s decision to sign a carbon-fee deal on Monday,
December 21 received immediate criticism from both the
Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance and the National Federation of
Independent Business.
Christopher Carlozzi, Massachusetts director of the National
Federation of Independent Businesses, said the carbon fee on
fuel amounts to yet another expense for businesses and
workers who already have plenty of them.
“The same small businesses that have faced shutdowns,
countless restrictions, new regulations, and capacity limits
will now face higher fuel costs due to Massachusetts joining
the TCI,” Carlozzi said in a written statement. “Restaurants
require fuel to deliver food orders, plumbers and
electricians must drive to job sites, construction companies
utilize fuels to operate their equipment, and now TCI will
make it more expensive to run these types of small
businesses.
“Higher fuel costs as a result of TCI will not just impact
struggling small businesses attempting to grow jobs and
rebuild the shattered Massachusetts economy, it will hurt
the wallets of workers who must commute to their jobs in
vehicles every day,” he added.
Meanwhile, Paul Craney, spokesman of the Massachusetts
Fiscal Alliance, said that the move could hurt Baker and
Republican lieutenant governor Karyn Polito politically. If
they seek re-election, both will be running again in 2022.
“With Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito
supporting TCI and entering Massachusetts into the scheme, I
don’t see a path for either of them being able to win an
election in 2022,” Craney said. “People are hurting right
now and the administration’s obstinance on this issue is
insensitive to their plight and tone-deaf to their ongoing
struggles. TCI is bad policy and even worse politics.”
Craney noted that politicians like New Hampshire Republican
governor Chris Sununu and Vermont Republican governor Phil
Scott had no problem winning re-election this year and that
Republicans took back the New Hampshire House of
Representatives opposing the Transportation and Climate
Initiative while both states went to Democrats in federal
races where the state carbon fee on fuel was not an issue.
Massachusetts state Representative Marc Lombardo
(R-Billerica) criticized Governor Baker for the decision via
Twitter on Monday.
“I’m extremely disappointed that the Governor, in a Xmas
week news dump, chose to join TCI which multiple studies
show will increase gas prices by up to 38 cents per gallon,”
Lombardo wrote. “This hurts families that can least afford
to pay and is another kick in the teeth to struggling
businesses.”
Back in January, some Republican state representatives also
expressed concerns over the possible process for
implementing the carbon fee on fuel.
Baker administration officials have suggested that the
administration already has the authority to implement a
carbon on fuel thought the state’s Global Warming Solutions
Act of 2008.
But several GOP state legislators say that the carbon fee
would amounts to a new tax, and therefore should need
approval from the state Legislature in order to take effect.
New Jersey
101.5 FM
Monday, December 21, 2020
NJ opts out of climate program that could have raised gas
tax 17 cents
By Townsquare Staff
New Jersey has opted out of a regional climate program that
could have raised state gas taxes by as much as 17 cents per
gallon.
New Jersey most recently raised its gas tax by 9 cents in
October, to 50.7 cents for regular gas. The diesel fuel tax
is another 7 cents higher than that. It was the latest
increase following the 2016 state referendum, under then
Gov. Chris Christie, that empowered lawmakers to raise the
gas tax by nearly 23 cents in exchange for a requirement the
additional money go to the state's Transportation Trust
Fund.
The 2016 measure also included a formula that requires
yearly reviews to ensure New Jersey raises a set amount of
money, roughly $2 billion a year — potentially resulting in
smaller annual increases. This year's hike was higher than
usual, because of decreased travel in the coronavirus
pandemic.
Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the District
of Columbia all signed on to the Transportation and Climate
Initiative Program, a cap-and-trade initiative that could
have also meant $750 million a year in revenue to New Jersey
for infrastructure projects. The program was initially
proposed by the Georgetown Climate Center for 13 states and
the District.
Gov. Phil Murphy said Monday he liked the idea
"conceptually" but the "devil's in the details a little bit,
and I'm conscious of the sticker shock potentially, because
it would require some amount of payment at the gas pump."
Murphy said he was reluctant to burden New Jersey residents
with higher gas taxes in an economic crisis spurred by the
pandemic and related economic shutdowns.
"To say it's an unusual economic environment is the
understatement of the day," Murphy said.
New Jersey and other jurisdictions that declined the program
did signal, however, they would continue talks and could
sign on for a version of the initiative at a later date.
Murphy had been pressured to support or decline the
agreement from groups that are often allies.
Essex County Freeholder Brendan Gill, co-chair of the New
Jersey leadership council of the group Elected Officials to
Protect America, said earlier this month the issue is an old
one taking on new urgency due to the respiratory issues
around COVID-19. On Monday, the group said 115 elected
officials had signed on to a letter urging Murphy to sign a
memorandum of agreement to join the climate program.
“Pollution just from transportation costs lives. It costs
billions of dollars and it threatens the safety of our
residents,” Gill, who managed Murphy’s 2017 gubernatorial
campaign, previously said.
Some environmental groups opposed the proposal, calling the
tax regressive and saying the plan doesn’t guarantee
emission reductions in high-pollution urban areas.
— with previous reporting by Michael Symons
WBSM AM-1420
New Bedford, Mass.
Tuesday, December 22, 2020
Baker delivers another blow to Massachusetts businesses
By Barry Richard
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, not content with
destroying thousands of businesses with his COVID-19
restrictions, is coming for the rest with a new regional gas
tax in his quest to control the climate.
Baker has announced a Transportation and Climate Initiative
with Rhode Island, Connecticut, and the District of Columbia
to develop a "cap-and-invest" program. The goal is to reduce
pollution from motor vehicles by raising new taxes to expand
"clean transit options" and improve public health.
Baker had been in discussions for two years with the
governors of a dozen East Coast states to form such a
coalition, but in the end, only Rhode Island, Connecticut,
and D.C. bought into the scam.
The Transportation and Climate Initiative would initially
raise the gas tax for motorists in the three states and D.C.
by between five and nine cents per gallon. Baker had
advocated for as much as a 15-cent-per-gallon increase. Of
course, once a new tax is established, there is no saying
how quickly the coalition might come back to the well and
for how much more.
Massachusetts businesses were already reeling from bad
business policies, and then came COVID. Now Baker wants to
add to the misery by increasing taxes during a time when
businesses are in crisis mode and consumers are struggling
to pay rent and meet expenses.
Baker's TCI would raise an additional $1.8 billion from
taxpayers over the next 12 years in what Citizens for
Limited Taxation calls a "boondoggle." The
Administration argues that Baker's initiative "provides a
critical opportunity to improve air quality throughout the
Commonwealth, create jobs for Massachusetts residents, and
help our state and regional economies recover." CLT says it
will do nothing of the sort.
In a statement, CLT said the agreement does "nothing to
create jobs for Massachusetts residents" and will do "very
little if anything whatsoever to reduce pollution or affect
the climate around the world." Executive Director Chip
Ford accuses Baker of simply "leading a crusade."
Transportation under Charlie Baker is a nightmare. We
already invest billions for transportation projects that are
misspent or cannot be accounted for. In addition, voters
have made it abundantly clear that they oppose new gas
taxes.
When fuel costs go up, the cost of everything goes up. This
is not a time to be increasing the burden on business and
consumers for some mythical quest to lower the oceans.
Balance the budget. That would impress me.
I'm not sure Massachusetts can survive two more years of
King Charles and his policies.
— Barry Richard is the host
of The Barry Richard Show on 1420 WBSM New Bedford. He can
be heard weekdays from noon to 3 p.m.
The Boston
Herald
Tuesday, December 22, 2020
A Boston Herald editorial
TCI’s bluster only amounts to gas-price hike
Cheers of joy were heard in recent days from progressive
corners about the arrival of a new climate-change age with
the imminent signing of the multistate Transportation and
Climate Initiative, a cap-and-invest program that sets
limits on vehicle emissions and mandates that fuel
distributors buy permits for the carbon dioxide they
generate.
However, only Massachusetts, two other New England states
and Washington, D.C., opted in on this previously touted
major effort to reduce transportation emissions.
Gov. Charlie Baker put Bay State taxpayers on the hook for
helping pay for this controversial carbon tax initiative,
praised by climate activists and panned by businesses and
residents concerned with facing up to a 9-cent per gallon of
gas increase.
“The revenue raised by TCI will come from the residents and
businesses of participating states, not the fuel companies
where the fee is applied,” the New England Convenience Store
Owners and Energy Marketers Association said in a statement.
The “trailblazing” multistate TCI sets a goal of reducing
motor-vehicle pollution by at least 26% and generating over
$1.8 billion for climate causes in Massachusetts by 2032,
according to Baker’s statement announcing the partnership on
Monday.
Massachusetts Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary
Kathleen Theoharides predicts the program will increase the
cost of gas between 5 cents and “an absolute maximum” of 9
cents per gallon.
That projection apparently ignores a Tufts University study
that projects a gas increase of 13 to 24 cents.
Only Rhode Island, Connecticut and the District of Columbia
joined Massachusetts in this effort, a far cry from the
dozen states that initially expressed interest.
Several key states, including New York, New Jersey and
Pennsylvania, had considered joining, but declined to
participate. New Hampshire dropped out a year ago because of
the expected gas-price increases, while Vermont and Maine
have raised concerns about potential costs to consumers.
According to published reports, if all 12 states had joined,
the compact would have included more than 20% of the U.S.
population. As it stands, it represents less than 4%.
We’re also somewhat puzzled by the governor’s decision to
join this shell of a TCI.
In a GBH radio interview back in January, Baker said just
raising the state gas tax wouldn’t create a reason for the
auto and gas industry to address carbon emissions or
greenhouse-gas emissions. “Putting a tax on something is not
the same as creating a cap-and-invest program,” Baker said.
The coronavirus pandemic soon followed, which upended
transportation habits due to mass business shutdowns. It
drastically reduced the demand for gasoline — across the
commonwealth and elsewhere.
Baker repeated his misgivings as recently as late November
during a daily coronavirus update, saying, it’s “important
to re-examine the assumptions” of the TCI tax based on the
changing nature of transportation.
Effective vaccines over time will eventually allow employees
to resume more traditional routines, but given many major
corporations’ positive experiences with the current at-home
work environment, commuter traffic will never return to
previous levels.
So, fewer motorists will pay disproportionately higher gas
prices for climate-change programs that probably are no
longer needed.
The governor’s TCI commitment either demonstrates a
willingness to chase windmills, or a belief that if you join
it, other states will eventually come on board.
Higher gas prices are the only certainty we can see.
The Boston
Herald
Wednesday, December 23, 2020
Charlie Baker’s TCI tax saves hack jobs, not environment
Hint: It’s leaving your pocket
By Howie Carr
Charlie Baker, as he was running for
governor, protesting the gas tax. Courtesy photo
Having had such
amazing success controlling the virus, why wouldn’t the
three police states of Maskachusetts, Rhode Island and
Connecticut now propose to save the planet by doubling or
tripling the tax on gasoline and diesel fuel?
What could possibly go wrong?
In case you missed it, on Monday of Christmas week, the
three aforementioned failed states announced a bold,
probably unconstitutional agreement to screw motorists and
what’s left of the private sector.
They mean to further lay waste to the region’s economy by
jacking up gasoline taxes, with no legislative or voter
approval. The payoff: billions for an endless supply of
phony-baloney no-show jobs for their pals and relatives.
Basically, the payroll patriots’ plan is to talk global
warming to death, at seminars and conferences in assorted
sunny places for shady people.
It would seem a daunting challenge, to affect the climate of
the planet, especially when only these three small states
have signed on, while the hacks were hoping for a dozen to
jump-start their latest mad scheme to beggar the middle
class.
Independent studies have indicated that Maskachusetts’ greed
could tack somewhere between 14 and 38 cents more tax on
every gallon of gasoline sold (or not sold, if you’re within
easy driving distance of New Hampshire).
The hacks, though, now say the additional gas tax will
“only” amount to 9 cents per gallon.
Of course these low-ball numbers are concocted by the same
government that falsified 65,000 criminal drug tests, has
allowed the State Police to become an organized-crime
family, once promised that the Mass Pike tolls would end in
1989 and said that the “temporary” 1989 income tax hike
would be gone in 18 months. (It lasted 30 years.)
This time, though, the hacks are telling the truth. Just ask
them.
But let’s consider how these groundbreaking states have this
year handled a much smaller, more manageable project –
namely, controlling a seasonal virus from China.
Start with nursing homes. According to the latest
statistics, here’s how the three TCI states stack up:
Massachusetts is No. 1 among the 50 states in nursing-home
deaths per 1000, at 125. That means one of every eight
residents of the nursing homes regulated by Gov. Baker’s
Dept. of Public Health is dead this year.
Despite his abysmal failure to protect the elderly, Tall
Deval is supremely confident in his plot to lift another few
billion out of the taxpayers’ pockets, er, I mean, save the
planet.
Of our Commonwealth’s partners in saving Mother Gaia,
Connecticut stands third in nursing home deaths, one of
every 10 residents dead. Rhode Island comes in at number
four in the toll at nursing homes, 86 per thousand, which is
one of 12.
Okay, so how are the three gas-tax-crazed states doing in
overall deaths?
Again, Maskachusetts is close to the top of the heap,
third-highest death toll per 100,000 in the U.S. (166).
Connecticut is fifth (153) and Rhode Island seventh (148).
The TCI plan is to not call the taxes taxes, but to impose
“levies” on fuel suppliers.
They will then pass on their added costs to that
ever-dwindling number of people who haven’t fled what was
once known as southern New England, but could now more
accurately be called the Warsaw Pact West, or perhaps
Greater Albania.
By the way, I forgot to mention, a fourth shady entity has
signed on to this latest heist – the District of Columbia.
DC is run by Mayor Muriel Bowser, who follows her own
lockdown rules about as diligently as, say, Gov. Gina
Raimondo of Rhode Island or Lt. Gov. Karyn “Pay-to-Play”
Polito.
Rules for thee, but not for me – that’s their motto, all of
’em.
Anyway, in her statement about the TCI, Mayor Bowser said,
“My vision is for the District to be the healthiest,
greenest, most livable city …”
Then perhaps Mayor Bowser should forget TCI for awhile and
instead concentrate on DC’s murder rate — eighth-highest in
the country.
As you might have expected, the planet was a little warmer
after all the hot air expended Monday by all of the
principals in this latest soak-the-poor grift.
Pay-to-Play Polito said the shakedown will “create jobs for
Massachusetts residents, and help our state and regional
economies recover.”
Surely she meant to say “hack jobs.” And imagine her
audacity to claim an obscene tax hike will help the economy
recover — after Polito’s own administration drove it over a
cliff, for no good reason.
This is like the proverbial story about the guy who kills
his parents, then throws himself on the mercy of the court
as an orphan.
One last thing: Check out these photos of candidate Charlie
Parker from 2014. He was running for governor, and he hooked
onto a referendum question that was designed to repeal an
earlier odious proposed automatic annual gas tax increase.
Charlie was losing the election until he married Question 1.
Despite being outspent 30-1 by Big Asphalt, the taxpayers
prevailed by 125,000 votes. Charlie Parker, meanwhile, eked
out a 40,000-vote victory over the worst candidate in state
history, Martha “Marsha” Coakley.
Bottom line: Charlie Parker was first elected on the
coattails of a taxpayers’ revolt against the insatiable
greed of the hackerama. He owes his political career to
opponents of a confiscatory gas tax.
Yet now he proposes to triple the gasoline tax on the very
people who (once) elected him.
Can’t wait for 2022.
We’ll remember, not in November, but in September, at
primary time. Charlie rode in on a referendum, there’s no
reason he can’t ride out on one the same damn way.
CommonWealth
Magazine
Tuesday, December 22, 2020
House members following DeLeo-Mariano script
By Bruce Mohl
One veteran House lawmaker said on Monday that Ron Mariano’s
ascension as speaker has been one of the smoothest, most
unified, most calm transitions he has ever witnessed.
That’s because this speaker transition is following a script
that has been honed and crafted for years. As House Speaker
Robert DeLeo prepares to hand off the speakership to his
majority leader, the two men have left very little to
chance.
The transition, according to sources, began several years
ago when Mariano and his allies began lining up support. It
was done quietly, with rumors only occasionally surfacing.
No one would say anything on the record about the
vote-gathering, but in retrospect the most important thing
about it was that DeLeo let it happen.
In the past, DeLeo dealt with potential threats to his
leadership decisively. In January 2011, he demoted Charlie
Murphy, his Ways and Means chair, and James Vallee, his
majority leader, who reportedly were building their own
power bases in the House. Both men left the House the next
year.
Brian Dempsey, the former chair of the Ways and Means
Committee and the man who many considered the heir apparent
to DeLeo, left the House in 2017 to take up lobbying. Rep.
Russell Holmes of Boston took note of Dempsey’s departure
and suggested the Black and Latino Caucus “should be strong
and united in our selection of the next speaker of the
House.” For that remark, he lost his vice chairmanship of
the Housing Committee.
Yet DeLeo did nothing when Mariano began soliciting support,
suggesting the speaker had given his blessing to his
majority leader. To be sure, Mariano and his allies were not
seeking to topple DeLeo. They were only gathering pledges of
support, preparing for the day when DeLeo, the state’s
longest-serving speaker, would decide it was time to move
on.
That day arrived last Wednesday, when NBC10’s Alison King,
citing a source, said DeLeo was planning to take a job at
Northeastern University. DeLeo’s office released a strange
statement saying the speaker “has had no such talks with,
much less does he have any agreement with, Northeastern
University.”
The very next day Mariano’s allies in the House told
reporters the race to succeed DeLeo was effectively over.
“I would say there is no speaker’s race,” Rep. Claire Cronin
of Easton, the chair of the Judiciary Committee, told the
Boston Globe. “I think when Speaker DeLeo decides to leave
or whenever he does leave, Leader Mariano will be the next
speaker of the House.”
Michael Moran, the second assistant majority leader, told
CommonWealth the same. “When and if Bob DeLeo decides that
he is going to leave, I am very, very, very confident that
Ron Mariano is going to replace him,” he said.
On Friday, right on cue, DeLeo filed a notice with the clerk
of the House disclosing that he was about to begin job
negotiations with Northeastern. The notice said he had not
had any discussions yet with Northeastern, but somehow, the
notice implied, he knew now was a good time to begin them.
Holmes announced on Friday that he would run for speaker. A
couple veteran lawmakers who are retiring this year, Reps.
Jonathan Hecht of Watertown and Denise Provost of
Somerville, raised concerns about the wired transition in an
op-ed in CommonWealth. But everybody else on Beacon Hill
kept their mouth shut. In truth, the decision about who
would be the next speaker of the House was made long ago and
now the House is just going through the motions.
The Boston
Globe
Friday, December 18, 2020
DeLeo looks to exit as the sheeple graze toward Mariano
Autocracy reigns in the Massachusetts House —
that freshman class of 2020 won’t know what hit ’em.
By Rachelle G. Cohen
Good politicians, smart politicians, know when to exit. And
Bob DeLeo — however old-school he may be — is a smart
politician.
He’s had a good run — 12 years as Massachusetts House
speaker and, unlike three of his predecessors, he was never
convicted of a felony by the feds. (Although he was named an
unindicted coconspirator in the wide-ranging case involving
the state’s probation department.) Around here, that’s
actually groundbreaking. So it makes sense for DeLeo to
leave while his reputation is intact and with a few rather
progressive bills, like the Roe Act and police reform, he
can claim credit for.
I reported more than six weeks ago that DeLeo, 70, was
telling a few close associates that this pandemic-plagued
year has been particularly grueling and that he’s tired and
wants out. Word like that has a way of getting around, and
entities — like Northeastern University — have a sharp eye
for picking politically powerful allies to bring into the
fold.
The speaker made it official Friday, filing the required
ethics disclosure statements indicating he was indeed about
to negotiate a job with his alma mater. The job in question
wasn’t mentioned, but even as a faculty member, DeLeo, who
has been a prodigious fund-raiser for his own campaign
coffers, would certainly know how to help tap funds for the
school.
DeLeo has had 30 years on Beacon Hill, and for the last 12
of those years he has reigned from atop the good ol’ boys
pyramid he created. And he has left more than a few bodies
in his wake.
Representative Russell Holmes of Mattapan, a former leader
of the Legislature’s Black and Latino Caucus, has publicly
called DeLeo’s reign as speaker a “dictatorship.” Holmes,
once vice chair of the Housing Committee, was ousted from
that post in 2017. Now Holmes is looking to run for speaker
himself if only to prevent another “backroom deal.”
Others, like former House Ways and Means Chairman Jeff
Sanchez and former assistant majority leader Byron Rushing,
paid for their loyalty to DeLeo in the 2018 election, when
they were ousted by voters in the Democratic primary.
Sanchez lost to Nika Elugardo, who criticized him for
failing to get a Safe Communities bill passed in the House.
Preceding Sanchez at Ways and Means was Brian Dempsey, who
was viewed as DeLeo’s heir apparent but grew tired of
waiting for the speaker to finally exit the State House
stage. Dempsey left in 2017 to make use of his peak earning
years in the private sector.
Which brings us to the latest heir apparent, majority leader
Ron Mariano of Quincy, who has been lining up votes for more
than a month for the speaker’s job. Of course, at 74,
Mariano is hardly the kind of new and progressive leader the
House needs. Rather, he’s a savvy player very much in the
DeLeo tradition. That explains why he’s trying so hard to
lock up votes ahead of the arrival of the freshman class of
2020.
Already signed on to the Mariano bandwagon is another member
of DeLeo’s leadership team, Representative Michael J. Moran
of Brighton, slated to rise to majority leader under a
Speaker Mariano.
It would all be rather shameful — that is, if the House were
anything resembling a democracy. But it has been an
autocracy for so long that no one within the State House
bubble thinks this is at all unusual.
The sheeple will once again fall into line in the Great and
General Court. Long live the sheeple!
State House
News Service
Thursday, December 24, 2020
Weekly Roundup - July At Christmastime
Recap and analysis of the week in state government
By Matt Murphy
It is the night before Christmas and all week through the
House, Bob DeLeo was stirring. Want to know more? Ask the
mouse.
After DeLeo's disclosure last Friday that he would begin
negotiating post-politics employment with Northeastern
University, the speaker went silent, leaving Beacon Hill to
guess how long before he steps down.
Hours? Days? Weeks?
Some people thought it was a sure thing that by the time
Christmas morning arrived there would be a new speaker at
the State House. Majority Leader Ron Mariano has been
waiting in the wings, his bag already loaded with votes to
succeed DeLeo and his only opponent, Rep. Russell Holmes,
just hoping to force his colleagues to consider why that is.
"This is my lunch counter," said the Black lawmaker. "So I'm
going to fight."
Holmes and some progressive lawmakers, including retiring
Reps. Jonathan Hecht and Denise Provost, have blasted what
has been unfolding over the past week as backroom
deal-making at its shadiest. Others just want to get it over
with.
People close to Mariano say the Quincy Democrat counts 119
votes in his column if the vote were to be held before Jan.
6, and the money has been moving toward that happening early
next week. A full list of names was not provided.
Needing only 81 votes to become the next speaker, the
support Mariano is banking on would be more than enough to
withstand a few last minute defections to Holmes.
But for now, the leadership question hangs over the House
like the Sacred Cod and it's still jolly old Bob DeLeo
overseeing a raft of budgetary veto overrides and the
delivery of police reform and abortion access legislation to
Gov. Charlie Baker's desk.
Baker wished for one of those presents, but not the other.
The House and Senate rejected Baker's amendment to the
abortion measure, which would have kept the age of consent
for the procedure at 18 and tightened the language around
when an abortion after 24 weeks would become legal.
Instead, the Legislature sent back to the pro-choice
Republican governor an expansion of abortion access that
Baker had issues with, but he has not been clear whether his
concerns were serious enough to warrant a veto. A veto would
set up an override vote, and while Democrats appear to have
the numbers on their side, it would be close.
That was the present Baker didn't want to find under his
office Christmas tree. Meanwhile, it appears Baker won't be
refusing delivery of police accountability legislation.
The policing bill would require cops to be licensed and put
restrictions on the use of force, but it has been trickier
than most bills to push through the Legislature, and passed
with an unusual number of Democratic defectors.
After filing his own version this summer following the
killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Baker threatened to
veto what the Legislature came up with after five months of
closed-door negotiations and faced sharp criticism from
political leaders on the left like U.S. Rep. Ayanna
Pressley.
But with more leverage than he's accustomed to, Baker was
upfront about what he needed to see in the bill and what he
would do if the Legislature balked. And the two sides appear
to have threaded that needle.
After returning the bill with amendments, Baker worked with
the Black and Latino Legislative Caucus to address his
concerns regarding the curtailment of facial recognition
technology and the training of police. Those talks led to
the development of a new framework he said he could live
with, and it was accepted by the House and Senate on
Tuesday.
The final version, which Baker said he would sign probably
next week, largely leaves the training of municipal police
to law enforcement personnel in the executive branch, rather
than the civilian-controlled Peace Officer Standards and
Training Commission.
It also ensures that facial recognition technology will
still be available for now to police investigating serious
crimes.
Maybe it was the finalizing of police reform, or the ROE
Act. Or maybe it was as simple as running out of time. But
there were signs that the legislative logjam was starting to
break up.
With those two pieces out of the way, the conference
committee negotiating a telehealth bill reached a deal
Tuesday night to cement telehealth's place in the care
delivery system by requiring coverage and payment on par
with in-person services for at least two years.
The health care bill, incidentally, was negotiated for the
House by none other than Leader Mariano, two years after his
talks with the Senate over a measure to stabilize community
hospital finances fell apart on the final night of the
session.
Baker hopes one of the next conference committees to
finalize negotiations will be the one led by House Ways and
Means Chairman Aaron Michlewitz and Sen. Eric Lesser focused
on economic development.
"The clock is ticking on the end of the session with respect
to that, but the clock is also ticking for businesses here
in the commonwealth that would benefit from those resources
if we could get them across to our desk, sign them, and put
them to work," the governor said.
That quote was uttered one day before Baker announced a new
round of business restrictions in the hope of preventing
Christmas from spreading more than cheer.
Facing pressure to take more aggressive action to slow the
surge of COVID-19, Baker on Tuesday said that beginning
Saturday businesses would be required to limit their
capacity to 25 percent. He also dialed back outdoor
gatherings from a maximum of 50 people to 25, and lowered
the limit for indoor gatherings at private residences and
event spaces to 10.
The restrictions will be in place for a minimum of two
weeks, but Baker said the idea is that they will be
temporary as long as people follow the rules, limit
Christmas celebrations to their household and prevent the
type of post-holiday surge the state saw after Thanksgiving.
"It's just for one year, and there are brighter days around
the corner," Baker said about the holidays.
To make sure those brighter days can be seen by small
businesses, including restaurants, who have been getting
crushed by the economic restrictions and public health
precautions being taken by residents, Baker on Wednesday
announced a $668 million relief fund for businesses hurt the
most by the pandemic.
The sizable fund makes the $50 million in relief grants
awarded Monday look like couch change. That first round of
funding left thousands of businesses in the cold and about
$350 million in requests unfulfilled. Those passed-over
businesses will get first priority, the administration said,
and possibly a check for up to $75,000 by next week.
Baker said the financing behind the proposal relies in part
on President Donald Trump signing a new $900 billion
stimulus bill approved this week by Congress. While Trump is
threatening a possible veto, Baker said the stimulus bill
would give the state the "flexibility" it needs to make the
math work for its own small business relief program.
The new federal relief bill includes a one-year extension on
federal aid from the CARES Act that otherwise must be spent
by Dec. 30 or returned to the federal government. Baker is
hoping to repurpose $650 million in CARES Act funding to
support his small business relief effort, though it's
unclear where that money was going to be directed before
now.
Massachusetts is also expecting to receive tens of millions
of dollars annually starting in 2023 by being one of the
three states, as well as the District of Columbia, to get in
on the ground floor of the Transportation Climate
Initiative.
The regional compact to cap emissions from vehicles and
require fuel suppliers to buy and trade carbon allowances
was finalized this week with a goal of reducing greenhouse
gas emissions by 26 percent by 2032.
Despite setting a more ambitious carbon reduction goal than
contemplated just a year ago, the developers of the program
said that at most it will add 9 cents to the price of a
gallon of gas and generate $366 million annually for
participating states to invest in clean energy.
Still, of the 13 jurisdictions that put the program together
only Connecticut and Rhode Island saw fit to join
Massachusetts and D.C. in the program right away. Other
states will have time to think about it before the program
starts in earnest in 2023.
"The price of doing nothing is very big," Baker said.
STORY OF THE WEEK: Seven months after George Floyd, Beacon
Hill reaches watershed accord to hold police accountable.
State House
News Service
Thursday, December 24, 2020
Advances - Week of Dec. 27, 2020
With COVID-19 still surging, Gov. Charlie Baker wants people
to pause their activities and reduce their mobility in the
two weeks spanning both sides of New Year, but Beacon Hill
has other things in mind.
Temporary capacity and gathering limits
As of December 26, 2020, all businesses must adhere to the
following capacity limitations due to the surge in COVID-19
cases.
https://www.mass.gov/info-details/temporary-capacity-and-gathering-limits
A change in House leadership -- from Speaker Robert DeLeo to
Majority Leader Ron Mariano -- appears in the cards to close
out 2020, and is likely to come as lawmakers are trying to
wrap up major legislative loose ends. Both branches have
formal sessions on Monday and additional formal sessions
seem likely next week. DeLeo has gone into hiding in the
days since the news broke about his interest in a job at
Northeastern University, unavailable to discuss his own
situation or the pressing matters on the legislative agenda.
If DeLeo schedules a Democratic caucus next week, that could
be a sign that he's ready to leave and the leadership change
is about to occur. Once there's a vacancy in the speaker's
office, the House can't conduct any business until a new
speaker is chosen.
The reduction in allowable capacity at most businesses to
just 25 percent takes effect Saturday, and while struggling
companies next week will begin to see the flow of grants
under a new $668 million small business relief program, it's
unclear whether Democrats will finally put aside differences
and agree on an economic development bill (H 4887 / S 2874)
that's been stuck in conference committee talks since July.
The last full week for formal sessions for this iteration of
the General Court is also crunch time for climate change (H
4933 / S 2500) and transportation spending (H 4547 / S 2836)
bills that are similarly lodged in conference. On the
climate front, the Baker administration plans any day now to
release what it is commonly referred to as a "roadmap" to
get to net zero emissions by 2050.
Lawmakers are making late-session pushes on bills addressing
sexual assaults on college campuses (H 4418) and banning
certain products that contain flame-retardant chemicals (H
4900), a bill that reached the governor's desk on Wednesday.
Baker is getting ready to sign a landmark policing reform
bill and also must decide in the coming days whether to go
along with an abortion access bill (H 5179) that includes
measures he does not favor. And Baker will soon learn
whether a measure he supports that could reshape the housing
production landscape in Massachusetts will survive
legislative negotiations.
The late-year focus on important decisions that would
normally be made by a July deadline during an election year
comes at another challenging time for Massachusetts and its
battle with COVID-19.
Students from kindergarten through college are on winter
breaks and many workers are taking vacation time. That's
normally something to celebrate, but during the public
health crisis, holidays and idle time have led to the types
of gatherings that experts say are fueling infections and
virus spread.
Baker on Wednesday recalled people at the start of the
pandemic thinking it might last a few weeks or a month.
"This has turned out to be nothing like that," he said. "And
it's required a willingness to stay in a lane of life that's
very different than most people have lived for a really long
time."
A months-long vaccination effort means real relief is a ways
off still. State officials say a key step in the early
vaccination rollout will start next week when a partnership
with CVS and Walgreens to immunize long-term care residents
and staff begins at those facilities.
-- POLICING, ABORTION, HEALTH CARE BILLS ON BAKER'S DESK:
Gov. Baker has already weighed in on proposals to expand
abortion access and reform policing in Massachusetts, and
both topics are again on his plate.
The Legislature rejected his recommended changes on the
abortion provision, standing firm on its push to allow 16-
and 17-year-olds to access the procedure without the consent
of a parent or judge and to use slightly broader language
qualifying abortions after 24 weeks.
On police reform, in an attempt to find consensus with
Baker, lawmakers revised their original proposal to put
fewer restrictions on law enforcement's ability to use
facial recognition technology and to keep municipal police
training under the watch of public safety and law
enforcement officials. Baker plans to sign the revised
police reform bill. "It will probably happen sometime next
week," he said Wednesday, referring to the bill signing.
He's remained mum on the abortion proposal. Asked about it
Wednesday, the governor said he was not aware that the bill
had been sent to his desk by the Senate the day before. If
Baker opts to veto the abortion bill (H 5179), the measure
would need to survive a tight override vote in the House to
make it to the Senate, where override votes are lined up.
The compromise health care bill (S 2984) addresses
telehealth, payments to community hospitals, scope of
practice reforms for certain nurses, access to urgent care
for low-income residents, coverage for COVID-19 testing and
treatment, and changes to prevent surprise medical bills.
-- NEW STUFF IN THE NEW YEAR: A slew of changes affecting
employers and employees across Massachusetts kick into
effect when the calendar flips to 2021. The minimum wage
will rise from $12.75 per hour to $13.50 per hour, while the
minimum wage for tipped workers increases from $4.95 to
$5.55 an hour. According to the Retailers Association of
Massachusetts, the 5.8 percent increase in the wage floor
"will create further wage compression up through the wage
scales, not just for new hires."
The trade group's members are also preparing for an average
7.9 percent increase in health insurance premiums for small
businesses, which it says is "far higher than is typically
seen by big business and big government."
Meanwhile, the higher rate of premium pay that retail
establishments must offer for working on Sundays and some
holidays will drop from 1.3 times standard pay to 1.2 times.
Those changes are all part of a multi-year phased transition
to a $15 minimum wage and elimination of premium pay that
Beacon Hill leaders approved in 2018 as part of the
so-called "grand bargain" with business and labor groups.
On Jan. 1, workers will also be able to access most paid
family and medical leave benefits approved in the deal as
well, coming a year and a half after the payroll taxes began
to fund the program. The benefits offer paid leave to
workers who take time off to bond with a new child, take
care of a sick or injured service member, or to tend to a
serious personal health condition. Paid leave to care for a
family member with a serious health condition will become
available on July 1.
Without action from the Legislature, employers will also
face a massive increase in unemployment insurance trust fund
contributions starting next year, stemming largely from the
unprecedented surge in demand for joblessness benefits. The
fund that pays out unemployment aid -- funded almost
entirely by employers -- projects to end the year nearly
$2.4 billion in the red, which would trigger a nearly 60
percent increase in the unemployment taxes that businesses
pay.
Gov. Baker filed a bill (H 5206) that would limit those
hikes to about 17 percent, and lawmakers will take testimony
on it on Monday. The increases take effect starting in 2021,
but the bills for the first quarter will not be due until
the spring.
-- UNFINISHED LEGISLATIVE BUSINESS: Temperatures are about
50 degrees colder and the days a lot shorter, but next week
will in some ways feel like a typical late July day on
Beacon Hill. Climate change, economic development and
transportation spending bills could cross the finish line,
or fail and need to start anew in the 2021-2022 session,
depending on what happens over the next two weeks.
If lawmakers do reach deals, the final approvals would
likely come quickly since both branches are already on
record with support for the bills, though in differing
forms. For instance, a health care accord reached late
Monday was put on the governor's desk in just over 24 hours.
However, there's always a possibility that competing
ideologies and egos will prevent the Democratic-controlled
conference committees from finding consensus. "We'll see if
any of the conference committees come up with their bills,"
Senate President Karen Spilka said Monday night in a remark
notable for its neutrality. In July 2018, at the end of
formal sessions that year, conference committee talks on
public education funding and health care reform collapsed.
-- SMALL BIZ RELIEF GRANTS: The Baker administration next
week plans to begin releasing millions of dollars in grants
under a new $668 million program announced Wednesday to help
restaurants, retailers and other small businesses that are
struggling to survive in the face of COVID-19 restrictions,
including new measures that take effect on Saturday.
The new program promises grants of up to $75,000, but not
more than three months' operating expenses, to be used for
employee wage and benefits costs, space-related costs, and
debt service obligations.
The online application portal for the new program will open
on Thursday, Dec. 31, and will close on Friday, Jan. 15.
"Please apply for these funds and put them to good use,"
Housing and Economic Development Secretary Michael Kennealy
urged businesses and entrepreneurs on Wednesday.
Awards are expected to be announced in early February.
Details of the program's funding sources were not available
and the governor said it relies in part on passage of the
pending $900 billion federal COVID-19 relief bill.
Only about one in 10 applicants who sought grants from the
Massachusetts Growth Capital Corporation received awards,
and the new program is designed to help more businesses
receive aid. Baker said something "very significant" was
needed because businesses have been struggling throughout
the pandemic and are now facing new restrictions that will
limit access to customers. Baker said Wednesday that he did
not need legislative approval to launch the massive grant
program and pointed out that the Legislature authorized the
program, which he said enabled him to advance the major
initiative.
-- POCKET VETO COMES INTO PLAY: Starting Monday, a pocket
veto is an option for any bill that lawmakers send to Gov.
Charlie Baker's desk. A pocket veto results from the
governor's failure to sign a bill within 10 days following
prorogation or dissolution of the General Court. The
2019-2020 Legislature may continue up until the 2021-2022
General Court begins on Wednesday, Jan. 6. As the session
winds down, Baker still retains his usual options of signing
bills, vetoing bills and sending them back with amendments.
Saturday, Dec. 26, 2020
NEW RESTRICTIONS: Businesses across Massachusetts must
reduce allowable capacity from 40 percent to 25 percent,
gathering limits will shrink, and in-patient elective
surgeries must be postponed, all starting Saturday, under
the latest round of restrictions imposed by the Baker
administration to stem the spread of COVID-19. Staff will
not count toward the occupancy limit for many businesses.
The allowable gathering limits will also drop to 10 people
indoors and 25 people outdoors in all settings. Under
previous limits, 25 people had been allowable indoors at
event venues or in public settings and 50 outdoors in the
same contexts. Hospitals must also postpone or cancel all
non-essential inpatient elective invasive procedures, a
directive intended to keep beds available as the number of
people receiving COVID-19 care in hospitals tops 2,000.
(Saturday, Dec. 26)
https://www.mass.gov/info-details/temporary-capacity-and-gathering-limits
Monday, Dec. 28, 2020
SENATE FORMAL SESSION: The Senate meets in a formal session,
with most members participating remotely. (Monday, 11 a.m.,
Senate Chamber)
HOUSE FORMAL SESSION: The House meets in a formal session,
with most members participating remotely. (Monday, 11 a.m.,
House Chamber) ...
POTENTIAL SENATE FORMAL: Senators have been advised to hold
Tuesday on their calendars for a potential formal session.
(Tuesday)
Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2020
SENATE DEMS CAUCUS: Senate Democrats meet privately in a
virtual caucus, with six days left until the end of the
legislative session. (Wednesday, 11 a.m.)
HARVARD DOC TALKS COVID: Dr. Amar Dhand of Harvard Medical
School and Brigham and Women's Hospital gives a talk titled
"Insights from the Frontlines of COVID-19 and How Network
Science Can Help" as part of the Lyceum Live public
conversation series. Stream. (Wednesday, 8 p.m.)
POTENTIAL SENATE FORMAL: Senators have been advised to hold
Wednesday on their calendars for a potential formal session.
(Wednesday)
Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020
POTENTIAL SENATE FORMAL: Senators have been advised to hold
Tuesday on their calendars for a potential formal session.
Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2020
SENATE DEMS CAUCUS: Senate Democrats meet privately in a
virtual caucus, with six days left until the end of the
legislative session. (Wednesday, 11 a.m.) ...
POTENTIAL SENATE FORMAL: Senators have been advised to hold
Wednesday on their calendars for a potential formal session.
(Wednesday)
Thursday, Dec. 31, 2020
SENATE GLOBAL WARMING COMMITTEE: Senate Global Warming and
Climate Change Committee holds a virtual hearing on the
Transportation & Climate Initiative, proposed changes to the
Renewable Portfolio Standard, and ongoing emission reduction
efforts. Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Kathleen
Theoharides is expected to testify. The hearing could also
focus on the Baker administration's 2050 Decarbonization
Roadmap and its 2030 Clean Energy and Climate Plan, both of
which are expected to be released before the end of the
month. Sen. Marc Pacheco chairs the committee and Sen.
Michael Barrett is the vice chair. (Thursday, 10 a.m.,
Details)
FIRST NIGHT BOSTON: Boston's First Night celebration moves
online this year with a series of performances and events
broadcast throughout New Year's Eve. Streaming on the First
Night website from 6 p.m. through 1 a.m., the programming
will also air on NBC 10 Boston from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. and on
NECN and NBC Sports Boston from 11 p.m. through 12:01 a.m.
Schedule. (Thursday, 6 p.m.) Friday, Jan. 1, 2021
No public events currently scheduled for New Year's Day.
The Boston
Herald
Friday, December 25, 2020
14 states side with New Hampshire in tax suit against
Massachusetts
By Sean Philip Cotter
States are lining up against Massachusetts and siding with
New Hampshire in the lawsuit over the Bay State’s policy
taxing the income of out-of-state residents telecommuting
for Bay State companies amid the pandemic.
The Granite State had sued Massachusetts in October in the
ongoing income-tax border battle over a temporary rule that
imposes the state’s 5% income tax on employees of
Massachusetts companies living and working remotely in other
states. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and his state sued,
asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case after Gov.
Charlie Baker extended the pandemic-era rule.
New Hampshire continues to petition the Supreme Court to
weigh in.
“Massachusetts has radically redefined what constitutes
Massachusetts-sourced income in order to tax earnings for
work performed entirely outside its borders,” New Hampshire
Attorney General Gordon Macdonald fumed earlier this week in
the state’s latest submission to the Supreme Court. “This
does not maintain the status quo. It upends it.”
And now the Granite State has allies: Ohio, Arkansas,
Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska,
Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, New Jersey, Connecticut, Hawaii and
Iowa all signed amicus briefs backing New Hampshire,
insisting that the Supreme Court is the only place where
this dispute can be worked out.
Those last four states wrote that several other states have
implemented laws like Massachusetts’, and therefore the four
who signed the brief “are thus sacrificing billions of
dollars in tax revenue on account of these unconstitutional
state laws — and this Court is the only forum that can
remedy their harms.”
Under the policy, employees who live outside Massachusetts
are only taxed for the number of days during week they would
have physically commuted into the Bay State for work, which
the state Department of Revenue said aligns with prepandemic
taxation rules. Nearly 100,000 Granite Staters normally
commute to work in Massachusetts, according to a 2017 study.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey’s office
submitted a brief earlier this month defending the state.
Healey said the order “maintained the status quo for
personal income tax withholding purposes. Non-resident
employees who worked in Massachusetts before the state of
emergency would continue to be taxed in the same proportion
as during the immediate pre-pandemic period, regardless
whether they continued commuting to the Commonwealth to do
their work, or performed the same work remotely from home or
another location, or varied their location by the day or
week.”
LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE!
The Boston
Herald
Sunday, December 27, 2020
A Boston Herald editorial
Fauci falters on consistent coronavirus message
Dr. Anthony Fauci, while hailed as a hero by many for his
leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United
States, has made several critical missteps that have
undermined his own credibility and contributed to the deep
divisions in the nation over the response to the virus.
Fauci, has, since March, engaged in a number of deliberate
half-truths and distortions regarding public health that
have likely had disastrous consequences for the public trust
in scientific and medical expertise. The latest of these was
just this week.
It all began in March, when the pandemic was first beginning
to impact the country. Appearing on “60 Minutes” on March 8,
Fauci attempted to reassure the public that wearing face
coverings was not a very important public health measure and
could even be counter productive.
“Right now, in the United States, people should not be
walking around with masks,” Fauci confidently informed the
interviewer Dr. Jon LaPook. Pressed for clarification, Fauci
went on.
“There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When
you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might
make people feel a little bit better and it might even block
a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection
that people think that it is. And, often, there are
unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask
and they keep touching their face.”
Such statements are jarring based on what we know has been
recommended in the time since. So why the big change? Was it
an error based on inaccurate information? Did the good
doctor feel any pang of regret for the misguided advice that
could have led to increased disease spread early on?
Well, in his own words, no.
“I don’t regret anything I said then,” Fauci later told “60
Minutes” correspondent Norah O’Donnell in a July InStyle
magazine interview. “Because in the context of the time in
which I said it, it was correct. We were told in our task
force meetings that we have a serious problem with the lack
of PPEs and masks for the health providers who are putting
themselves in harm’s way every day to take care of sick
people.”
In other words, Fauci knew masks worked, he just didn’t want
the general public to have them before medical
professionals. He knew supplies were low. So he lied. And he
doesn’t regret it.
Rather than giving Americans the truth and making a plea to
put healthcare workers first, Dr. Fauci made the decision
that the people weren’t to be trusted with the information
he had.
The same thing happened later in March in an interview with
ABC’s Jonathan Karl, who asked the doc when we could expect
our lives to return to normal.
“It’s going to be a matter of several weeks to a few months,
for sure,” Fauci glibly told the host.
And a New York Times article this week about the level of
vaccination that will be needed to achieve herd immunity
noted that Dr. Fauci has slowly been raising his public
estimate over time, from 60 to 70% to 70 to 75% and even now
up to 75, 80, 85%.
So why the shift?
The country, Fauci told the Times in a phone interview, is
finally ready to hear what he really thinks.
Once again, he has been withholding information from the
public based on his own personal assessment of what the
American people can handle. Likely, his intentions are
noble. But easily discovered untruths do a disservice to the
public health profession, and have doubtless led to the
rampant distrust for the official guidance from government
sources.
Townhall
Friday, December 25, 2020
Dr. Fauci Admits to Misleading the Public on Health
Information
By Katie Pavlich
White House Wuhan Coronavirus Taskforce member Dr. Fauci
admitted in a recent New York Times interview that he has
been changing the numbers on herd immunity for the public
based on "a gut feeling" Americans can now handle the truth.
From the story (bolding is mine):
Recently,
a figure to whom millions of Americans look for
guidance — Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, an adviser to both
the Trump administration and the incoming Biden
administration — has begun incrementally raising his
herd-immunity estimate.
In the pandemic’s early days, Dr. Fauci tended to
cite the same 60 to 70 percent estimate that most
experts did. About a month ago, he began saying “70,
75 percent” in television interviews. And last week,
in an interview with CNBC News, he said “75, 80, 85
percent” and “75 to 80-plus percent.”
In a telephone interview the next day, Dr. Fauci
acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately
been moving the goal posts. He is doing so, he
said, partly based on new science, and partly on
his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to
hear what he really thinks.
Hard as it may be to hear, he said, he believes that
it may take close to 90 percent immunity to bring
the virus to a halt — almost as much as is needed to
stop a measles outbreak.
Dr. Fauci said that weeks ago, he had hesitated
to publicly raise his estimate because many
Americans seemed hesitant about vaccines, which they
would need to accept almost universally in order for
the country to achieve herd immunity.
Early on in the
pandemic, Fauci declared that Americans should not wear
masks. Now, he demands they wear one, nearly at all times,
and says they should continue to do so even after they are
vaccinated. From a CNN interview last weekend:
TAPPER:
Once somebody has been immunized -- I guess, for
Pfizer, it's two doses. I'm not sure what it is for
Moderna or the other vaccines coming down the pike.
But once it's -- once the process is complete, does
that mean they can take off their masks, they don't
have to social distance, they can just go about
their lives as before?
FAUCI: I would recommend that that is
not the case. I would recommend you have an added
area of protection.
Obviously, with a
90-plus percent effective vaccine, you could feel much more
confident. But I would recommend to people to not abandon
all public health measures just because you have been
vaccinated, because even though, for the general population,
it might be 90 to 95 percent effective, you don't
necessarily know, for you, how effective it is.
The New York
Times
Thursday, December 24, 2020
How Much Herd Immunity Is Enough?
By Donald G. McNeil Jr.
Scientists initially estimated that 60 to 70 percent of
the population needed to acquire resistance to the
coronavirus to banish it. Now Dr. Anthony Fauci and others
are quietly shifting that number upward.
At what point does a country achieve herd immunity? What
portion of the population must acquire resistance to the
coronavirus, either through infection or vaccination, in
order for the disease to fade away and life to return to
normal?
Since the start of the pandemic, the figure that many
epidemiologists have offered has been 60 to 70 percent. That
range is still cited by the World Health Organization and is
often repeated during discussions of the future course of
the disease.
Although it is impossible to know with certainty what the
limit will be until we reach it and transmission stops,
having a good estimate is important: It gives Americans a
sense of when we can hope to breathe freely again.
Recently, a figure to whom millions of Americans look for
guidance — Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, an adviser to both the
Trump administration and the incoming Biden administration —
has begun incrementally raising his herd-immunity estimate.
In the pandemic’s early days, Dr. Fauci tended to cite the
same 60 to 70 percent estimate that most experts did. About
a month ago, he began saying “70, 75 percent” in television
interviews. And last week, in an interview with CNBC News,
he said “75, 80, 85 percent” and “75 to 80-plus percent.”
In a telephone interview the next day, Dr. Fauci
acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been moving
the goal posts. He is doing so, he said, partly based on new
science, and partly on his gut feeling that the country is
finally ready to hear what he really thinks.
Hard as it may be to hear, he said, he believes that it may
take close to 90 percent immunity to bring the virus to a
halt — almost as much as is needed to stop a measles
outbreak.
Asked about Dr. Fauci’s conclusions, prominent
epidemiologists said that he might be proven right. The
early range of 60 to 70 percent was almost undoubtedly too
low, they said, and the virus is becoming more
transmissible, so it will take greater herd immunity to stop
it.
Dr. Fauci said that weeks ago, he had hesitated to publicly
raise his estimate because many Americans seemed hesitant
about vaccines, which they would need to accept almost
universally in order for the country to achieve herd
immunity.
Now that some polls are showing that many more Americans are
ready, even eager, for vaccines, he said he felt he could
deliver the tough message that the return to normal might
take longer than anticipated.
“When polls said only about half of all Americans would take
a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75
percent,” Dr. Fauci said. “Then, when newer surveys said 60
percent or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this
up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.”
“We need to have some humility here,” he added. “We really
don’t know what the real number is. I think the real range
is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent. But, I’m not going to
say 90 percent.”
Doing so might be discouraging to Americans, he said,
because he is not sure there will be enough voluntary
acceptance of vaccines to reach that goal. Although
sentiments about vaccines in polls have bounced up and down
this year, several current ones suggest that about 20
percent of Americans say they are unwilling to accept any
vaccine.
Also, Dr. Fauci noted, a herd-immunity figure at 90 percent
or above is in the range of the infectiousness of measles.
“I’d bet my house that Covid isn’t as contagious as
measles,” he said.
Measles is thought to be the world’s most contagious
disease; it can linger in the air for hours or drift through
vents to infect people in other rooms. In some studies of
outbreaks in crowded military barracks and student
dormitories, it has kept transmitting until more than 95
percent of all residents are infected.
Interviews with epidemiologists regarding the degree of herd
immunity needed to defeat the coronavirus produced a range
of estimates, some of which were in line with Dr. Fauci’s.
They also came with a warning: All answers are merely
“guesstimates.”
“You tell me what numbers to put in my equations, and I’ll
give you the answer,” said Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist
at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “But you
can’t tell me the numbers, because nobody knows them.”
The only truly accurate measures of herd immunity are done
in actual herds and come from studying animal viruses like
rinderpest and foot-and-mouth disease, said Dr. David M.
Morens, Dr. Fauci’s senior adviser on epidemiology at the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
When cattle are penned in corrals, it is easy to measure how
fast a disease spreads from one animal to another, he said.
Humans move around, so studying disease spread among them is
far harder.
The original assumption that it would take 60 to 70 percent
immunity to stop the disease was based on early data from
China and Italy, health experts noted.
Epidemiologists watching how fast cases doubled in those
outbreaks calculated that the virus’s reproduction number,
or R0 — how many new victims each carrier infected — was
about 3. So two out of three potential victims would have to
become immune before each carrier infected fewer than one.
When each carrier infects fewer than one new victim, the
outbreak slowly dies out.
Two out of three is 66.7 percent, which established the
range of 60 to 70 percent for herd immunity.
Reinforcing that notion was a study conducted by the French
military on the crew of the aircraft carrier Charles de
Gaulle, which had an outbreak in late March, said Dr.
Christopher J.L. Murray, director of the University of
Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
The study found that 1,064 of the 1,568 sailors aboard, or
about 68 percent, had tested positive for the virus.
But the carrier returned to port while the outbreak was
still in progress, and the crew went into quarantine, so it
was unclear whether the virus was finished infecting new
sailors even after 68 percent had caught it.
Also, outbreaks aboard ships are poor models for those on
land because infections move much faster in the close
quarters of a vessel than in a free-roaming civilian
population, said Dr. Natalie E. Dean, a biostatistician at
the University of Florida.
More important, the early estimates from Wuhan and Italy
were later revised upward, Dr. Lipsitch noted, once Chinese
scientists realized they had undercounted the number of
victims of the first wave. It took about two months to be
certain that there were many asymptomatic people who had
also spread the virus.
It also became clearer later that “superspreader events,” in
which one person infects dozens or even hundreds of others,
played a large role in spreading Covid-19. Such events, in
“normal” populations — in which no one wears masks and
everyone attends events like parties, basketball tournaments
or Broadway shows — can push the reproduction number upward
to 4, 5 or even 6, experts said. Consequently, those
scenarios call for higher herd immunity; for example, at an
R0 of 5, more than four out of five people, or 80 percent,
must be immune to slow down the virus.
Further complicating matters, there is a growing consensus
among scientists that the virus itself is becoming more
transmissible. A variant “Italian strain” with the mutation
known as D614G has spread much faster than the original
Wuhan variant. A newly identified mutation, sometimes called
N501Y, that may make the virus even more infectious has
recently appeared in Britain, South Africa and elsewhere.
The more transmissible a pathogen, the more people must
become immune in order to stop it.
Dr. Morens and Dr. Lipsitch agreed with Dr. Fauci that the
level of herd immunity needed to stop Covid-19 could be 85
percent or higher. “But that’s a guesstimate,” Dr. Lipsitch
emphasized.
“Tony’s reading the tea leaves,” Dr. Morens said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers no
herd immunity estimate, saying on its website that “experts
do not know.”
Although W.H.O. scientists still sometimes cite the older 60
to 70 percent estimate, Dr. Katherine O’Brien, the agency’s
director of immunization, said that she now thought that
range was too low. She declined to estimate what the correct
higher one might be.
“We’d be leaning against very thin reeds if we tried to say
what level of vaccine coverage would be needed to achieve
it,” she said. “We should say we just don’t know. And it
won’t be a world or even national number. It will depend on
what community you live in.”
Dr. Dean noted that to stop transmission in a crowded city
like New York, more people would have to achieve immunity
than would be necessary in a less crowded place like
Montana.
Even if Dr. Fauci is right and it will take 85 or even 90
percent herd immunity to completely stop coronavirus
transmission, Dr. Lipsitch said, “we can still defang the
virus sooner than that.”
He added: “We don’t have to have zero transmission in order
to have a decent society. We have lots of diseases, like
flu, transmitting all the time, and we don’t shut down
society for that. If we can vaccinate almost all the people
who are most at risk of severe outcomes, then this would
become a milder disease.”
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tweeted
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