2023-06-06 00:00:00 - Joint Committee on Revenue
2023-06-06 00:00:00 - Joint Committee on Revenue
SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - each have member senator Rauch. If you are here, this is your time. Otherwise, we'll bump ahead to the next.
Not seeing senator Ralph. I'll then call representative kcon.
Hey. Are you on the video?
Okay. Nope. Next, we have senator Moore. Senator Moore. Are you here? Not seeing senator Moore. No worries. No worries. No244 Vargas? No.
SPEAKER2 - He's Okay, ma'am.
SPEAKER3 - Oh, sorry.
SPEAKER1 - Welcome. Good timing, representative Vargas. You're on. And we had we had just announced 2 minute time limits. So if we have limited time in in this room, we wanna be sure to get to everyone So just263 so you know that background is the only thing you missed. Okay. Great. Likewise, you're you're267 perfectly.
SPEAKER4 - I used to hit lead off in the order, so this works.
SPEAKER1 - Ah, there you go.
REP VARGAS - HB 2969 - HB 2968 - Chair Cusack, Chair Moran, members of the committee, thank you for having me here today. I will be very brief, I am here to testify on two Bills that I think get at two very important issues in our Commonwealth; housing and childcare. The first Bill is House Bill 2969, an act providing a local option incentivizing landlords to rent unsubsidized properties at below market rent. As you know right now, there are several landlords across the Commonwealth that do something great for their tenants, which is rent below market value, but there's no incentive for them to continue doing that. So we're looking to create a tax credit to incentivize landlords to rent below market value to folks. So the way we would structure it is the credit would be capped at $2000 and will not be allowed for more than six qualified rental units. Municipalities may opt into this tax credit, allowing for flexibility at the local level as well. So that's on326 the local landlord's tax credit.
On H 2968, an act to incentivize employer provided childcare, my team and I have spent a lot of time on this issue. Few people know that the federal government actually has a tax credit for employers that provide child care to their employees, whether that's on-site or contracting out with a provider in the community equal to 25% of the cost that the employer incurs. So you could have an employer either partner with, let's say, a355 YMCA or a local childcare provider in the community to provide child care for their employees' kids and have 25% of those costs reimbursed by the feds. We're looking to create a state match to that, so another 25%. So, essentially, you could be in a situation where you have the state and the federal government covering 50% of the cost of child care incurred on an employer, and the employer covering the other 50%. We think this is a really good opportunity for us to offer the business community an opportunity to step up to the plate to put some money where their mouths are.
They have said that childcare is so is so important, and we've had great partnership business community in advocating for child care. But we think that393 this is a good way to provide a platform for them to put up some funds to provide child care for the the kids of their employees. So the way we would structure it as proposed in here, it would complement the federal program and allow business owners to receive a tax409 credit equal to 50% of the cost of providing child care. Employers would need to apply for the program, and each credit would be capped at $750,000. We're structuring it as a pilot in this Bill at $15,000,000, but love to work with the committee to figure out how to best structure this pilot. We would think it's a really great opportunity428 and platform for us to partner with the business community to get childcare issues in Commonwealth. So thank you very much.
SEN MORAN - Thank you. I just had a couple of questions. One is, are there limits as to what could be used for? For example, could it be used to build out a space? Then on the landlord tenant issue, my question would be, any feedback that you've gotten from the landlord's side about concerns. So either question first.
VARGAS - Yes. So on the childcare piece, the federal program allows reimbursements for both build out, so if you wanted to build out a space at your company for child care, you could get that reimbursed and if you partner with an existing provider in the community, you could get 25% of that476 reimbursed as well. So we'd be looking to do the similar thing with the state tax credit at 25%, cover both capital expenses to build out a space maybe at your company or to partner with existing providers in the community as well. On the Bill to incentivize landlords to rent below market value, we've actually heard really good feedback from landlords who having their eyes been doing the right thing for years, but never been sort of incentivized to do it. So they're really excited about the opportunity to both continue to rent the low market, but get an incentive for doing so and keep tenants in place. We think it's a good way to both keep landlords and tenants SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
happy.
Thank you. Questions from number?
Oh, okay. I'll set that.
Thank you very much.
Hello. You're more welcome.
This is a first for every every time
SEN MOORE - SB 1884 - Thank you, Senator Moran and Cusack, nice to see you again and committee members for taking me549 out of order. I'm here today to testify in support of Senate 1884, an act establishing a college tuition tax deduction. As558 a558 former chair of the joint committee of higher education, I'm distinctly aware of how much effort the legislature has expended to make college affordable and accessible for an option for all residents of the Commonwealth. While we continue to make progress in this front, students and their families from every corner of Massachusetts still struggle to envision how they can afford the ever rising costs of a university education. We have long relied on our highly educated workforce to propel economic growth, especially in the fields like health care, biotechnology and advanced manufacturing.
In order to maintain that advantage, we have to ensure that future generations of students have access to tremendous institutions of higher education here in Massachusetts. This is especially true about our public higher education system. Roughly 70% of high school graduates in the Commonwealth who moved on to higher education attend a public college or university. This is why I filed Senate 1884, which would alleviate some of the burden622 that tuition payments can have in our families. The language before you allows for a tax deduction of up to 50% of tuition payments made by a taxpayer when Massachusetts public institution fire education. While tuition is just one of the many costs facing these students. It is one of the most prominent areas of rising expenses. I know that conversations about the UMass system raising costs feel like an annual event and that there is no doubt the impact of such increases limits the abilities of families to envision a financially affordable path to college. I hope that the committee was with this effort and respectfully, they asked the bill be reported out favorably so that we can proceed through the legislative processes. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
process in. I'm open for any questions.
Thank you, Senator. Sure.
Thank you, madam, chair. I just wanted for 5 to 7 or 5 minutes. This has been an issue that I've been in favor for quite some time. by someone who sent 3 kids in college, I am certainly well aware of this. Quite frankly, I'd like to see the federal we do. So we have, like, a much bigger
cost savings701 for them. But this is clearly the first step, and
I just want to let her know that I'm 100% registered. Thank problem.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you. Mister Lee?
Senator, I want to echo that also. This is about time as a father of a of a 12 year old daughter thinking ahead, I'm thinking about
where we're gonna be in 6 years when we have to decide to do this. And I agree. This is something that is going to it's the 1 missing734 link that we all talk about that we wanna control cost and help but student debt. This is the 1 arena that we need to take action on. I think the federal government needs to take action on commend you, and I'm a 100% behind you, and I just wanna make that publicly.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Any other questions for members?
Thank you, Senator.
Thank you very much. Again, thank you for taking me out of terms.
Absolutely. Senator Rose. Welcome. Nice to see you.
SEN RAUSCH - SB 1924 - HB 2860 - Good morning, nice to see you as well. Madam Chair, Mr. Chair, fellow members of the committee, thank you for hearing my testimony this morning and for taking me out of turn. I am here to testify in support of783 Senate Bill 1924, and it's House counterpart, House 2860, an act relative to mental health promotion through realistic advertising images. In addition to thanking my House colleague and friend and fellow filer Representative Khan, I also want to offer my gratitude to doctor Austin, and the rest of the team at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in the striped program from whom you will hear later today for their work on this Bill and and several others. Young people in the United States, including here in Massachusetts are constantly online, I think we all know this and constantly face digitally alternative advertisements. The vast majority of these images are manipulated, it's actually standard practice for companies to alter the images in their ads such that they show unrealistic and unattainable bodies in their images. Models bodies, may be altered to change the shape of their body, the size of their body, their skin tech texture, their skin color.
Exposure to these unrealistic and unattainable beauty standards has serious negative impacts on the young people who see them. Body dissatisfaction, increased rates of anxiety and depression, it is actually a major risk factor or eating disorders, especially in girls and young women. Eating disorders impact 30,000,000 children, teenagers, and adults in the United States at some point in their lifetime across all genders, all racial and ethnic groups and all socioeconomic statuses. Research consistently shows that exposure to digitally altered images negatively affects the young people who view them. In 2011, the American medical association issued a statement strongly encouraging advertisers to refrain from digitally altering their images, and yet most advertisers still engage in this practice.905 This Bill would help to combat the harms caused to our young people by these digitally altered images.
Specifically, Senate 1924 aims to promote917 the use of realistic advertising images in ad campaigns in Massachusetts by granting a tax credit to businesses who use unaltered images of their models in their advertisements. That means they don't airbrush, or alter the skin tones, skin texture, body size, or body shape of the models in their advertisements. The Bill would offer up to a $10,000 credit every year for clothing, cosmetics, and hygiene companies that generate over $100,000 annually in Massachusetts. This tax proposal and our tech system provides a unique way for Massachusetts to lead in addressing the harms caused by exposure to digitally altered advertisements. Body images that are unrealistic and unattainable, we need to incentivize real people in real bodies. Our skin is not all one color or blemish free, our sizes are all different and change, our shapes are all different and change over time and all of those things can be beautiful, and all of those things should be valued and yet our advertising doesn't support that, in fact, is antithetical to that. By doing so, we can improve our public health and particularly our mental health among our young people, especially young women and girls. So I appreciate your consideration in hearing my testimony, I hope that the Bill will garner a favorable report. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you, Senator. Questions.
SPEAKER9 - So send the1011
1011 REP1011 SOTER1011 -1011 I think it's a great concept of the Bill. One of my concerns is how do we gonna prove that these companies are not using the technology that we saw, testimony at the US senate on the US Senator from Connecticut is a good example where they used his exact body and his voice out there and what mechanism is in place to prevent that from happening for companies to get that tax credit?
RAUSCH - Yes, this would be the first time Massachusetts would be doing this kind of credit. So I'd1044 be happy to work with the committee to figure out what the right1046 balance would be between legislation and regulation. I always hesitate, especially having worked in the administration prior to my tenure in the Senate to sort of cross the line from legislative law making into the regulatory realm where some of those specifics might be better addressed, but I'd be happy to work with the committee to figure out that right balance. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
I hear the question. Thank you. Thank you.
Questions. Search.
I love your I love the idea.
Thank you.
It's
REP PAULINO - Something that I've learned in social media and advertisement is it's a fantasy, it's not real. Like some time, the world of politics and campaigning, most of that is not real. When people think that's real, that's the problem to come and we tell a business, you have to change the way you advertise, you have to tell them, you have to think about why they think. They think about making money and when they're thinking about our charity campaign, they're looking to see how I can maximize my money with this investment, how can I sell more products? And they will look for a model that can attract more viewers to social media. They have smart people figure out how can attract more viewers, more clicks. So your idea is great, I love it but you think they would be more attractive to in tax credit than revenue? Because those advertisement are1147 not real. Like social media is not real. So1151 a lot, more than1153 $10,000 in tax credit. I love what you're saying, but they're looking for profit and if you balance a $10,000 credit versus $1,000,000 in profit, you know, that's my question?
RAUSCH - Well, thank you for the question, Representative. I think that we're actually already1171 seeing the benefits of using realistic images and advertising through some companies that are doing this already on their own, like Dove, for example. and we are continuing to see more high profile figures in different bodies, different shapes, different sizes, you know, for all the complexities of our collective beauty and we're seeing those companies and high profile figures garner tremendous success. So this tax credit would encourage others to join what we're already seeing people do. You know, we could get you some data about, you know, Dove's realistic body campaign and others that are like that in terms of their profitability. We have examples of this already working, and this provides that sort of extra incentive to bring others along. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
All set. Thank you for your testimony.
Thank you very much, madam chair.
We next have reconcileis on house 2811.
Welcome.
Morning. Good morning.
REP GONZALEZ - HB 2811 - Thank you to Chair Cusack and Chair Moran and to the distinguished members of the panel and committee. I just have the members of the community that are also going to just testify very quickly. Basically, this is an act to establish the micro business, employee, and training workforce development program. In Massachusetts, 68% of all businesses are micro businesses and in another Bill for another committee, we have established what a micro business is or trying to do so. In this Bill, this program would create a tax assessor program for micro businesses to hire individuals who have been recently released from the prison system and or have been receiving transitional assisted benefits. What we're trying to do is help people from becoming tax burdens to taxpayers and the way we do that is through the micro business, because many of the residents that are coming from the Department of Corrections are going back into the communities where this will have major impacts. Not only to help and support our micro businesses grow and develop, but also be an employment opportunity for individuals in these programs.
The major amount of employees that come from these micro businesses are from the same communities that they're housed in. In addition to that, micro businesses play a significant economic impact in hiring individuals from particularly black and Latino communities and women and veterans because they, again, house in the same area where many of the individuals who are in transitional assistance or are coming back from incarceration. So it's an employment opportunity and this disincentives will be a $15,000 incentive for micro business. No different than a tax incentive goes to major corporations to develop major employment opportunities. Well, this opportunity will go directly, again, for somebody that maybe have been a tax burden to become a taxpayer. This program will mandate that the micro business also provide a matching grant of $15,000 to provide that individual with training, employment opportunity of no less than $30,000. When we see and support our micro businesses, we see a significant impact in economic development for our cities and towns. What do I mean by that is that 80% of all micro business owners live in the cities and towns where their micro businesses exist and their businesses also when they prosper, they buy homes at 88% in the same communities where their micro businesses are. So it has a big impact economically and cities like Springfield where I represent and major cities and towns across the state of Massachusetts. Thank you very much. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you.
PHINEAS BAXANDALL - MASSACHUSETTS BUDGET AND POLICY CENTER - HB 2811 - Thank you. My name is Phineas Baxandall, I am the policy director at the Massachusetts budget and policy center, and I am testifying in supportive of this Bill because of the racial equity advances that this Bill has and also for the ways that it would1483 improve our ability to target types of credits having the administrative category of micro businesses. So people of color who own a business tend to have less access to capital, this is something which is quite well proven, and as a result, their businesses are more likely to be small scale. 2/3 of entrepreneurs that hire employees use family or personal savings to start a company, yet a typical US white family holds eight times the wealth of a typical black1513 family, and more than three times the wealth of a typical1517 Latin X family.
This Bill supports truly small businesses, owners who live in Massachusetts, employing no more than 10 employees, and annually gain no more than $250,000 in profits that's after subtracting costs. Now these are the kinds of businesses that get extolled when we're talking about business tax cuts, these are the folks who are sort of brought to the front to be the face of different kinds of business tax cuts and subsidies but all too often do not end up receiving the kinds of benefits that get passed. There will be these large tax cuts that often don't end up getting to the small local businesses. So one of the things that we really like about this Bill is that it actually ensures that the1565 money will go and will go1567 only to these businesses that fit those definitions. You know, the legislation ensures that public support would harness their close connections to their community and the personal touch that they could bring to formally incarcerated workers who would be employed by then. So we urge you to report it favorably out of committee. Thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you very much.
Hello.
Sorry.
TOMAS GONZALEZ - AMPLIFY LATIN X - HB 2811 - Hello. Tomas Gonzalez, I'm the director of advocacy for Amplify Latin X. Thank you, Chairs, Cusack and Moran, vice chair Linsky and Brady, and members of the committee for the opportunity to speak today. On behalf of Amplify Latin X and our power business of coaching program, we are here in support of House Bill 2811. Amplify is a statewide organization, nonprofit, non partisan that focuses on the intersectionality between public policy, leadership, and economic prosperity for Latinos in the state of Massachusetts and we hope to move the needle as much as we can and we feel like this Bill will. We work in Boston, Lawrence and Springfield. We work1642 with many Latino businesses in1644 these communities, which are the one1646 and two person operations that you walk by every single day that you see on your way to work and from work. These were the businesses that were solely impacted by the pandemic and not received the kind of support and assistance that they deserve in order to let their business either stabilize or grow.
So Amplify is in support of 2811 because we feel like it will benefit the businesses by creating a tax incentive program for a five year period for these micro businesses, which would allow them to hire locally and more specifically individuals, those receiving transitional assistance or coming off of transitional assistance. This legislation, provides individuals in reentry, and those in transitional assistance, they knew opportunity to work locally, earn a living wage, and receive the benefits they need in order to care for themselves and for their families. This Bill is not only a tax accented, but is also workforce development tool. It helps these micro business owners to employ people locally, to increase their numbers, and to provide that owner the space that they need to desperately grow and to stabilize their business. So for all that said, Amplify Latin X is in support of 2811, and we hope that you vote it out favorably. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you very much. Questions for the panel?
Thank you for your testimony, Phil. Under Douglas.
SPEAKER13 - Good morning. Good morning. Can you hear me okay? Absolutely.
SEN EDWARDS - SB 1795 - HB 2969 - Distinguished members of the committee, my name is Senator Lydia Edwards, and I am here to testify on Senate Bill 1795 and House Bills 2969 also known as an act providing a local option, incentivizing landlords to rent unsubsidized properties at below market rent, even also known as the good landlord tax credit. This is an opportunity for us to provide an option and as well as an incentive for landlords who are already doing the right thing, which is renting below market rent. There are a lot of landlords, small ones, especially, that come well and below market rent and there's no incentive, and there's no program to continue to allow them or to incentivize them to continue to do that. There are a lot of tenants seniors, and especially low income families who are paying rent, may not be market rent, but they're paying rent, and they will never qualify for a voucher or for assistance, but they're holding on barely in some cases as they continue to pay rent. This is an opportunity for us to marry those two and to assure that the state is rewarding that get to pay behavior in keeping the rents below market. The market rate is already determined regionally buy HUD for vouchers, using that as a standard, if a landlord is renting a unit below that market offering some money or some tax credit for the difference between what the rent is and what I could be making as a landlord. Using that then, to travel with certain populations, seniors and low income families.
These are some of the hardest families to rehouse, I've tried, and I'm telling you a senior who is on fixed income, who is currently in an apartment that she is paying rent for, when that building gets sold, to whomever, they're going to either raise or rent to something that she cannot afford or ask her to leave. Wouldn't it be better for us to provide a tax incentive for her to stay for them to keep her and allow her to continue to pay rent and allow the landlord to get some form of tax incentive to stay below that market. The credit would travel with the individuals and it would be only limited and targeted to those people who do not qualify for a voucher who are paying rent, tenants are good standing. So I'm asking that you consider releasing this good landlord tax credit with a favorable vote from the committee, S 1795, and, again, House Bill 2969 filed with Representative Vargas. It again incentivizes good1926 behavior, it assures that people will continue to pay rent and vulnerable populations don't have to worry1932 about the building being sold. Thank you very much. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
much. Thank you -- questions.
Thank you,
Any world legislators here, representative Khan, you know, you'd signed up. Okay. Next, we have William Malloy. Mister Malloy, are you here on 2938? Welcome.
BILL MALLOY - PROPANE GAS ASSOCIATION OF NEW ENGLAND - HB 2938 - Good morning, Senator, Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of our committee. My1965 name is Bill Malloy, and I'm legislative counsel for the Propane Gas Association of New England. I'm here giving testimony this morning, unfortunately, because the Leslie Anderson, the President is at the annual meeting down in Washington, so she asked me to give her testimony that that she would give. I'm here to strongly support House 2938, an act advancing renewable heating solutions for the Commonwealth because it incentivizes renewable fuels, lowers carbon emissions, promotes energy security environmental justice, and advances economic security and climate objectives. The Commonwealth needs a mix of clean energy solutions2006 to achieve its climate goals and to ensure energy security. We cannot put all our energy needs into only one energy type. Geologic propane used an energy efficient propane system ones are more efficient and2021 less costly to consumers than heat pumps and other types of electric technology systems. As our electricity becomes cleaner, so too will propane with the addition of renewable propane blends that we can mix into our current systems. So this Bill incentivizes recent innovations by the propane industry and it provides those tax incentives to go forward into developing renewable propane.
Renewable propane is made from a variety of renewable feedstocks and I had to look this up because I didn't even know myself when I was preparing for this, but such as soybean oil, used cooking oil, and Camelina plant oil that is grown under the sun is used to absorb carbon dioxide. This Bill encourages the reduction in carbon emissions that will occur in a very near future through the addition of renewable propane. Although propane is cleaner than the grid today, as the grid increases in renewable energy sources, so will propane. Renewable propane is already being added in California to current propane, so already we're getting a cleaner edge solution. So in conclusion, I just want to say that the key with this is that MIT right now, and I provided written testimony and also an article, MIT that they've developed a process of making renewable propane from plastic bottles right here at MIT. So you can imagine going into the landfills and pulling out all these plastic bottles from water, and sodas, and everything else. So we're on the cutting edge of a solution to landfill and also cleaner energy, and,2133 that's2133 why I ask your favorable approval of House 2938 today, the propylene industry and others. Thank you very much.
MORAN - Mr. Malloy, a couple questions. So how long until this sort of green fuel is ready for the consumer system? This is a huge issue in my district, which includes the upper Cape, we have tons of power outages, a real commitment to move away from carbon and yet propane fed or otherwise, fed generators all the time that elderly folks who are on oxygen, people just don't want it to be freezing cold. This is a frequent occurrence many days of the winter, not necessarily just the winter, so it sounds like a promising product. Along with how far away are we from just plug and play on this? If you could also address whether the there would be any need to alter current systems with the infusion of the, I know the ethanol issues with boats, so many boaters professed that it it caused tons of repair problems when they try to accommodate that. Thank you.
MALLOY - Sure. What I can give briefly a comment that first off, we don't need to modify any2219 current systems to use renewable propane, it's a system. As you remember, I'm calling back three years ago, we had the big up in the North handover, we had the houses exploding and so forth. I had many legislators reach out to me quickly with friends and constituents that wanted to put propane systems in to give them emergency electricity or to use for barbecues. So there's a huge demand signal. So it's there when needed because it's also used for backup cell phone towers, it's used in hospitals for emergency generators as well as homes. Right now, it's currently being used in Ukraine and the warring countries over there to provide hot meals and hot showers as well.
MORAN - Just to clarify, the it, is that the new product, or is that current?
MALLOY - It's propane itself right now but renewable propane is being already utilized in California and right now, it is coming online. It is there, supply is going up, so we're very excited about this. For MIT to reach out to figure that they can take plastic bottles out of the the Eco stream, and to use it for renewal propane is just another great shot of the arm for this energy source.
MORAN - Is there any customer data about customer satisfaction coming out of California this early?
MALLOY - I don't know, I can ask and see if we have any2317 data coming out of California. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
super.
Thank you, sir. Happy questions.
SOTER - Bill, on the MIT thing I was reading that automatically gets melt, the way the processing is automatically going into a gas. So there's no for a current system that somebody would have to buy if they have propane heat, for example. They're using propane heat now, that would just be converted to the propane gas that would go into that existing system, they wouldn't have to replace their burners or anything like that?
MALLOY - No, they don't need to, the existing system would function. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
That I I that was 1 of the questions that -- Correct.
Adam Cheah, I I I wanted to follow-up on because I think that was important to to the chair's question of of that this can just kinda retrofit. It's just another form of getting a supply right away. So, okay.
Right.
MALLOY - The industry is very key on that. It must work with current energy systems that are out there. So that's what they stressed. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
2373 Thank2373 you, sir. Questions?
All sets are seen. Thank you very much.
7 weeks
on house 2841, set at 11 78, and set at 19 49. Welcome.
Welcome. Thank you for having me.
KEVIN WEEKS - TRUCKING ASSOCIATION OF MASSACHUSETTS - HB 2841 - SB 1178 - SB 1949 - Thank you, Chair Cusack, Moran and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify in strong support of House Bill 2841 Senate Bill 1178 and Senate Bill 1949, all acts relative to rolling stock. My name is Kevin Weeks, I'm the executive director of the Trucking Association of Massachusetts. TAM is the oldest trucking association in the country, about 104 years old, there is one other state that kind of competes with us, but I'm not sure, I think we've got the the winning ticket there and we've been around for quite a while supporting the trucking industry in a litany of issues. What this current law and what this legislation would do is address the issue where Massachusetts is one of all 13 states that apply sales and use tax to rolling stock. When I'm talking about rolling stock, I'm talking about trucks and trailers that are used in interstate commerce, not your package vehicles you see in your neighborhood, these are the big trucks, class 7, class 8 trucks. Trucking companies in 37 states, including all of our neighboring states, do not pay sales and use tax, so it puts us at a competitive disadvantage and environmental disadvantages as well that I'll talk about briefly.
The legislation, which passed the House three times and also received a favorable from this2475 committee two times would exempt exempt the rolling stock tax on interstate commerce and it's a very important issue for our industry and for our state, quite frankly. The benefits of the legislation are multifaceted. One2491 of them is competitive. Current law discourages trucking companies from expanding or even locating in our state. Why would you when you have to pay this tax, or if you operate out of Rhode Island or a neighboring state, you don't pay this tax. Therefore, the older trucks are operating in our state, therefore, environmentally, we are not getting2514 the cleanest trucks. The cleanest trucks now and the way they operate now, as a point of reference, I'll wrap up really quickly, it takes 60 trucks today using2526 clean diesel to generate the emissions one truck created2530 30 years ago. So in conclusion, I thank you for the opportunity to testify, we strongly support this, we hope you will continue to support this. I'll be open to any questions you may have. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Okay. Great.
REP CUSACK - Can you just walk us through the numbers, please? The estimates of the cost.
WEEKS - Sure. So quite frankly, we did a study with the Decakus study at Northeastern University, and they talk about reducing this tax would actually increase $15,000,000 to $30,000,000 in tax revenue into our state based on companies locating here, all the ancillary taxes, of course. The2571 DOR has recently reported back2573 to us, again, about a month ago, we had the study done that they anticipate it would be in the tens of millions that we would lose in the rolling stock. So if you do the math, quite honestly, eliminating this tax, increases taxes into Massachusetts. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you. Great.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you for your time.
On the list is Mike Vesta. House 2932.
Mister Vesta, which works
Hello? Hello?
Can you hear me can you hear me okay?
Yes. We can. Just speak a little bit loudly if you can.
Okay. I first of all, I apologize. I'm in a public place. I tried to get to a quiet area.
MICHAEL FESTA - AARP MASSACHUSETTS - HB 2932 - My name is Mike Festa, I'm the state director for AARP. I want to address Chairwoman Moran and Chair Cusack and speak to the family care give a tax credit, which is before the committee. You've heard this testimony before, a variation of it, and I want to show you, I will be submitting full written testimony. I just wanted to pick up a couple of quick highlights. First and foremost, let's all acknowledge that many of us are going to either be family caregivers for a loved one, or we will be cared for over time. There are probably 840,000 or so caregivers just in Massachusetts, and they're really doing important work. I would acknowledge and I think you recognize as well that when we keep people at home longer, when we're giving them the opportunity to have a quality of life in there environment where they live, it's going to ultimately reduce the impact on the kinds of costs and service that are provided by the state.
So when we think about supporting caregivers in part, it's to help the taxpayers ensure that as many people as possible are not hitting that long term career and much more across the system. This care give a tax credit2702 essentially acknowledges that a lot of our caregivers and the studies show about 8 out of 10 of them are spending money out of pocket to help that loved ones stay at home. On average, it's over $7000 a year. What this caregiver tax credit would do is to allow one or more caregivers to provide and to get in total $1500 of a tax credit. Now that means if you have more than one family caregiver, you're still not going to get a credit in total of more than $1500, you'd split it within the family. But ultimately, what this tax credit will do is to acknowledge the importance of the caregiver's role to give them some relief financially for the burden that they share and they'll do anyway but nevertheless, I think it is important as a matter of public policy that, an AARP certainly looks at it this way. that by giving this caregiver tax credit, we are in fact doing two things simultaneously. We're honoring their work and we're also giving an opportunity to take pressure away from that long term care system. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
So for those reasons
But well done. Well done, sir. Let's see if there are questions from the committee.
Yes. Okay.
Thank you, madam chair. Wondering me if you have, Mister Patrick, do you have any numbers on the lack of home health aids and what that key practice is having on the family care leaders?
I really hate you have you repeat that, but I need you to repeat that.
REP WHIPPS - Mr. Festa, looking to see if you have any information on the number of family members who are having to do more caregiving because of the of the home health aids and so forth?
FESTA - I can get that information to you through our staff but I think you're on to something in the nature of your question. The simple truth is that a lot of folks are trying to get their own home care, they have to pay for it out of pocket if they're not eligible through the state home care home community based program that we have but nevertheless, the net effect of not having enough paid caregivers in these systems and in these agencies is a lot more people are having to step up on their own. The last point I want to make on this subject is the practical effect of this is people are stopping working at least part of the time in order to be sure they're available for their loved one, so the financial sacrifice kind of hits in a number of directions, but we can get you more information on that. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Appreciate that. Any other questions from the committee? You're all set. Thank you.
Bye, Kayla. Thank you for putting up with this.
Oh, it's great.2878 Next, we have Yvonne Powell.
Not seeing Yvonne. We next have Nancy.
I am here.
Okay, Yvonne. Go right ahead.
SPEAKER18 - Okay.
YVONNE POWELL - AARP MASSACHUSETTS - HB 2932 - Thank you very much, everyone. My name is Yvonne Powell, I am a volunteer advocate with Massachusetts AARP. I am also, however, a daughter and four years ago, on May 29th 2019, at nearly 97 years of age, my mother died peacefully at home. My siblings and I honored her by ensuring that her last days on earth were comfortable in her own home, among her own belongings, not lying forgotten in an anonymous, non private room, in an antiseptic nursing home. For the last five months of mother's2944 life, her health insurance paid for a home health care worker to arrive in the morning, to help us help mother to arise in the morning, and she would return in the evening to help us get her ready for bed but mother's insurance only paid for that help Monday through Friday. Severely weakened, mother needed help on weekends as well, we needed help. We chose to pay privately for that same home health care worker to return to help us on Saturdays and Sundays, mornings, and evenings, and her help was invaluable. But not everyone can afford to ensure their loved ones receive2995 quality care at all times, including weekends, at home. For many of us, the extra cost is prohibited, yet we all know that it is best to age with dignity at home. As taxpayers, we also know that it is cheaper to support our dying loved ones at home rather than in a cold unfamiliar room surrounded with strangers in a nursing home. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
The proposed credit
Thank you, Miss Powell, that was powerful and poignant. Let's see if there are questions from the committee.
Oh, sorry about that. Oh, great. All set. Thank you very much. If please feel free to submit the balance of your testimony in writing. Thank you for your testimony. We next have Nancy Stephas.
NANCY STEHFEST - CONCERNED CITIZEN - HB 2932 - Thank you for taking my testimony today and a special thank you to my Representative, Kristin Kassner, for being a co sponsor of HB 2932, an act to establish the family care giving tax credit. Six years ago, my husband was diagnosed with Parkinson's but last year after trying to juggle my husband's care, my 95 year old mother-in-law's care, and a demanding but fun job, I decided it was time to retire. This led to a 70% reduction in my income. Falls are a leading cause of death in Parkinson's patients. We started making simple modifications to our home the first year when we could do it ourselves,3102 but now when we need to make a change, we have to ask for help. I am glad to be on this video because I can actually show you behind me a device we just installed that will keep my husband3115 safer in the bathroom. This device will allow him to safely grab support3119 without having to lean forward, it costs about a $180. Last week, we also added some railing and some safer outside stairs to make it better for him to enter the house at a cost of about $7000. Over time, I expect that we will need to make other modifications to pay for outside help. By supporting the act to establish the family caregiving tax credit, you will be supporting my efforts to keep my husband safe and at home with me where he belongs. Thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you very much. Appreciate your testimony.
Obviously, thank you, ma'am3160 Karen. Thank you very much for your testimony. This is a bill that I've filed in a couple of different settings now. The history of this is that my late colleague or put them in Chris from Framingham passed away as a member of the house and championed this after going through these issues with its now to see the fog from a period of time. It's something that the house took up in the revenue package that we did earlier this year, and whether we3195 do this bill here out of the revenue committee I would urge my senate colleagues to consider this bill when they take up the revenue package. in a couple of weeks. It's long overdue, quite frankly, and it would help a lot of things. So I think that I thank a witness for a testimony for my callers. Particularly in the senate side to consider it for a couple of weeks.
Thank you very much. Any other questions?
k. Next on the list, we have Stewart Saginaw.
Yes. Welcome. Thank you very much.
STUART SAGINOR - COMMUNITY PRESERVATION COALITION - HB 2791 - Thanks for the opportunity to3239 provide testimony. I'm here on House 2791, an act reducing CPA recording fees for affordable housing. My name is Stuart Saginor, I'm the executive director of the Community Preservation Coalition. This Bill, House 2791, would amend the Community Preservation Act to assist buyers of affordable homes. The current CPA legislation mandates that whenever a mortgage is filed at the state's registry of deeds, recording fee is applied. These fees create the revenue for the statewide CPA trust fund. Most folks buying a home only record one mortgage, so they pay the CPA fee once. However, it's common for buyers of affordable homes to use multiple funding sources, so that that often results in the need for filing a second, third, or even a fourth mortgage. Currently, the CPA recording fee is applied to each of these documents.
That means the average buyer of a market rate home might pay the fee only once while the buyer of an affordable home will pay the fee multiple times. So this Bill proposes to eliminate the CPA fee on those subordinate affordable mortgages. We know that it will result in a little less money for the CPA trust fund, but the impact will be really negligible, and we feel strongly that this fee should not be a burden on buyers of affordable homes. Your committee did issue a favorable recommendation last session on this Bill, but it did not advance any further, so we hope you can once again issue a favorable report so we can help those who are really struggling to afford housing in the Commonwealth and make these filing fees more reasonable for them. Thank you.
MORAN - Thank you. Quick request. I'm not asking for it now necessarily, but do you have numbers that for, like, basically across Massachusetts that would show the negligible impact for example, Barnstable County Government completely supported by recording these, it would be interesting to see the price tag on what3364 I think on a, you know, human level is certainly a very valuable proposal.
SAGINOR - Right. We did actually get asked that question at the hearing last session, and we did do some research. I will have to pull that out, but my recollection was it was about $50,000 in reduction to the fees statewide, but it, of course, would mean that buyers of affordable homes would pay, you know, literally hundreds left possibly on their mortgage filing. So it matters a lot to those individuals who are recording those affordable fees. In aggregate, it will only be a very negligible reduction in the total revenue for CPA communities across the state.
3403 MORAN3403 -3403 You3403 know of any way that the numbers could be updated considering the real estate prices have increased about, I don't know, say 1/3 since that time of of those numbers?
SAGINOR - That's really a a better question for the registries. Unfortunately, you probably know, we have 26 registries in Massachusetts across. They use all different computer systems, I think there's three different computer systems, half are under control of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, half are under control of the former counties. It's very difficult to3438 grab that data, but I will definitely pull out what we did last time and see how we made that estimate and get that to you. It would be a great question to ask the registries because that data is very hard to come by. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank thank you very much. Thank you. No other questions. I'm sure your day, sir. We next have a panel, Rob Johnson, Tara Christian, Jessica Rittenour. Edward Brown from this year and Elaine Hatterboy.
3472 Thank3472 you for that. Sure. Nice to see you. Welcome.3476
Nice to see you.
And this is on3482 senate 1940.
Alright.
Hi.
TARA CHRISTIAN - NATURE CONSERVANCY - HB 2839 - SB 1940 - Thank you, Chair Moran, Chair Cusack and members of the committee for the opportunity to provide testimony in support of H 2839 and S 1940, an act increasing the conservation land tax credit. My name is Tara Christian, I'm the Policy Fellow with the Nature Conservancy, which is a global conservation organization dedicated to conserving the lands and waters on which all life depends. We have over 34,0003513 members across Massachusetts and3515 have been deeply involved in efforts to address climate adaptation, resiliency, and mitigation here. In 2011, the conservation land tax credit or CLT skills, I'll call it, incentive program was launched allowing individuals and corporate taxpayers to apply for state income tax credit for qualified donations to conservation agencies, which are certified by EEA, as having significant conservation value. So landowners received a refundable tax credit of 50% of the donated value of the land up to $75,000. Over the life of the program, $22,000,000 in tax incentives have led to an impressive return on investment to benefit people in nature in Massachusetts, including $90,000,000 in private land value gifted to agencies, municipalities, etcetera, and $212,000,000 in private land value conserved.
The CLTC incentive translates private property into public value and benefits. Projects often provide public asks access to natural spaces and resources and even when they don't, many benefits are still realized, including generating revenue and jobs in forestry at culture and recreation, saving public revenues by providing water supply protection and sequestration of carbon and avoiding costs from municipalities increasing resilience to natural hazards and climate change. Currently, the credit is subject to a $2,000,000 annual cap, unfortunately, this means that the highly effective and popular program suffers from a chronic backlog and has been unable to meet demand since its inception. These bills would raise the annual cap CLTC from $2,000,000 to $5,000,000. Amend the definition to include 501 C3 nonprofit trusts and Sunset the credit in 10 years. An identical Bill has been reported favorably before and unanimously adopted as a budget amendment by the House several times.3627 So we urge you to report this Bill favorably once again. Thank you for your time. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you for your testimony.
ROBB JOHNSON - MASSACHUSETTS LAND TRUST COALITION - HB 2839 - SB 1940 - Thanks to the Chairs and members of the committee. I'm Robb Johnson, executive director of the Massachusetts Land Trust Coalition, and we represent about 140 private land conservation organizations that work across the state. As you've heard, though, this Bill benefits not only land trust, but also municipal agencies, including water districts, state agencies, including agriculture, wildlife, and parks. What we're looking to do here is take a successful program and deal with the problem that's been created by its success. The problem is that there's a wait list for this program that now extends to 2025 and beyond. So when landowners are looking to conserve land, this is often a legacy decision that's made late in life, which makes timing a sensitive matter. So just to hold up sort of one example, I want to tell story about Leonard Stein Benson who was aging in place in a beautiful property that he'd owned for decades in the Worcester County community of Berlin. This was a farm and forest property, Rolling Fields on a scenic road in Berlin, beautiful property and the town and the land trust the community were very concerned that this property not be sold for development because not only would there be a direct loss of the Ag soils there, but whenever there's a subdivision that pops up in the middle of the countryside, the neighboring farms are also compromised by that development.
So there was a motivation to do this and a willingness to spend money, but it's tough3722 to raise in a community like that with skyrocketing land3726 values as they are everywhere. So, fortunately, in 2018, this landlord, Steve Benson, offered to sell a conservation restriction for $800,000 less than its market value. Huge generous gesture on3740 his part, again, legacy decision. What did he get, what could he get for that? A $75,0003744 tax credit, awesome, it was a meaningful incentive to him. Problem, wait list and this is an aging guy who needs this income. As many aging landowners are also considering the Medicare look back period, the timing of when this money comes is critical. In this case, the deal happened in 2019, he passed away just one year later. Looking for you to pass this favorably out of committee so we don't run into these sort of timing crises in the future and loose critical opportunities to provide the Commonwealth resources. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
And next, I'll hand it off to Elaine Pettaway.
ALAIN PETEROY - FRANKLIN LAND TRUST - HB 2839 - SB 1940 - Hello, and thank you, Madam Chair, Mr. Chair, and committee members. My name is Alain Peteroy, and I am the director of land conservation at the Franklin Land Trust supporting conservation efforts in Franklin County and Surrounding Communities. The land trust holds and stewards 100 and restrictions conserving over 10,000 acres of farms, fields, and forests. Since the conservation tax credit was launched, we have assisted landowners and enrolling in the program and completing two dozen donated and bargain sale restrictions conserving over 2600 acres that contain important soils, wildlife, habitat, and manage forest. For most landowners, the income from the CLTC is absolutely critical to helping them pay for their legal survey, appraisal, and other due diligence expenses. Furthermore, and as Robb alluded to, the majority of our landowners are older adults for which waiting two to three years to complete an estate planning project such as conserving the family farm leads to much uncertainty with many folks choosing not to engage in the program. I recently had a landowner ask, I'm 78 now, how can anyone expect me to wait until perhaps I'm over 80 to get this done? This program, a singular streamlined and highly effective program must have an increased budget if we are to reach the land conservation goals necessary to make an impact on climate change in line with the Commonwealth's Clean Energy climate plan for 2050. I thank you for your consideration and time. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you, miss Patteridge. And 1 more.
SPEAKER21 - And Jessica Ridenauer.
SPEAKER1 - Jessica, welcome.
Hello? Hello, Jessica.
Nice to
SPEAKER1 - have you here at Boston.
Hi. I hope you can hear me okay.
SPEAKER1 - We can.
Great. Okay.
JESSICA WHRITENOUR - THE 300 COMMITTEE LAND TRUST - HB 2839 - SB 1940 - I'm Jessica Whritenour, executive director of the 300 committee land trust in Falmouth. I want to thank Chair Moran for the opportunity to speak before this committee today. The 300 committee has successfully utilized the conservation land tax credit on nearly a dozen conservation projects since 2011 alongside land trust across the Commonwealth. It's a valuable incentive for landowners to partner with us, as we preserve open space for permanent conservation for habitat, protecting drinking water quality, and providing important passive recreational and natural areas in our communities. I'm incorporating into my comments today a testimonial from a Falmouth landowner, Edward Brown Legere of Roxbury Hill Road, who just recorded last month a 3.72 Acre Conservation restriction on his property.
The property is conserved for agricultural activities, and it's also mapped within a climate change resiliency area as mapped by the nature conservancy. Ed shared the following. The conservation land tax credit proved to be the key to my being able to proceed comfortably with a conservation restriction and contribute protected open space to my community, while also feeling confident that I was making a prudent financial decision. The multiyear3991 wait times would seem to be3993 strong evidence that the CLTC is appealing to many. While it was not a deal breaker in my case as my particular need for funds was not immediate, it's easy to see how such long delays could discourage potential donors with more near term ends. Please expand what in my view appears to be a popular and successful program to provide open space to nurture all of our souls. Many thanks to my fellow Massachusetts taxpayers for providing the conservation tax credit and to the local land trust for managing the mountain of paperwork to get my conservation restriction done. I'm happy to submit that in writing as well. Thank you. The conservation tax credit has proven to be an important and4039 effective tool for land conservation across the Commonwealth. We hope to have your support for this act to increase the tax credit. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you, Jessica, and for Mister Brownichier's testimony, thank him as well. You know, I
MORAN - I can't help but mention I am a proud resident and serve Falmouth as well. Mr. Johnson, I am very familiar with the consortium of organizations that you bring here and their accomplishments of not only something for the individuals who want to make this part of their legacy for their communities, but sort of the next generations4083 that then benefit. So well appreciated and the practical challenges4089 on this you know, it's nice to have a very successful program with advocates saying, we want to work harder, and so that that is appreciated as well. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Question from the committee.
Senator? You probably do need a for the recording.
EDWARDS - Thank you very much. I'm just becoming familiar with this and so based off your fact sheet, I did have just a general question. I noticed that you're changing the definition of public or private conservation energy agency to include non profit trusts and 501 C3. Just if you can explain to me how a tax credit would be helpful to a 501 C3 that I assume doesn't pay taxes? SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
or
Oh, so
Do you wanna go?
Go ahead.
Go for it.
JOHNSON - Actually, I think that's not so much the benefactor of the tax credit is the beneficiary of the donation of the tax credit. So the issue pertains to sort of a nuance of nonprofit law, but some land trusts which are qualified guarantees of these conservation restrictions are organized as trust and others are not they're organized as don't tell me, but the other way that you could be organized, it's a matter of non profit law. When the law was drafted, it was really just an unintentional drafting here that excluded about 1/3 of conservation land trust in the state of being eligible to process these gifts and receive these gifts and it's really a technical correction. So it's not the donor, it's the recipient that's being referenced in that specific provision. I can follow-up with you in more detail. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you. Thank you. Great.
Thank you. Being here and for everyone on the screen, their testimony as well. I see you have a clear time dropping.
move us4231 over. Absolutely.
Okay.
REP KHAN - HB 2860 - SB 1924 - Thank you very much, Senator Moran and Representative Cusack, Chairs of the committee and distinguished members of the committee. So I'm really grateful for this opportunity this afternoon to testify before you today on House 2860 and Senate 1924, an act relative to mental health promotion through realistic advertising images, which I filed alongside Senator Rausch. So many of the images we see in advertising these days are digitally altered and manipulated. Images where models skin tones are lightened, their wrinkles are magically gone, they are made to look skinnier and more toned. These changes are made to conform to society beauty norms or correct perceived flaws and have become standard practice in the advertising industry. So,4294 additionally, life is increasingly taking place online, as we all know. This is particularly true for our youth population as 95% of US teens have access to a smartphone.
Children and adolescents are being constantly bombarded by new and often harmful adverse advertisements that have been digitally altered and or manipulated. The constant exposure to unrealistic and unattainable images that we are facing can dramatically impact mental and emotional health. In fact, research shows that more often young people view these altered images, the more serious their4337 body dissatisfaction and eating disorders symptoms appear. This is not just about manipulating digital images, it's about the long term mental and physical health of our Bay State residents. If House 2860 would provide an annual tax credit of up to $10,000 for cosmetic, personal care, and apparel4362 companies that do not digital use altered advertising, several high profile brands such as Aerie and Dove have pledged to stop harmful digital editing practices as part of their corporate social responsibility practices, and House 2860 would accelerate this voluntary trend and ensure that companies have a reason to follow through on these pledges by offering a modest tax incentive for unaltered advertising.
This Bill is backed by research, and in 2011, the American Medical Association released a position statement encouraging the development of advertising industry guidelines to discourage the altering of photographs in a manner that could put unrealistic expectations and appropriate body image. In response, legal researchers at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health determined that offering a tax incentive would be the strongest and most viable policy option to discourage the use of digital altered images without unconstitutionally restricting free speech. So incentivizing businesses to use more realistic advertising images of models and include a diversity of sizes, race, ethnicity groups, and ages in their campaigns will protect Bay Staters, particularly our youth pop population from the detrimental public health impacts of digitally altered advertisements. So thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on this legislation. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you, Raf. Appreciate that. Questions? You are all set.
SPEAKER26 - Great. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER1 - Yes. call Karen Sprout on house 2938.
SPEAKER8 - Are you Ah, welcome. Fine. Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - How are you? Really good. And I was with big people.
KAREN CROWD - GAS TRANSITION ALLIES - HB 2938 - My name is Karen Crowd. I'm a member of the climate organization, Brookline Mothers Out-front, and the Coalition Gas Transition, Allies. Thank you for4480 the opportunity to testify in opposition to enact advancing renewable heating solutions for the Commonwealth. Right in the title is include to a key problem with the bill. advancing renewable heating solutions. The term renewable sounds promising and climate friendly at first glance but it simply means energy from a source that is not depleted when used. So does renewable mean non combusting? No, does renewable mean it doesn't emit? greenhouse gases? No, does it mean it's safe? No, does it mean it's not polluting and healthy? No. If the legislature's intention is to pass laws that will help the Commonwealth meet its mandate of net zero emissions by 2050, it has to be strategic about what it is being produced, not just the source. In this Bill, what is incentivized is the for the production of methane, propane, and hydrogen. Two of these gases, methane and propane, are hydrocarbons that emit significant amounts of carbon dioxide when burnt, no matter the source.
Two of them, methane and hydrogen emit greenhouse gases multiple times more potent than carbon dioxide when leaked and leaked, they will as they will travel through our states notoriously dilapidated gas pipe infrastructure, an infrastructure that requires continuous pipe repair and replacement at a cost of ratepayers of more than $750,000,000 each year. The global consensus is that we must quickly4570 discontinue gas use to avert catastrophic warming. Why then would the legislature even consider incentivizing investment in new gas production. Frankly, the legislature should instead be all hands on deck figuring out how to strategically, justly, and rapidly decommission the gas infrastructure in favor of real clean heat solutions such as the future of clean heat. I will just finished by saying the Commonwealth has a duty to ratepayers and tax traders to fund the technology that costs the least and reduces emissions the most. That option is not hydrogen biomethane or propane, it is the well proven heat pump. I urge the committee not to report this Bill out favorably because it incentivizes solutions that are more expensive, more complex than today's heating solutions and yield only minimal reductions in emissions. Thank you very much.
MORAN - Thank you. Quick question. So heat pump, what's that?
CROWD - A heat pump is a form of energy that uses electricity that takes the temperature from the air or the ground depending upon what type of heat pump, and it takes the kind of the heat, even though it seems like it'd be no heat in a cool day, it actually takes the heat out of the air and compresses it and turns it into heat in your house.4648 It comes from electricity, so it'll become from the grid. It doesn't pollute, it doesn't emit anything. It is one the most clean and powerful heating solutions, and I4659 would be very happy to give you a quick fact sheet on that as a follow-up to this. testimony.
MORAN - That would be great. I think a lot of people are interested, I happen to have a bunch of them and for my residents in my community who have are on breathing machines and for the 10 plus days where you can't use them, because I'm all in. Obviously, it's very all shipping. What's the alternative?
CROWD - I would suggest for all all alternatives and electricity when it goes down are things like generators and battery powered4701 solutions.
MORAN - So we need more battery powered solar, for example?
CROWD - The main thing is in the minor cases for a rare occurrence word, there would be a power outage. We cannot maintain a $40,000,000,000 gas infrastructure, that is just an absolute waste of money and we need4724 to be putting that money into real solutions. So thank you for your curiosity and your interest in this. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Absolutely, I wanna be sure. Anyone else?
PAULINO - I just want to point, I'm not an expert on green energy but if you take a plastic4738 bottle, pick4740 her, then take centuries for the plastic bottle to degrade and a server MIT have been testing, you can convert that into a gas that can preheat. You can cook with that gas and we have a outfield pool of plastic that would take standardizes before that possibly degrade and those plastic happened from time of the day, our sea, our rivers, our land. And we're talking about rain, we're talking about being to have clean energy to have a clean environment. I believe it's not as clean as we wanted, well, at least,4778 we are not recycling, converting something that's contributing a whole environment into something that we can use onto, we can go fully green. I agree with your point, in some way, we had to find the middle. We had to be in the middle. I believe it's so, so, there's so much we can do with the idea that we heard about conversion plastic into gas. And how are you saying? Well, we had4807 to see the benefit for conversion plastic into gas.
CROWD - I totally agree with your point. I think to the extent we have places that are producing methane, it would be useful to capture that and put it into the kind of the use on-site, that is our solution is to do what you're saying, which is to not let it just go into the air, but to capture it, but use it on-site, not try to transport it and use it to heat homes because that is not the solution for dealing with our building emissions. We have to really get rid of gas, if it burns, it's not clean and we have to get rid of it. But we can, to your point, use it on-site. Like, Deer Island is a facility that is got a sign of a circular use, it burns it, it captures it, it uses it for electricity on-site, perfectly good solution but not transporting it through massive new infrastructure and getting it and continuously using our really dilapidated gas infrastructure. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you for your meeting.
Have a good 1. 0. Yeah. That's fair.
WHIPPS - How much do the heat pumps cost and what would be the amount to replace them?
CROWD - So that's a great question. Fortunately, you have an expert in the audience who will4881 be speaking shortly from green energy consumers' Alliance Carrie, and she will describe that in detail. But one thing I will just point out is there are massive amount of incentives right now, thanks to the federal government and state, so the cost has come way down. So I'll let Carrie speak to that, thank you for that good question. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
I think that's good. Thank you so much. And we don't have to wait long4904 for Carrie. You're up next.
Carrie Catan from green energy as soon as alliance. again in house 2938.
Welcome. Thank you.
CARRIE KATAN - GREEN ENERGY CONSUMER ALLIANCE - HB 2938 - Dear members of the committee, my name is Carrie Katan, I'm testifying on behalf of Green Energy Consumers Alliance in opposition to H 2938 as I did against its Senate counterpart several weeks ago. The Commonwealth's clean energy and climate plans indicate that the best pathway to clean heat is through electrification, not renewable natural gas and hydrogen, which this Bill subsidizes. The Massachusetts 2050 decarbonization roadmaps as this due to load primary energy efficiency, limited availability of biomass supplies and competing decarbonized fuel uses such as air travel, such fuels are expected to be expensive relative to fossil fuels today or direct electricity use in the future. With respect to the final report on the commission of Clean Heat, you can search through the words renewable natural gas and hydrogen in the 66 page report and you will not find them. Those in support of this Bill will counter that RNG is an early stage technology that will improve with time and state support. That is the same story the corn lobby told the country to get ethanol into our gas tanks.
According to ethanol4991 supporters, next generation cellulosic biofuels that could be made from agricultural waste products and grasses were just around the corner. Decades later, they remain just around the corner. The reality of the matter is that biofuels, including RNG and ethanol are fundamentally inefficient fuel sources, and our ability to produce them is constrained by limited inputs. No amount of state subsidies will overcome these problems for RNG just as no amount of federal support could make ethanol the future of transportation. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify on this legislation and with my5026 last 10 seconds, I would like to mention that while renewable propane exists as a product, it is currently a dollar a gallon more than regular propane, which is already deeply unaffordable.
WHIPPS - In regards to what he found thoughts and what it would take to get it everywhere.
KATAN - Okay. So the unfortunate answer to that is there is no clear definitive answer to that because every home is different, and some places, heat pump installation would be relatively straightforward, and others it would take other work depending on the kind of house. It also depends on what kinds of heat pumps you're talking about, for an air source heat pump, Mass CEC did a study, and these costs will probably go down with time as it becomes more normal to install these and economies of scale kick in. That found it costs about $20,000 to install an air source heat pump and completely heat a home with it in the state of Massachusetts. As there are other ways to use heat pumps, there are ground source heat5096 pumps which basically take heat or cold out of the grounds. These are incredibly efficient when it comes to operating costs and on operating costs can out compete natural gas actually, which is really amazing but they are very expensive to install. There is also network geothermal, which is basically the idea of taking a lot of geothermal heat pumps and connecting them together like the natural gas system is connected together, and that's actually one way a lot of5128 groups of supporting the gas utilities to stop using natural gas and to heat people's homes in a clean and cost effective way. There's currently two pilot programs, one being run by National Grid and one being run by Eversource within the state to look more into that idea, which is incredibly exciting.
MORAN - That's in Massachusetts?
KATAN - Yes, I think the Eversource test is in Framingham, and the National Grid test is in Lowell. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you. Other questions?
Appreciate you, Justin Long.
Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - we next have Karen Arpino on house 2938.
Thank you.
SPEAKER27 - I appreciate it.
SPEAKER1 - Okay, Karen. Go ahead.
KAREN ARPINO - NORTH EAST HEARTH PATIO & BBQ ASSOCIATION - HB 2398 - Thank you, Chairs Moran and Cusack and members of the committee. There's quite a bit of relevant in front of you today, and I appreciate the opportunity to testify in support of H 2398 an act enhancing renewable heating solutions for the Commonwealth today. My name is Karen Arpino, and I'm the executive director of the Northeast Hearth Patio and BBQ Association. The Northeast HPBA is5200 a leading trade association in the middle5202 of this issue. We represent more than 300 individual member, hearth, and fireplace retail and related companies throughout the Northeast, specifically in the Commonwealth we have over 60 member companies. We5215 want to applaud the committee and the legislator for your work to strengthen the clean energy economy through your landmark legislation last session and look forward to working with you more in the future. We see firsthand in residents and new developments the concern and challenges caused by full electrification. There are any number of pieces of legislation in front of the committee today for which EPA has many substantive thoughts, which will be submitted in written form, and we hope be able to work with the committee on the role of renewable propane and other renewable fuels in the Commonwealth.
We support H 2398, filed by Representative Roy and are in favor of incentivizing5251 renewable fuels, lowering carbon emissions, and promoting energy security and environmental justice. This Bill incentivizes recent innovations by the5261 propane industry into developing renewable5263 propane. Renewable propane is made from a variety of renewable feedstocks that has grown under the sun and itself has absorbed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This Bill encourages the reduction in carbon emissions that will occur in our very near future due to the addition of renewable propane. The Commonwealth needs a mix of clean energy solutions to achieve its climate goals and to ensure energy security, we cannot put all of our energy needs into just one energy type. Geologic propane used in energy efficient propane systems are more efficient and less costly to consumers than heat pumps and other electric technology in Massachusetts today. Ans our electricity becomes cleaner, so5307 too will propane with the addition of renewable propane blend into existing systems using existing infrastructure. We believe that this committee can strike the right balance and help the Commonwealth to reach its climate goals. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today, happy to answer any questions. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you. Questions from the committee.
None. You're all set. Thank you for your participation.
Thank you.
Next week. Thank you. Next have Robert Ambrosci on house 2940 and house 2958.
Good afternoon. Thank you for having me. Chair Moran, chair Cuszak, honorable members of this committee. Can you hear me okay?
Yes. We can.
Okay.
ROBERT AMBROGI - MASSACHUSETTS NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION - HB 2940 - HB 2958 - Thank you. I'm the executive director of the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association, which represents the newspapers of Massachusetts and I am here to testify in support of H 2940, H 2958, two Bills that would strengthen local journalism and community newspapers in Massachusetts. I have actually submitted written testimony, and so I will just try and make three quick points to be respectful of your time. Number one is that it is a fact that citizens want more local news and local reporting with an emphasis on local. There was just last week, a nationwide survey that I reference in my written testimony that makes the the point that citizens are5397 looking for trusted local sources of news, sources that are operating within their communities and based in their communities. It's a matter of common sense, I think we all know that, but it's a fact. Secondly, Massachusetts is actually facing a resurgence in local news. We hear about newspapers closing in Massachusetts but the fact of the matter is more newspapers have been started in the last couple of years than have5425 closed.
As just one quick example, and I have several in my testimony, you may have heard about the newspaper wars in the town of Marblehead where after a national chain decided it was going to cut back its local coverage, a local group got together and started a local newspaper, and then a second local group got together and started a local newspaper, and then a third local group. So there are now actually three5449 different competing newspapers in5451 the small town of Marblehead and that kind of thing is happening all across the state. But the fact of the matter is that even in the face of that, even with the demand for local journalism and even with the revival of local journalism, Newspapers are struggling in some ways to sustain financial viability and the reasons for that are kind of a perfect storm over the last couple of years. The pandemic had a dramatic impact on advertising because of the fact that a lot of local businesses shut down and simply stopped or couldn't afford to run. These Bills would both provide tax incentives to subscribers, to subscribe to newspapers, to advertisers, to advertise in newspapers, and to local newspapers themselves in the form of a payroll tax credit and together, it would really help provide a much needed boost to local journalism. So we hope you will report favorably on these Bills. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you very much. Are there questions from the committee?
Thank you, miss Ramosi, for your testimony or your day. We next have the leaderboard jobs.
Hello. Welcome.
It's on house 2938.
Louen, thank you.
ANITA ROY DOBBS - CONCERNED CITIZEN - HB 2938 - I'm Anita Roy Dobbs, and I'm speaking on behalf of myself in opposition to H 2938. I'm a resident of Watertown, and I'm a volunteer on such places as gas transition allies and Watertown faces climate change and others. Specifically, I oppose the notion of renewable fuels in the in the act. First, fuels, the Commonwealth is committed to net zero by 2050, and we do not need to expand our use of fuels, we need to reduce them, we need to reduce our reliance on fuels because they combust and they always emit, we need to move to non emitting, non combusting fuels. Second, renewable. None of these fuels are renewable in the sense of wind or solar or geothermal, they all rely on sources that ought to be reduced but to rely on them for heating, we would need to increase their use.
Things such as landfill, the organic matter that goes into landfill that creates the methane that they would use as biogas, that needs to be reduced because of the energy that it represents going into the food that landed as waste rather than being used for nutrition into the landfill. Plastics. For propane, we need to reduce plastics. Meat, let the impact on land and so forth for the cow dung biogas. All of those sources need to be reduced, whereas using them as fuel would expand it. I recommend rather than sort of funding that you recommended here, I recommend that you task an intern to spend one afternoon investigating online all of the studies that have been done that talk about the ridiculous idea of using hydrogen for heating, to talk about the need to reduce these biogas fuels rather than expanding them and ask them to flag anything that seems to be in support of that because almost certainly, it's been funded by the oil and gas industry. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you. Thank you for your testing with questions. Thank you very much. Next, we have it's Mara Albin Di Labato for Western Mass Economic Development Council on house 2811. Welcome.
Oh, thank you.
XIOMARA DELOBATO - WESTERN MASS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL - HB 2811 - Thank you, everyone, for having me here today, and thank you to Rep Carlos Gonzales for submitting this Bill. My name is Xiomara Delobato, I am the vice president and chief of staff with the Western Mass Economic Development Council. I'm here to speak in support of House 2811. I do have a written testimony that I will submit electronically for everyone to view. I'm just going to pull out some of the most important pieces of this in order to support and talk a little bit further about how this Bill will have pretty significant economic impact to our region and also to the Commonwealth. So first, just a couple pieces of information based on an assessment that we did last year with the economic development council, we made an assessment with over 200 families who were either impacted by incarcerated from a family member and or they themselves as individuals impacted by incarceration and reentering the workforce.
So with some of the data points that we were able to collect, we are still seeing that nearly half of the people with any type of criminal background still remain jobless a year after incarceration. A criminal record can reduce the chances of an interview by 50%, and that has remained consistent. The third thing is that despite our low unemployment rates that we have currently in the Commonwealth and nationally, the unemployment rate for formally incarcerated people's remain at the highest, sitting over 27% present, and the two highest most wanted resources from folks that are reentering the economy, entering the workplace are both housing and employment.
Those are the top two services that people are looking for, and it has been incredibly hard to access that. So the reason why I mentioned all of that is because 2811 really combines a lot of different aspects of economic development. I have, like, three seconds left, so I will end this with three major things that the Bill will be able to do for us is, one job creation. So being able to tap into this invisible community and provide that economic prosperity, provide that economic vitality.5837 It helps with the workforce development aspect for micro businesses, so allowing small business owners to thrive. Then lastly, also, out of all the several ways, an important fact is that it will reduce recidivism, so making sure that folks are not reoffending and really adding to the richness of their economy and their community. So thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you for your time. My questions are members of the committee. You are all set.
Thank you so much.
We next have Michael McFord for our in house 20 day 30 day. Thank you very much. Welcome.
Yes.
MICHAEL MCFORD - CONCERNED CITIZEN - HB 2938 - I'm here to talk about that Bill, and I want to call your attention to a particular aspect of hydrogen. which is included in that Bill. We must keep in mind that hydrogen does not exist in a pure form, it has to be manufactured and the manufacture of hydrogen requires a huge amount, massive amounts of electricity. We need to think about the impact of the use of that electricity on the future of clean heat in our Commonwealth. Fortunately, we have a recent study that is titled the impact of green hydrogen production on the availability of clean electricity for the grid. It's on5920 the gas transition allies website if you'd like to see it. This study specifically addresses National Grid's recent plan to introduce hydrogen into their pipelines as a 20% mix with methane and the study proves decisively using calculations done by experts in the field that this amount of hydrogen, just 20%, would require all of the offshore wind electricity projected to be available on the grid in 2030. So all of those wind turbines production would have to be devoted simply to the production of green hydrogen. Do we really want to rob our electric grid of clean electricity needed to decarbonize our economy so that National Grid can maintain its leaky pipeline system and promote the fiction that they truly care about decarbonizing our economy. I think not and so I respectfully recommend that H 2938 be returned to committee for further study. I'd be happy to answer any questions that the committee might have. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you. Would it be possible to send a link to the study?
Sure.
SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
As part of your testimony, that would be helpful.
Certainly. I will do that.6008
Thank you. And6009 I'm looking for a question from community managers.
Seeing none?
If I have any time left, may I come and I'll several other questions from
I'll give you 15 seconds just as you go.
MCFORD - Regarding your question about backup systems for heat pumps. I think hardening the grid, the electric grid is the solution that we need to go for, so that means putting it into pipelines, which is something that our gas workers would know how to6036 do once we transition off the gas. Regarding your concerns,6040 sir, about plastic waste, there are ways to to combust waste locally and turn it into electricity that gets immediately put onto the grid, so it's not turned into any kind of gas that goes through pipelines, so there are ways to deal with waste. Primarily, the solution to plastic is to reduce our reliance on plastic. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
So
Maybe. on you can even expound on those 2 things, but thank you so much for your testing. Thank you for for allowing me to do something. Thank you.
Last on my list is Doctor Spern Boston on house 2860 in Senate 1924.
BRYN AUSTIN - HARVARD CHAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH - HB 2860 - SB 1924 - Good afternoon honorable members of the joint committee on revenue. I'm Doctor Bryn Austin, and I'm a professor at the Harvard Chan School of6096 Public Health. I'd like to share research supporting S 1924 and H 2860, and strongly urge you to vote in favor of this important legislation. Most, if not all, of the advertising images we're exposed to every day are manipulated, it's no secret that this ads display unrealistic and unattainable images. Such manipulated images are referred to as, quote, digitally altered advertisements, or DAAs, and I'll use that term in this testimony to refer to ad images where a human model's skin shade,6128 skin texture, including wrinkles and blemishes, body size, body shape are changed to conform to harmful and unrealistic societal beauty ideals. Digitally altering models images is not just an occasional act, and instead, it is standard practice for the industry. DAA's are all around us whether or not we're consciously aware.
Research consistently shows that for vulnerable youth, incessant exposure to DAA's in media and social media, can drive them to adopt unrealistic and unattainable ideals of thinness and muscularity, and worsen self esteem body dissatisfaction, extreme dieting, and eating6169 disorders symptoms. In addition, it is not uncommon for ads to lighten the skin shade of models of color to conform with white beauty ideals, having the effect of promoting, denigrating an unattainable appearance standards for youth of color. Research with African American and Indian women showed skin shade dissatisfaction is linked with higher risk of potentially6190 harmful skin lightening behaviors6192 which can include the use of dangerous skin lightening products that sometimes contain steroids and mercury that can cause lasting damage to the skin and kidneys.
In 2011, the American Medical Association strongly urged advertisers to desist from using DAA but more than a decade has passed since the AMA issued this strong warning, and the problem has only gotten worse with the growth of social media. This legislation gives lawmakers the opportunity to take action to protect children in the Commonwealth from the negative impacts of viewing digitally altered ads. The Bill would provide a tax credit up to $10,000 for personal care, cosmetic, and apparel companies doing business in Massachusetts that abstain from using DAAs. The need to act to protect young consumers' mental health is more urgent now than ever before as the Covid-19 pandemic, has led to a two fold increase in eating disorders, case loaded, children's hospitals in Massachusetts, and statewide. I urge you to vote in support SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
of this legislation.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Are there questions?
Thank you so much for your testimony. It's very appreciated by a show of hands are there folks here who are intending to test to ask to testify? Anyone else? Anyone online?
k. In that case -- Alright. --
I would need for a motion.
SPEAKER2 - Make a motion to adjourn today's hearing, ma'am. Sure.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you a second second. Thank you for hearing us adjourned. Thank you for coming.
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