2023-06-20 00:00:00 - Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies
2023-06-20 00:00:00 - Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies
SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - Hello? I
am a chairman Barry Fiegel along with my79 good friend, chair Jerry Paricella, who I will hand this over to to introduce the members of the house85 who have joined us. Great.
SPEAKER2 - Thank you, Mister Chairman. I just wanna introduce all the house members of the committee, Andy Vargas, is the vice chair. Dave Meridian is the ranking member Brian Nash, Brian Murray, Ted Phillips, Jessica Gianino, David Beale, Bud Williams, Kathy Anatra, Kit Diggs, Joe McKenna and Marcus105 Volnick. Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - And as a reminder, this109 hearing is being conducted in a hybrid manner and livestream on the mass legislature's website. Remarks are being recorded and will be available to the public. individuals are asked limited to your testimony in 3 minutes, and yes, we do have a buzzer. So please keep to those 3 minutes. And panels are asked to limit testimonies to 6 minutes. And, yes, there's still a buzzer for that too. Everyone is also encouraged to submit written testimony. We do really137 encourage that, and we actually do really read it. Individuals testifying a person would be called before those joining remotely. And for as a custom, we do take legislators out of term. So we appreciate150 your flexibility and cooperation with152 that. And then those joining via teams are asked to leave themselves on mute until they are called upon to speak Okay. So let's let's get going. And our first panel is Bob Cunningham, Elizabeth Kennedy, and then I'll AZelle. Well, I wanna come up.
And if you could introduce who you are and the bill that you are testifying, on.
NOA DALZELL - FOOD SOLUTION ACTION - HB 402 - SB 229 - Thank you so much for the time. My name is Noa Dalzell, I work for an organization called food solutions action, and the bill we work here in support of is House Bill 402 and196 Senate Bill 229, an act to establish a commission to study protein innovation in Massachusetts. So202 the issue that we're working on is alternative proteins. Alternative proteins are alternatives to conventional meat and dairy products that don't actually require the use of the animal, and I know I've met with many of you on this committee, Chair Finegold, Chair Parisella, and others, I really appreciate your time to consider this piece of legislation. Where we come in as an organization is that globally, meat demand is the highest that it's ever been, it's expected to double in the next 25 years. So with that, that poses a slew of environmental challenges, but also food security concerns. Right now, globally, all animal I'm totally responsible for 15% of greenhouse gas emissions and with that growing demand, that number is only going to rise. So we're, like, really excited about the potential of this industry.
Alternative proteins include plant248 based products or anything like beyond and250 possible; soy milk, oat milk, it also includes cultivated meat. Anything taking cells directly from the animal, growing those cells in a bioreactor, feeding the nutrients258 and getting genetic identical meat. Massachusetts is a global hub for innovation in263 the space and has the potential to really be a leader when it comes to this industry. We already have a number of academic institutions Harvard, which Bob will talk more about, Northeastern, WPI, UMass, and a number of others that are really doing groundbreaking work in this space. We also have the life science, the biotech infrastructure and culture, the workforce. We've had companies come here to Massachusetts because they know that we have all the capacity and kind of everything that we need to grow in this space. So this is really a technology that has opportunity to address climate change, to address public health.
You don't need antibiotics, you don't need hormones, you don't have tens of thousands of animals in confined spaces with the risk of zoonotic diseases, so it has really a lot of societal benefits. What this Bill aims to do is just establish a commission to study protein innovation in mass choose is. It's kind of a first step for this industry. We have a number of startup companies that have come out of the academic institutions in this space but we haven't had really a robust dialogue in the state house around how we can ensure that this industry will be kind of a continuation of our life science, our biomedical leadership. So what we're looking to do is have a number of legislators and then also experts from academia, the private sector, and other sectors that we've named in the Bill, basically come together and issue a road map of policy recommendations for this date to follow. A lot of the schools that are around here, a lot of the companies that are around here, they're really excited opportunity because they've already been doing this work, they've already been doing research in this space. And they just haven't yet gotten involved with the state government and so there's a lot of synergy and support that I think what we can find here. But thank you so much for your time. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Great timing, Kendrick.
SPEAKER4 - Yeah. Wanna make sure.
ROBERT CUNNINGHAM - WYSS INSTITUTE - HB 402 - SB 229 - Good afternoon. Thank you for having us here to speak to you today. My name is Bob Cunningham, I'm the director of strategic engagement at the Wyss Institute for biologically inspired engineering in Harvard. I'm a businessman, not an academic, and that's appropriate because the institute focuses on innovative scientific research to benefit healthcare in the environment, but we've also committed to a proven commercial model to turn these science projects into viable commercial products. As we say, breakthrough discoveries can't change the world, they don't leave the laboratory, and in this role, we see ourselves as a small economic engine for the Commonwealth. Over the past 12 years, we've been awarded hundreds of thousands Some of those patents have been licensed by 55 startup companies that have raised over $10,000,000,000 in support for the financial community and created over 1200 jobs here in the Commonwealth. So like most of our technology, we have focused over the last decade on new drugs, therapies, diagnostics, medical products, and research tools too but we now see an opportunity to refocus what we're doing with the biotechnology tools.
Our expertise in areas like issue engineering, regenerative medicine, 3D printing, can all be refocused on providing solutions for climate change problems and addressing the future of the food supply. So two weeks ago, thousands of people from the biotech industry came the Boston for the annual Bio convention. In all of the buyout conventions I've ever attended, there are dozens of booths from states and following governments who promoting their biotech infrastructure. Come to our geography, we'll give you tax incentives, we'll give you cuts to loans, we'll help you grow your business in our area. They're all very complementary of what we have here in Massachusetts, but they're also very entities. They're all trying to do what we've done, and they always ask the same question, how does Boston do it? How do you do it? Well, we want to see this commission coming to be so that we maintain this leadership role.
Biotechnology is changing, there is no question. It's addressing a different set of problems, that's going to be good for all of us but we do need to have some leadership within the state house to provide guidance that give us the kind of contacts and networking we need and hopefully, someday financial support so that the academic institutions can continue to drive the biotech economy in this new space where our goals are to solve climate related problems and secure safe and stable and effective food supply for all of our citizens inside and outside the Commonwealth. So I appreciate your interest in this, and really going to appreciate your support in setting up this commission so we could think about this the right way. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank thank you. I told you the buzzer. I really wish I could stop them.
SEN FINEGOLD - If I could ask both of you some questions. Let's say there there's a hypothetical that we might do an economic development Bill and in that economic development, we want to promote industries potentially like yours. Would you be willing to work with us? And I understand that you want to do a commission, but if you wanted to fast forward that, what do you want this commission to do, and what are the things575 that you need to succeed in the Commonwealth? So I think that could be super helpful if you may want to and I'm not saying we won't do the commission, but, really, what is the end game with the commission? And what are those things you ultimately need? I think it'd be very helpful for this whole committee to really know. Because I also think there's also a huge health issue to this too and I think there is a benefit to using non meat products for your health. So I think there's also that too, so I think there's a lot of good that can be done here but we'd love to understand if you're saying to us that right now, Massachusetts is a leader, how do we grow that lead? And how do we really become a dominant player in this space?
DALZELLA - Yes, I'm happy to start there. So one of the things that across the board has been named as really helpful624 over this space is just open access research626 dollars. So like I628 mentioned and I think later we have some virtual testimony from UMass, but there's so much research that's already happening in the space and a lot of it is from academics that we're doing research within the biomedical space and have kind of stumbled into this space, but really haven't received a lot of designated funding for this. Tufts is an exception, they've received federal dollars, and that's what's allowed top to really be a trailblazer in this space. So something that we've looked at in California, we worked on this last year. We got $5,000,000 in the budget for alternative protein research and development that was split across three recent schools and those three UC schools have that additional funding to build upon that research. That's a small thing, but it's something that we're looking at right now to establish a pilot grant program in Massachusetts, and we're hoping that an economic development Bill on the fall is a good home for that sort of thing. Something else that's come up quite a bit in our conversations with companies in this space is a shared facility, a pilot scale facility for innovation in the space and that doesn't have to be690 something that's in the greater Boston area, but it can actually extend to other parts693 of the state so that other parts of the state can also695 lead the economic benefits of this industry.
So right now, there's we have Green Town Labs, we have these different centers for clean technologies, something like that for food and something like that specifically for alternative proteins would be enormously helpful. So that's the kind of thing that we've been looking at in other states as well but I think having something like that in Massachusetts where the academic institutions are right there, the schools can work directly with that type of facility would also go a really long way. Then also something that's just a larger category of policies that we've looked at is, what are the current incentives that are looking at incentivizing clean technologies, you know, sustainable companies? These are companies that from their baseline, they have a reduced greenhouse gas, so a lot of times climate incentives are structured in a way that you look at a company's baseline emissions, and then you look at how they were able to decarbonize and reduce those emissions and they don't necessarily incentivize companies from the get go. We're doing something in a more sustainable way with a much lower carbon footprint. So that's a larger conversation that I think just systemically looking at climate incentives for companies, but there's a way to note that, you know, I think, in these policies as well. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Any other questions?
Thank you for your time.
SPEAKER3 - Thank you so much.
SPEAKER1 - We we have Christine Casner representative.
SPEAKER2 - We're also
SPEAKER1 - joined by reps Phillips and Bill who have joined us as well. Thank you.
Representative.
SPEAKER6 - Hello. Thank you.
REP KASSNER - HB 3822 - Thank you, Chairman Parisella, Finegold, and distinguished members of the committee. This is my first testimony on a Bill, so happy to be here. So I'm here to discuss Bill H 3822, an act preparing in Massachusetts for the next economy. I spent my career in local planning and community development endeavoring to build consensus and core principles to protect what we love, provide what we need, and set a vision for the future within our communities. Planning as legislating is not an exact science and as the world changes around us, we adapt and we pivot to correct our course. As practitioners, we work to educate, break down barriers, and craft new rules and bylaws to bring us to our shared future. Governor Healey in her inaugural speech839 said we also need to build a Massachusetts economy for the future, we can't lead tomorrow if we settle for what's845 good enough today, and we are all talking about this.
Housing, the economy, competitiveness, preparedness, we have experienced a strong economy in recent years, we're a hub856 for quantum computing, robotics, AI, security, battery technology, and we remain for now the epicenter of life sciences in the world. New things are discovered every day in Massachusetts, we have the talent. However, we have long been experiencing as we've all been talking about a housing crisis and the shift in how we live, work and play that has been rapidly accelerated by the Covid pandemic. The pandemic hit in 2020, but with commercial leasing in 3, 5, 10 year cycles, only now we're beginning to see the effects on the built environment as leases begin to expire, and we're seeing businesses downsize leaving vacancies and we must look at these traditional spaces and rethink how they can be repurposed as office and retail and other industries are shifting.
Any purpose for the next economy, including lab, advanced manufacturing, housing, wellness, and the arts and to provide the infrastructure to serve these new uses as we retrofit with climate change in mind. But are we ready? This Bill establishes seeks to establish a special commission to inventory our assets, diagnose our barriers, identify opportunities, specifically around the existing built environment, infrastructure, utility permitting, and local land use regulations. As a home real estate with broad powers granted to the municipalities, the rules and permitting process for the development of housing, commercial space, roadways, electricity projects, can vary across different cities and towns within the state. In addition, Massachusetts has many different energy providers that also have all their own unique regulatory processes, all this alongside state permitting processes through the very many regulatory agencies.
To compete and grow, we must review all levels of permitting regulation to set the rules for the next economy. The goal of this special commission is to create a framework for partnership between those that drive our economy, our businesses, those that educate and help build our future, our educational institutions and infrastructure partners and government to identify regulatory and procedural barriers,986 to develop a realistic plan to strengthen the economy, provide essential services and housing while protecting our environment and combating climate change. 50 years ago, Governor signed into law, the Acts of 808, a revision to the zoning act, which at the time was a transformative piece of legislation that modernized local regulation and still serves as much of the foundation of many of our local bylaws today.
We have made progress, much has changed in 50 years, and it is time for an update. Post Covid, we are1014 in transition, we have a Governor and Lieutenant Governor that are ready to undertake needed transformative change. This Bill aligns with all of those goals linking business, infrastructure, and government together to review assets barriers and regulatory reform. We have an unprecedented opportunity as well with the inflation reduction act, bipartisan infrastructure law and the chips and science act, which we are already and will be investing billions in the nation's economy. This Bill establishing a special commission, including broad representation, can help Massachusetts diagnose and report on where we are going in certain key areas instead of plan to modernize our processes at all levels to remain competitive in the world economy and provide for the needs of our people. I ask for your support of this Bill and a favorable report out of the committee, and thank you so much for this opportunity. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Nice job representative. Does anyone have any questions? Thank you for your time.
SPEAKER6 - Thank you very much.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you. We have another
Yeah. We have a virtual panel of Christopher Chantree, Lynn Gardette, David McClellan Clemons. And this is virtual.
Thank you.
SPEAKER7 - I think I'm first on the list so I can start to can you hear me?
SPEAKER1 - We can hear you.
SPEAKER7 - Amazing.
CHRISTOPHE CHANTRE - TENDER FOOD - HB 402 - SB 229 - Thank you very much for your time. So my name is Christophe Chantre, and I'm the cofounder and CEO of Tender Food. We're an alternative meat company, we're a technology company that was founded by myself and three colleagues of mine that I met in 2013 at Harvard University. We started this company because today, as you know, and as was mentioned1120 earlier, today we have companies like Beyond and Impossible and others that are making burger, sausages and chicken nuggets as an alternative to meat that is, you know, an extremely unsustainable and destructive industry and product1132 on our planet. The problem is we don't have steaks, pork chops, chicken breast, and so on, any type of meat cut that you would have at the meat aisle. What we're here to do is essentially create the technologies, the foundation, to be able to create all these different types of products.
I'd argue creating a piece of meat without the animal was probably a lot more difficult than making an electric car, and that's why we have electric cars today but we don't have steaks and chicken breasts that are made from plants or cells without the animal. But it's absolutely important for us to able to do that, and that's why we started this company. As I mentioned, it was based on research that I did at Harvard University with several colleagues of mine starting 10 years ago. Most of the research that we did was geared1177 towards the medical industry as again was mentioned, but we really recognized the potential of the technologies1183 we're developing and could be applied to food. We developed those technologies for six or seven years and those academic labs at Harvard And then in 2019, we decided to start the company.
We raised a little bit of capital from the university that helped us to accelerate some of the research that we're doing internally but then the only, obviously, for it for us was actually to raise venture capital dollars to actually start the company. We went through two rounds of funding, we raised $1,500,000 in late 2020 and then $12,000,000 last year and that's really helped us fund a lot of the research that we're doing, and we're now starting to commercialize our products in local restaurants in Boston. We have around 25 employees and1221 probably another half dozen in tourists, some of which are from some of the labs that are from the professors that are on the call today. We're most likely going to be 100 in the years come as we scale our technologies and our products. Right now, it's mostly engineers and scientists that come from the schools around here, but as we scale our manufacturing capacity, it's probably going to be a lot more people from a lot more backgrounds and hoping to be able to really commercialize these products as fast as possible.
I was put in touch with Noa and and this team that's really trying to advance this Bill because I really saw firsthand the challenges in starting a company in this industry. Greentown Labs was mentioned as a startup infrastructure incubator that some companies used, we started out there because there was really no other, I'd say, food infrastructure that was available in the Boston and Massachusetts area. Greentown Labs is a climate tech incubator, which is great but most of the1277 companies there make solar panels and1279 windmills, they don't make food safe1281 materials, and so that was the place where we1283 started, but, you know, obviously, we had to try to1285 fund some place to else to move out quickly and kind of continue to scale. So any support there would be much appreciated. Thank you very much. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you.
So I I think next, Glenn wants to go.
GLENN GAUDETTE - BOSTON COLLEGE - HB 402 - SB 229 - Thank you for providing me with this opportunity to speak to you today on Bill's H 402 and S 229. My name is Glenn Gaudette, and I have the honor of serving as Chair of the Department of Engineering at Boston College. I spent most of my life living and working in Massachusetts from being born in New Bedford to attending Southeastern Massachusetts University to living for the past 19 years in Holden just outside of Worcester. Massachusetts leadership in many high-tech industries has been achieved through collaborations between Massachusetts state's legislature, educational institutions, and industry. Now we have the opportunity to collaborate in cellular agriculture. Cellular agriculture is largely drawn out of the biotechnology field, which we know is a strength of Massachusetts.
This Bill will begin to explore how Massachusetts can effectively bring together the knowledge and resources that largely already exist in this great state so that we can help this novel industry develop into an inclusive industry that is developed with all stakeholders in mind. So what does it take to produce cell cultivated meat? Generally, it takes cells, solutions, scaffolds, and bioreactors. Industries in Massachusetts are already producing these but they're making them for the biotech industry. We need to help them transition these products for the food and beverage1387 industry. At Boston College, together with colleagues from WPI and Tufts University, we're working on all these key ingredients. Since our groundbreaking work demonstrating that plants, specifically spinach leaves, could be used as a scaffold to grow human heart muscle on, we have been working on these edible scaffolds for growing animal muscle or meat.
We have demonstrated that in addition to spinach, Broccoli, jackfruit, rice, and many other edible plants can be used in growing cultivated meat but producing cultivated meat requires more than just engineering. We need to take a human centered approach and ask ourselves, what does the world need from us? As a society, we have an obligation to help all people, we must feed our growing population without destroying our environment. We need to consider how to include the current workforce, especially our farmers. When I was in high school, I was very fortunate to be able to work on our farm in Lakeville, Massachusetts. I know firsthand that farmers are hard workers, we have to consider how to include them in this new industry and we also need to ensure that cellular agriculture will meet the nutritional needs for all. The diversity in intellectual capital that exists in Massachusetts will be essential in developing the cellular agriculture industry into an inclusive and just industry for all. This is why Massachusetts needs to be a leader in this novel industry. Thank you.
DAVID MCCLEMENTS - UMASS AMHERST - HB 402 - SB 229 - Thanks for having me. As some of the other speakers have said before, I think the modern food industry has been incredibly successful in producing a wide range of1498 sort of affordable, delicious, and convenient foods which has really improved the quality of life of people around the world. But I think at the same time, there's some major challenges that we need to face. You know, the global population is growing, and I think people are eating more meat, so we need to produce these protein rich foods to feed people without damaging the environment. Also many of the fruit foods are produced are highly processed foods, and these are again, they're convenient and delicious, but they're causing health problems, so, like, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and things like that. So we really need to redesign the modern food industry to make it both healthy and sustainable. At UMass, this is what the faculty staff and students there are trying to do, we're trying to make a more sustainable and healthy food supply.
I'm not sure if you're aware, but we are ranked the number one food science graduate program in the country, and we're ranked number three in the world for food science, which is really impressive because we've only got 12 faculty member and the two Chinese universities above us have got over 100 faculty members. So I think, you know, we've got some really1568 sort of world leaders in the area of food science, and recently, 3/4 of our faculty members have pivoted their research towards this alternative protein space1580 and they've done this because they realized that it's such an important area that we need to focus on. We've got people who are working on sort of creating new protein sources to use in these foods, create a new technologies to convert these protein sauces into things like meat, seafood, egg, and milk, analogues of testing them in consumer science and sensory studies to make sure that they're delicious and consumers actually want to eat them.
Also to make sure that their nutritious and healthy, so we're trying to1609 design these foods so that they're actually1611 better for your health than eating animal1613 products. So if we do make this transition, it's going to be, you know, sustainable and healthy. We as well as doing the research in this area, we also help local industry and national industry by consulting with them on plant based foods, and we're training the next generation of food scientists to work in this area. So these are the people who are gonna be the scientists and entrepreneurs who start the companies in this area. I think, you know, from an academic point of view, it would be great to have more funding in this area, I was in UC Berkeley last week, and they just received a few $1,000,000 in the plant based food space and this has helped them sort of support students and buy new equipment, which allow them to do cutting edge research. I think these foods are incredibly complex materials, and we do need much more research to advance the science and to help establish food companies in this area. So more starter companies and bigger food companies to look in to Massachusetts. It's a beautiful state, it's full of creative and intelligent people and I think this is a great opportunity for the future. So thank you very much for listening. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank Thank you. And and Saul's 1 of our recognized senator Miranda's on
this teams as well. would like would like to say the same thing in this panel that set the other panel. And
FINEGOLD - I think your last point about health is super important. But what what does it look like if we were to help? And I understand that the commission of that could be a step but if there was a fast forward of that commission, what did you accomplish? And what are the things? I guess my other question is that if this industry continues to grow, which I think it will, and I think you're seeing more and more of this in your local supermarket, where does lot of manufacturing take place? Now I don't need an answer today, but I'd love to understand what type of an ecosystem this is really going to become because I think what might be helpful to us when we make our decisions is as we say the TAM, what's the total area of market of the potential? Like, what's the true potential of this? I understand a lot of time is guesstimating what this could be, but, you know, what is1750 Tender Foods going to be 10 years from now? Like, what's the vision on this and1756 how can Massachusetts really be the home for this? So I would ask you to kind of think big, I'd ask you to kind of think about what does this look like in five or 10 years and then reversing ourselves, what are the things you need right now to get to those five to 10 years?
CHANTRE - Yes, I think maybe I can answer that quickly. I think for us, you know, 10 years down the road, our goal is to become a global food manufacturer but it really starts here at our local scale, really, and so that means in the next couple of years, we're going to be designing and building pilot plants, we're going to do that in the state of Massachusetts because our company is here and because a lot of the talent is here. You know, the large industrial scale1801 facilities that we're looking1803 at, the 100,000 square foot facility in Larger are probably going to happen in1807 the Midwest where most of food manufacturing happens, but a lot of the early stage pilot scale testing will have to happen locally because our company is here and it just1817 makes a lot more sense.
FINEGOLD - Why is that? Nothing against the Midwest, but why does that have to happen out there? Like, where are we falling short? Because we have Western Massachusetts that, you know, has plenty of land and has a lot more things to offer than just?
CHANTRE - It's a good question. The answer is that a lot of the supply chains really meet there, it's not just having room, it's having the railway infrastructure, all1849 the big ingredient companies are over there but I would I would say, that would be for the 100,000 square foot facility. The 40,000 square foot facility that our large pilot scale facility that we're planning to1860 build, we're planning on building it in Massachusetts, and that we're planning to do in the next three years to really help us scale and really demonstrate that our process is scalable and economically viable, and then we can make great products from it down. So there are different stages, but1875 the the next couple ones are definitely happening right here for us. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Can I
SPEAKER1 - ask you a question?
SPEAKER9 - I'm sorry.
REP PARISELLA - Thank you, Chantre. A quick question. So Chris, you've got some big plans you're talking about, you know, expansion so far. I'm just curious, what's the consumer response been like to these products?
CHANTRE - Yes, great question. So we are in a local restaurant in Somerville, the response has been really positive so far. We were supposed to do a temporary trial of a product, we ended up doing it more permanently because of the positive response, we've actually for both products that we replaced, so there was a jack food product that was supposed to be essentially like a pulled pork analog and the meat product that we've developed using our technology, we've actually tripled in sales that product on the menu at that restaurant. Then we've done something similar with a chicken breast, where that we've launched earlier this year, and it's actually outselling the impossible Burger. Again, because I think we recognize that people want more variety and just kind of better quality product that we're able to create using these technologies. So these are first demonstrations, we're also in discussions1951 with, honestly, most of the biggest1953 food companies in the world that are really excited by our technology, and we're engaging a lot of them right now that in the same way would like to leverage our technologies to be able to scale and improve upon their product portfolio. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you. Any questions? I
FINEGOLD - I have another follow-up question and this may be a question you don't want to hear, but, like, how do we help you, but at the same time, how do we regulate it? Because Tender food seems like they're doing the right thing, but how do we1983 make sure that someone that1985 is saying that they're the next impossible Burger is doing things that they1989 shouldn't. So is that more on the federal level that we don't have to be involved with or how do you think about that? And is there, like, a grade a, grade b, grade c in this stuff? And, like, how would you want us to think about that?
CHANTRE - I mean from a food safety perspective, I think obviously it's a huge concern to everyone. As we scale, we are going to be under the purview of the FDA, right now, we are under the purview of the local boards of health because of our small scale and so that means that, you know, when we build these facilities, like, even a larger facility in Massachusetts will have to be ready to be audit by by the FDA to ensure that everything that we is food safe. So, yes, these are definitely top of mind. I'd say that's probably at the federal level, I imagine as we scale. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Yeah. Yeah. That's, I guess, what I can say.
SPEAKER1 - Thank you all for your time.
Oops. This this this this is with Kennedy that she wanted to testify? Okay. Come on up.
ELIZABETH KENNEDY - MASSACHUSETTS LIFE SCIENCE CENTER - HB 402 - SB 229 - Good afternoon, everyone, Chairs and committee members. My name is Elizabeth Kennedy, I most recently served as vice president of business development and strategy at the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center. I've worked at the Intersection of State Government and Biotechnology for many years now and have met with hundreds of emerging biotechnology companies in the state. Recently, I've been meeting with an increasing number of2086 early stage companies at the intersection of Biotechnology and Climate Technology that include alternative protein companies, as more people in this state recognize the critical need to develop new solutions to address climate change. Alternative proteins, plants, cultivated cells and fermentation used to make meat, dairy, and egg products present a unique opportunity to Massachusetts. These companies leverage existing resources as we heard about already in the Commonwealth for other types of biotechnology companies, using the same labs, the same manufacturing facilities, and often the same workforce. This has encouraged several early stage companies that develop alternative proteins to start here and scale here, including companies that we've heard from today, like Tender Food, which have scaled up quickly and are already selling their products to customers in Massachusetts and beyond.
By contrast, I'd like to point out that other climate technology companies that have started in the Commonwealth working on technologies like green batteries have not scaled in Massachusetts and often do their manufacturing in places like Texas, Georgia, and West Virginia where there is a greater abundance of relevant resources for their growing type of businesses. Moreover, investments in the alternative protein space are estimated to lead to some of the greatest reductions in greenhouse gas emissions compared to other investments in climate related technologies, such as green cement, green buildings, and zero emission cars. So in sum, it is critical to the Massachusetts economy to make comparable public investment in alternative proteins with other states like California, to support companies that will not only start here, but will grow here, and will also appeal to an increasingly climate conscious workforce. Much like in the early days of biotechnology, other biotechnology industries, alternative proteins will require state support building on investments by the Mass clean energy center and mass ventures to continue to grow the economy of Massachusetts and help the state and the world meet critical greenhouse gas emissions goals. Thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - Any questions? Thank you for your time.
SPEAKER4 - Welcome.
KENNEDY - To answer the manufacturing question, I guess, very quickly on the scale, there are a number of companies that are doing their pilot scale manufacturing here. I think we should be very excited about seeing those facilities expanding in places like Northborough, Framingham and Devon's, which is actually a biopharmaceutical manufacturing company, does a number of cultivated meat products, manufacturing in their Devon's and Framingham facilities. So I think that these are things that the state should be excited about, and certainly if there were programs2259 within the Mass clean energy center or Mass ventures that the legislature could earmark funding tool, those organizations could help drive some of these manufacturing facilities across the state, so to ensure that they these companies are scaling here and continue to scale here. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
We have no info I can read on Teams.
Nicole, are you there?
SPEAKER11 - Hi, Charz. Can you hear me okay?
SPEAKER1 - I can hear you now. Yes.
SPEAKER11 - Great.
NICOLE EIGBRETT - COMMUNITY ACTION AGENCY OF SOMERVILLE - HB 3566 - Thank you so much. Chair Parisella, Chair Finegold and members of the joint committee and economic development in emerging Technologies. My name is Nicole Eigbrett, and I'm a renter in Somerville as well as the director of community organizing at CAAS, the Community Action Agency of Somerville. Each year, our agency serves thousands of the lowest income residents in Somerville in Cambridge through our services, and I'm here today to testify in support of House Bill 3566, an act to ensure LLC transparency filed by Rep Erica Uyterhoeven. We have an unignorably housing crisis here in Massachusetts and its impacts are being acutely felt in Somerville, a city of more than 80,000 residents where 66% of us are renters. This legislation is a first step in addressing a key feature of our housing crisis right now. Unchecked, exploited real estate investment and development by limited liability companies or LLCs.
This legislation could be used to assist legislators, advocates and residents in uncovering the assets of domestic and international purchasers of Massachusetts Real Estate, especially when that sale and transfer occurs in the very building you're renting. So this bill was inspired by constituent of Rep Uyterhoeven, a neighbor of ours named Vanessa, who's a single mom and immigrant from El Salvador, who's become one of the most inspiring leaders and organizers at2385 my organization through her struggle against an investor developer who bought her building in fall 2021 and then attempted to evict her family through an unjust rent increase. While all the rents2396 in Vanessa's building went up 200%, nearly two years later, Vanessa is still there with her family2402 and that's because she was able to identify the new owner of her building and organize a community campaign to resist displacement. So this Bill was modeled after legislation in New York State, where residents of New York City are also trying to shine light into the murky world of real estate LLC. Specifically, this Bill would one, require LLCs to disclose their owners, including if they formed a trust to the secretary of state and to include that information on their annual tax returns while providing updated disclosures within 30 days whenever there's a change in ownership.
Two, it requires the secretary of state to create a public database where people would be able to find out which LLCs share common ownership and protect this2446 information through the public records law. Three, the Bill actually goes one step further than New York by defining ultimate beneficial owners to ensure that we capture them if they hide their ownership by being part of another LLC to register an LLC in Massachusetts. So in summary, this legislation is meant to be a tool for any resident but especially renters so that they can research and know who owns their housing2470 especially when a new LLC owner comes into play. This should be basic and easily secured information, but it's shockingly opaque and inaccessible right now. This is a critical2481 step towards transparency and eventually accountability for the corporate real estate investors who are buying out our2487 neighborhoods. So on behalf of CAAS, I'm asking for the committee support of this Bill so it may be favorably discharged and voted upon by2494 the membership. Thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Thank you. Any questions? Thank you for your testimony.
Okay. We have Mark Christophero.
Are you2516 there?
Okay. So that was our last 1. If 1 else wishes to testify.
Okay. we are gonna conclude the hearing, so I make I2544 make a motion to adjourn.
SPEAKER5 - 2nd. 2nd. 2nd.
SPEAKER1 - Sylvia. Thank you.
Thank you.
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