2025-03-31 00:00:00 - Joint Committee on Ways and Means
2025-03-31 00:00:00 - Joint Committee on Ways and Means
SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - Again, thank you again246 for being here. Let's have a conversation and let's work together. Thank you.
I want to start this hearing today by calling the secretary258 of energy environment, Rebecca Tepper, to testify. Rebecca, it's all yours. Hello. How264 are you?
REBECCA TEPPER - MWRA - HB 1 - Thank you so much. Good morning, everyone. And thank you, all for coming here today to talk270 with our team. You know, if this is actually one of our favorite days partially because we are all together very rarely. So it is great to see the whole team here and everybody is excited to talk to you about the great work that they're doing. And, I hope we have a chance to be able to hear from them as well as from me this morning. So I thought that I would just tell you a little293 bit about sort of where we are and where297 we hope to hope to go, and, how the budget helps us how budget helps us. So, joining me today, as you can see, are lots of people. I was gonna introduce them all, but let's just move on and we can introduce them now. So together, we represent the executive office of energy and environmental affairs. As you know, we seek to protect, preserve, and enhance the state's321 environmental resources for all and while ensuring an affordable clean energy future for all. We're really proud of the work that we did this year, and we're happy to talk about it.
There's some things that, you know, are small334 things that people don't know about but actually are really cool, and I thought that I would mention338 a couple of those. This year, the340 Department of Public Utilities published a nation leading rail transit safety IT data system, and the coastal zone management office kicked off their resilient coast initiative, working351 with 98 communities to craft a strategy that will help Massachusetts address storm and sea level rise. The Department of Agriculture launched the division of food security, which oversees the food security infrastructure grant program. They awarded $24,600,000 in grants of food system enterprises helping Massachusetts food production and distribution sectors. Many of you know our municipal vulnerability preparedness380 program. This year, we renewed382 that program, to help communities weather precipitation, and sea level rise. Today, I'd like to detail how the governor's budget proposal builds on our work to advance resilience and equity and supports the state's legal mandate to be net zero by 2050. So I was gonna talk first about clean energy and climate mitigation. Thanks to, all of your work, Massachusetts reformed its energy facility siting process this year, and H1 begins the implementation of that bill.
It provides $3,600,000 in resources to the Departments of Public Utilities and Department of Energy Resources. The act establishes an office of public428 participation at the Department of Public430 Utilities. This office is tasked with ensuring that municipalities and residents have a voice in the siting and building of clean energy438 grid that we need to meet our440 energy future. The division of clean energy siting and permitting at DOER will enable critical reforms by streamlining the process for clean energy projects, accelerating the planning and construction of deployment of solar, wind, and energy storage. This ensures that projects built are being built at461 the pace that we need them to meet the demands of our emission reduction goals and our energy needs. Changes deciding and permitting also include provisions to strengthen stakeholder engagement. All of this will be to Massachusetts' work to modernize its energy system and making sure that480 we have enough electrons to serve all of our needs in the future. Earlier this year, Governor Healy announced that we will be filing an energy affordability bill. I think we're calling it Energy Innovation493 and493 Affordability Bill, and that will lower rate payers cost for energy, and all of clean energy, and ending programs that are out of date, and using, creative funding mechanisms to save customers money.
So there's no denying that climate change is here. We all saw516 that over the last year in many different forms, including fires, including drought, including flooding. And so there as you would imagine, we are focusing a lot on climate resilience. And it really is a sobering reminder. You know, the inland floods topped dams and wiped out 13,000 acres of farms, a couple years ago. And thanks to the financial support of the legislature,543 no one was put out of business, but those impacts of the droughts in farms remain. Impacts of drought on our forests resulted in wild wildfires across the state. As you know, we've had a lot of fires this year, the fires this year, the most in our state history. That's why this year, we'll be focusing on strengthening our infrastructure and building resilience to climate change. This will be a major focus of our next environmental bond bill, and we have been speaking with legislators and stakeholders across the state about what they would like to see in a long bill. The legislation we intend to advance will incorporate that input. House 1 maintains the to protect Massachusetts communities from the impacts of extreme weather, like flooding, heat waves, drought, and storms. This year, the Healey Driscoll administration's capital budget will be investing over $65,000,000,000 in climate resilience.
EEA will continue to invest in these important financial resources through our resilient mass plan, which outlines over 25 actions state agencies will take to address climate change. We'll also continue to support the municipal vulnerability preparedness program designed by municipalities. This year, our coastal zone management office will release the coastal resilience Plan called Resilient Coast, a very creative name, for the long-term coastal resilience solutions. This plan is the result of many months of work, designed to help the state and local leaders and communities address coastal resilience. As rainfall increases, it is critical to ensure that our culverts and dams can handle the flow of water to protect our communities. Almost two thirds of the dams in the state have potential to seriously impact communities. Of those, almost a quarter are in poor or662 unsafe conditions. H 1 allocates a million dollars for dam safety technical assistance to help dam owners. H 1 also provides $2,800,000 to culvert and small bridge technical assistance. This will help prepare the pipeline of culvert projects across the state that are at risk of failure to be coupled with the Governor Healy's direction of $200,000,000 from his share of their funding.
In addition, H 1 supports the Department of Fish and Leaves blue carbon incentive program. This program will advance an innovative concept for coastal land protection, resilience, and restoration to support the state's ambitious net-zero goals. It will harness the unique power of Massachusetts' 400000 acres of salt marshes to store and sequester marsh. Cover Healy's H1 budget invests $88,300,000.0 to support environmental justice and equity across the secretary and the state. Each one of our agencies730 now has a dedicated environmental justice liaison who is focused on engaging with communities and embedding equity in all fabrics of our work. This includes developing and implementing internal trainings and external education745 campaigns, ensuring language747 access service over and written for public notices and hearings. This year, our office of energy and environmental justice and equity launched an environmental justice grant program, which supports community based organizations and tribes. They're also working diligently with all of our agencies to recalibrate our grant review process to ensure that equitable distribution769 of benefits and proper implementation of language access plans and public involvement plans.
The EJ office also supports equity focus initiatives in all of our EDA agencies to ensure all communities are represented in our work. Finally, the EJ office is impact analysis and community benefit plan framework for equitable siding of energy infrastructure. This will be critical as we move forward with, more, siding of energy facilities. On climate tech, Massachusetts is uniquely positioned to lead the world in climate tech into innovation. H 1 proposes $30,000,000 for the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center to support start up ventures, expand access to clean jobs, and invest in offshore wind infrastructure and address supply chain issues. MassCEC has invested in workforce development training, grants for workers across the state. One of MassCEC's most popular programs supports internships for college and vocational students. To date, it has supported 6,400 interns across 600 clean energy and climate tech838 businesses. In the face of a changing world,842 it's even more important that we preserve Massachusetts natural resources. EEA's budget advances forest stewardship, PFAS mitigation, safety in our food supply, and enhancing green spaces.
The proposed funding for EEA and its agencies allow for building critical capacity to carry out these goals. The H 1 budget continues to support the investments made by the legislature and DEP. Thanks to funding added by the legislature since the start of the Healy administration, DEP has been able to hire new873 employees committed to ensuring a clean and safe environment for future generations. These funds have been and will continue to be used to implement statutory and regulatory requirements in the area of air quality, clean water, safe water, PFAS management, wetland preservation, hazardous waste management, and public access to waterways. At a time when federal funds may not offer the support they had in the past, these positions are all the more difficult. Likewise, the budget supports the Department of Conservation and Recreation by maintaining $5,000,000 in funding for engineers and tech technical support to get through the back log of repairs of DCR assets. Additional investments made over the past two years as laid out in the DCR strategic readiness initiative are also maintained through this budget.
H 1 also includes $3.39 million dollars to support seasonal services at our parks, pools, waterfronts, and reservations with $600,000 targeted investment in youth and young adult programming. In 2023, Governor Healey made a history signing an executive order directed at Department of Fish and Game to implement biodiversity conservation goals. We will be announcing these ambitious goals soon, and we're excited953 to turn to implementation. H 1 funding would allow the department to build on this progress by hiring a biodiversity officer to oversee the state's biodiversity strategy. The H 1 budget increases funding for selfish testing to support our states unique agriculture industry and made increasing combined workflows emergency closures. The change is having an accelerated impact on our shellfish beds and industry, and979 this funding will allow us to ensure that the product remains safe. The division of food security at MDAR. This last year, we created a new division of991 food security at MDAR, and this division is working on synchronizing the administrative efforts to the to alleviate hunger.
H 1 continues this work by providing $40,200,000 for the Massachusetts emergency food assistance program. The funding translates to more than 38,000,000 meals in fiscal year 26 to be distributed by four regional food banks. There is no doubt that this is a1025 time of turbulence. The partners we have worked1029 with in the past are unlikely to support us in the ways that they have in the past.1037 In this time, it's important that we continue to be steadfast and resolute in who we are and be flexible and competitive to take advantages of changing opportunities. Massachusetts has always led from the first park in 1623 to the first state to create an environmentally focused secretariat and the largest scale offshore wind farm. With this budget, I believe that we will be able that we will be able to continue to do this leadership. Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to speak. I'm happy to take some questions. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - Thank you, madam secretary. Before we get going on, it's just Senator Crane. Thank you, to express what I'm saying.
SEN CRIGHTON - Thank you for hosting as well as Cape Cod Community College. And, thank you to Senator Wiese and Means Cheer and Mike Rogers for allowing me to share this here. I just have a few other senators I'd like to just quickly introduce before we, jump into questions we have. Senate Ways and Means, vice chair Jo Comerford. We have Senator Ryan Chapman and Senator1103 Kelly Dooner. And I think that's it for now, but, Mr. Chairman, could you allow us to introduce ourselves? My apologies.
REP DIGGS - And I'm gonna introduce Madam vice chair, excuse me.
REP FERRANTE - Thank you. I'm Margaret Ferrante. I represent the 5th Essex District.
REP SOUSA - Priscilla Ceuta, 6 Middlesex District, 3 in the South Side, West Side.
REP OWENS - Representative Steve Owens from the 29th Middlesex, which is close to Watertown, West And North Cambridge.
REP GARCIA - Good morning, Representative Judith Garcia. I represent the 11th Suffolk, which is Chelsea and Everett.
REP PEASE - I am Rep Kelly Peas from Fourth Hampton District, Westfield in South Hampton.
REP MARSI - Hi. I am representative the 11th Circuit District. That's Dudley, Southbridge, Charlton, and Spencer. Thank you for having1164 me.
REP VAUGHN - Good morning, everyone. Representative Marcus Vaughn from Knight Norfolk District, Franklin, Plainville, Norfolk, Millis, Walpole, and Netfield.
REP HAWKINS - I'm Drew Hawkins from Attleboro. If I thought about it, I would have driven down with Marcus Swan.
REP SMOLA - Good morning. State representative Todd Smola, ranking member of the committee.
REP XIAHROS - Good morning, everybody. My name is Steven Xiahros, state representative of the Fighting 5th Lawrence School District of the Todd Lawrence School Sandwich and War.
REP SCARSDALE - Good morning, everyone. I am representative Margaret Scarsdale. I represent the First Middlesex District, which is Ashby, Dunstable, Groton, Precincts 2 and 3, Lunenburg, Precincts A, C, and D, Pembroke, and Townsend.
REP ELLIOTT - Hi. Good morning, everyone. My name is Rodney Elliott. I represent the city of Lowell and, town of Charles Joseph.
REP HOLMES - Good morning. I'm Russell Holmes. I represent portions of Austin, the 6 Suffolk. So Madam Daniels, Chester Hyde Park, Rosendale, and Jamie. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER18 - Okay. We're going back to that.
REP MCKENNA - Good morning. Representing 18th Worcester District, Webster Douglas, Sutton, right on the Connecticut and Rhode Island borders.
DIGGS - Thank you. So, Madam Chair, first question. How does the budget improve commonwealth's capacity to respond to disasters, especially on The Cape, with the climate change?
TEPPER - Well, as you know, last year, we did establish an emergency preparedness fund for the state. So that will be available in cases of emergencies. But this budget also allows us to continue our work on coastal resilience, which we are, as you know, focusing very heavily on, this year, and we'll be issuing our coastal resilience plan this year that will talk about having coastal resilient districts and allowing towns to better coordinate with each other to, have more, ability to cooperate on larger projects.
CRIGHTON - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the secretary again. So this is not up to you but also to the CDC. So I'm who chooses to to to answer his thoughts. So, House 1 recommends a $30,000,000 investment in the MASC CDC, $10,000,000 increase over last year. Just wanted to outline at the beginning a few different ways I think you were putting into an issue putting funding towards initiatives in the past. Obviously, didn't know if there were any, specifics you could dive into in terms of new CEC programming and also how it relates, I guess, to job training in our green energy, sector?
TEPPER - I have a lot I could go on a little bit about this, but I think probably that, any of my heart would do it much more eloquently than I do. So, Emily, you wanna talk about that? SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER20 - Doctor.
EMILY REICHERT - MASSCEC - Good morning. Thank you so much for having us all here today, and, I'm Dr. Emily Reichert. I'm the CEO of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, and I wanna start by thanking, the entire committee for your support of the budget, for FY 25 and FY 24. Those two budgets, we had 30,000,000, in the budget and then 20,000,000 last year. So how do we go about spending the 20,000,000 or 30,000,000 as we're hoping for in the budget this year. There's really three different things I will highlight. one, the secretary already mentioned, which is our clean energy internship program. This is an example of our workforce development programming. We have supported now almost 7,000 interns hosted by 600 companies across Massachusetts, and these interns are in almost every district. These internships give students an opportunity to be exposed to clean energy careers, and over a thousand of them have gone on to be hired by those companies. So it's very much an a training to work program. I will also highlight that another,1470 piece of the1472 budget last year was used for1474 a program to purchase equipment1476 as well as set up curriculum1478 for clean energy in a variety of different educational institutions. Two examples would be Upper Cape Cod, High School, the technical high school.
In that case, we provided support for, setting up a laboratory for testing EV, vehicles sorry, maintaining and testing EVs. In another case, at Greenfield Community College, we set up a laboratory for HVAC training. So those would be a couple examples of training, that is specifically enabled by this funding support. In terms of other ways that we, spend this funding, another is around the responsible development of offshore wind science and research funding. So this would be, for example, research around fisheries, support of different organizations that work with the offshore wind industry. Examples would be UMass Dartmouth, the, SMAST, and then as well, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, New England Aquarium, these are all recipients of that type of funding. And there, again, we're looking at the, fisheries working together with offshore wind development. I'll also and finally highlight that a big part and really the only funding source for climate tech economic development is this funding.
So as you may know, we reduced we released a climate tech climate tech economic development plan, just a few weeks ago, and that is a statewide plan to really, take advantage of the fact that we are number one in many ways already in climate tech economic development, in terms of the number of patents, in terms of the number of start up companies here, and we can really lean into that in a way that we did for life sciences 15 years ago. We're very grateful for the, support of the legislature in the MASS LEADS Act that had1616 both, funding for capital expenditure, meaning manufacturing facilities, testing, and research1622 equipments, being deployed to our universities and, really across the, across companies, spanning the cog when well, as well that have tax incentives. But all of the operational, the grant funding for this type of program, all comes from this operating budget, funds through the state budget. So we have a plan to really implement, and work with climate tech companies, work with research universities across the Commonwealth. It's laid out in the economic development plan, and we're excited to do that powered by this funding.
DIGGS - Thank you. Appreciate it. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - Madam Chair, questions?
FERRANTE - Thank you, Madam Secretary. It's good to see you, Madam. Glad you brought your my favorite, legislative liaison, JB, with you. He happens to live a little. We might even have a while for me. You do have a great team. You do have a great team. So just, two questions. We're on The Cape today. One subject matter that, concerns both when I did ship to Cape May and Cape Cod is the windmills, wind farms, or whatever we would call them today. Can you just give us the state of play of where we are now that the Trump administration has come in and has sort of been a disruptor1703 to that technology?
TEPPER - Sure. So right now, as1707 you know, we do have a wind farm that's being built off the coast, the Vineyard Wind project, and that is currently providing power to the system. And they will we expect that they will be completed by the end of this year, and that brings an additional 800 megawatts of clean energy into our system, which will supplement the hydropower that we're getting, from Canada, 1200 megawatts. So 2,000 megawatts of new clean energy coming on this year, so we're really excited about that. There is no doubt that there the Trump administration has been, some headwinds for the offshore wind industry. I continue to believe that there will be this industry off the coast. I think it's important for energy independence, it's important for our clean energy goals, and it's important for jobs and workforce development. So, you know, having important for jobs and workforce development. So, you know, having a new industry, being built here off our shores is a real opportunity. If you look at what other countries are doing, you know, they're building a lot more in China, you know, everybody knows that this is a really important asset that you don't want to say no to. So we're going to continue to support and do what we can to support the industry.
FERRANTE - Thank you. And just, one other question. On May 1, and I see Tom Chase, get commissioner Tom Chase here, on Fish and Wildlife. On May 1, the fishing season was supposed to was supposed to is supposed to open. And, what we're hearing now is because of the rules that were put in place by the Trump administration, and if it's not the rule on the actual framework, but it's the rules like you need 90 days to publish in the federal register now, not just 30. And for every regulation that the feds impose, they need to get rid of 10. And it's hard to know of a framework for the fishing yet. If each one of those regulations within the framework counts as one or the framework as a whole counts as one. Have you thought about or, addressed what this where the state might wanna position itself if the fishing gear isn't going to start on May 1?
TEPPER - Yeah. I mean, I'll let, commissioner O'Shea give the details, but I will say that, you know, the uncertainty in so many different areas is difficult for everyone. And I know in this particular area, people are in this particular area, people are very concerned. And, so, Tom, do you wanna
TOM O'SHEA - MASS DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND GAME - Thank you for raising this role, Ferrante. As you know, this is a real issue for our commercial fishing industry in Massachusetts. The uncertainty around when to begin fishing, when fishing seasons close, quotas, many of these are set by the federal government, and there's, to our knowledge, a regulatory freeze or additional requirements for these federal regulations to begin. It's our belief that, we can, to the extent possible, with our federal colleagues, continue to communicate and press them to move these forward and make these seasons continue so that we can support our commercial fishing industry, which is so necessary not only to support the industry, but to actually ensure that we have the sustainable fisheries. I do think this is an issue that the Commonwealth can play a role in raising the awareness of this challenge and also through our participation in the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, as a member to continue to raise this with other states as an issue since we work with other states in regulating these migratory fisheries. But it is an issue that we need to continually work on, to whatever extent we can, and we will do that representative.
FERRANTE - Thank you. Just a shout out to my mayor, assistant, director of, fish and wildlife. So far they won't get them taken. Okay. I'm gonna play it down.
DIGGS - I also wanted to say hello to and give a shout out to Chris Flanagan, representing the first Pine School District. And, next of all is, we have this, Taj Mahal Brooklyn, California.
SMOLA - Thank you very1977 much, Mr. Chairman, and secretary of entry testimony here today. It's good to see all of your team here, which is wonderful. I wanna ask, two questions. What about the APR program, in1987 Massachusetts? Awesome program, Agricultural Preservation and the Districting Program. It's a tremendously positive things in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I've worked with a number of people on your team, who have been excellent. We've actually, had emails back and forth. We actually had a Zoom meeting, you know, greater information, wonderful resources. But I want to press a little bit about the APR program because there is a, vast bank of APRs across Massachusetts. It's a lot to manage. One of the concerns that I have had, and this was brought to me by a constituent, a constituent that was looking at an APR property specifically, but the volume to which, we put on the backs of your wonderful staff to be2032 able to facilitate and manage all of these APR properties.
It's a lot of work. It's a ton of work. I know there's2038 a lot that goes into it. And one of the things I conveyed to members of your team was, are we investing enough money for the purposes of and this isn't a knock on your team at all, by the way. But recognizing that there is this vast volume of APR properties across Massachusetts, and particularly those of us in Western Massachusetts, I'm thinking of my good friend, my colleague Sandra Comfort, who's sitting to my left. Yet, so we are on the same page with respect to these properties and of course the program exists to incentivize individuals to look at this property and then turn it over for agricultural use and being able to, do something positive on the property. But are we investing enough money in the Commonwealth for, adequately, having your team, at the appropriate numbers to be able to do the justice that these properties deserve across the Commonwealth?
TEPPER - I really appreciate the question. You know, we know that there has been, some issues raised by you and others and, are really committed to making sure that that program works well for everyone. Maybe you said we do you want me to say anything about that?
REICHERT - Thank you. So your support for, MDAR's staff who provide important technical assistance, and you mentioned you had the opportunity, to connect with some of them recently, is really critical. So just especially as the secretary said in a time when the federal resources aren't as robust, that's really important, and our staff are really well qualified, and helpful. The other thing I would mention too is in our capital budget we have, funding for what we call land stewardship, which is about after we've permanently conserved a property like a farm, how do we help support that landowner over time to continue to have, you know, the values in this case, the agricultural values, in which So I think your continued support is critical in this area. Thank you. Yeah. And I appreciate the commentary.
SMOLA - I would just close this portion with, especially with the abandoned properties. And again, there's so much of it out there, but we wanna be able to, circulate these properties if they are back in use. That's the whole point. They don't do as much good if they're sitting there abandoned, and it totally defeats the purpose of the program. So I'd like to continue to work with you and figure out even beyond, what's in the capital investment to figure out how we can make this robust and keep it going. That's extremely important. One quick question for DCR. So Commissioner Rigo is here. It's great to see you and we appreciate the work that you did. You were out last year as we, dedicated the day 43Rd reservoir for those of us again the western Mass delegation you know big advocates of the problem reservoir. For those of us again in the Westwood Mass delegation, we're big advocates of the problem. And I'll be really keen. As a matter of fact, we're gonna be dedicating the new program, double belt ramp, which will be able to launch more revolutionary fishing boats, which is great. A couple of years ago, we raised the staffing cap within the department of 1,300 FTEs. And, in this year's budget, we've got a, roughly $2,000,000 increase. Where2228 are we with those hitting that cap when we raised it for a reason? The DCF team, again, like some of the other departments within the secretary, did excellent work. They're responsible for all our parks. It's all of our, you know, recreational corners of where are we with those 1,500 FT Es?
TEPPER - Yeah. I'll just say real quick. I know that Commissioner Rigo and his team have been working very hard over the last two years to hire. So I know there's been many, many new hires and I think the commission can do that.
O'SHEA - Yeah. And, thank you for the question. And I'll start by just assessing my gratitude for2263 the support, and funding for the department. We, to this point right now, we have 40 positions that are, at a point where we're ready to make offers. If we, over the next month, get those offers out and we, finalize those, staff members coming out of work, we will be at our cap. So we're really excited about the amount of work that we've been able to do in both getting the the cap, increased and the support that we've had to actually hire those folks. So right now, we are a little bit below that cap, but, as I said, we have 40 positions that are that are ready for, hire, at this point. And we know that there will be some folks that top off as we, go up go throughout the year, but, we will be hitting that cap, in the next month or so. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER15 - Thank you very much. Thank you.
SPEAKER11 - Senator Fadden?
SEN FATTMAN - Morning, Madam Secretary. Thank you for your testimony. When we kick off these hearings, I had a few weeks ago when the governor testified, I had mentioned that, you know, housing seems to be one of the biggest policy concerns for a lot of people right now, but that I felt that energy policy would overshadow that at some point. And part of the premise of that was that we were receiving all these constituent contacts, you know, daily, and I think all of our offices have. I actually have felt this way since 02/2122 with some of the legislation that's been passed. But, my and, actually, to your office's credit, we had and to the credit of my hometown, there's a man that you work with named Mike Judge, and he gave a fantastic presentation of a Massachusetts State Senate, I believe, at the, direction of Senator Barrett, which we appreciated. And when I went through that and it was incredibly thorough, so Mike, well done.
But, one of the things that was shocking to me was how little oversight, the Department of Public Utility actually had on people's utility and gas bills. There was a chart and it showed like almost 30% of some of the charges that people have seen in their bill, the DPU can do nothing about. And really, I think when you add it up, it was nearly 65% with the DPU had little or no oversight. And the reason why I'm bringing this up and my question will be, about the DPU is that, you know, the legislature wrote letters to the DPU saying, hey, why are you approving this? Why are you approving this? But the reality is it doesn't seem like they have much choice no matter what. So I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about that and, you know, tell us a little bit about whether or not those 30% charges that are mandated, if there's something that can be done about them, to help bring down the cost of people's gas and utility bill.
TEPPER - Yeah. Thank you the governor has made affordability, one of her top priorities, energy affordability. And I'm Ireally happy that we have our secretary judge, leading that charge along with the DPA commissioners. You are right that there are three parts of the bill, and two of them, one having to do a transmission is regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and another part is the supply part, the actual commodity. And the commodity is generally based on the price of the worldwide price of gas, particularly now. So one way to lower the supply price is to diversify our energy supply. And right now, we're overly dependent on natural gas, and what that means is that we are then subject to the world market volatility of natural gas. And if we are diversifying and saying yes to lots of different energy sources, that should over time lower our supply cost.
On the transmission piece, we we in our office have an office of, federal and regulatory affairs and they have been working really hard with for with ISO England and our regional colleagues to make sure that we have oversight over some of these projects that are, currently not not really being looked at, and they're called asset conditioning projects. And right now, there's just not a lot of review of them, and our team has2553 been fighting really hard to make sure that there's2555 more oversight there. And if the2557 oversight isn't gonna happen at the federal2559 level, then we have the authority to do it at the state2561 level. So we're real cognizant2563 of the sort of these other parts of the2565 bills and what we can do, to lower prices on the other parts of the bill in addition to the budgets directly that are needed by the DPU.
FATTMAN - I have one follow-up question and then one other question that's not deleted. So you would preference the bill that's gonna be filed, by the governor, and it was called, like, an energy affordability. Is that what you're talking does it seek to address2587 those concerns, that you just outlined?
TEPPER - Yeah. There there will be a provision in the bill that that that addresses directly this2595 asset condition piece of it, and also a encouragement overall of looking at the bill as a whole and looking at other some programs that are out of date, like, you know, that we don't need anymore and we can just take off the bill. Are there more creative ways to do financing, for the utilities to do financing that could save money over time and securitization, different kinds of financing mechanisms? So we're really I mean, the team sort of sat down and just thought over, you know, a long period of time. What is anything we can do? Like, name every single thing that we could do to try to lower the customer's bills, and that's what we hope will continue to do as well.
FATTMAN - It seems to me that suspension or pushing out parts of the law have been one of the, components that the administration's been willing to do. And I'm thinking specifically about the act HTO, with heavy duty operating vehicles that that you're surely familiar with the diesel vehicle mandate was pushed out of here for, you know, most in two years for municipalities. Do you see that, like, having2665 malleability, flexibility with the mandated goals, for 2030,20240,2050 as a possibility that we can change those laws, change the2677 mandates of various admissions in order to maybe, you know, have flexibility and if the technology isn't there, where we can maneuver around or so long?
TEPPER - Well, we know that the the law for, emission reductions is is a state law, and so we're gonna comply with the state law, as it currently is. We feel confident that we're doing what we can to try to lower admissions consistent with the law, and we have a plan for doing that, and we're working to make sure that we can meet it.
FATTMAN - Are we on track to meet the 2030 emissions standards? And that would be my final question.
TEPPER - Yeah. Sure. Of course. Thanks. You know, there is no doubt that the Trump administration has made it more difficult to meet the requirements specifically on the generation side. We had planned on having a significant amount of clean energy by 23rd and coming from offshore wind. So that's gonna be a big headwind if that doesn't happen. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER11 - Representative Tariq?
XIAHROS - Thank you, Chair Davis. Thank you for bringing this meeting to ACOG, to my alma mater. I graduated from this college back in 1978 with a full head of hair mustache. I went on to be a police officer thanks to this education. Welcome to you, secretary, and to your team. I live in Barnstable, about a mile from here. So I have a lot of questions, but I know we can only do our share. The biggest one for us in this area,2781 I think you know, we2783 talked about in the past, is the offshore wind. And, there's a lot of concern from constituents where I live here about2793 offshore wind. The turbines in the ocean, what that does to to the marine environment, running cables under the ocean floor, on top of the ocean floor, under our beaches where our children and grandchildren will play, through the villages, the quaint villages of Cape Cod.
They're all happening in this town, and then ending up on our sole source aquifer. This is an island. We have one source of water and building massive substations on top of our drinking water supply. That is a concern of mine and many constituents. So industrializing the ocean, what that does to the marine life and everything else, running those cables through our villages in front of small businesses and homes, and then ending up ironically right here. There'll be four substations within two miles of this campus. So there's a lot of concern, and I know we've talked about it before. Can you offer some type of advice or answer to that? But also, is there something in the budget that will allow2873 for people to be able to handle this situation? And in case anything goes wrong, to allow for the state and your budget to help pay for any mitigation because we are an island. We're based on tourism. And if something happens, it would be a disaster.
TEPPER - So I appreciate the fact that you raised this issue, and I know that we've talked about it before. And I know that many people on our team have been been here, in this area trying to help and talk about this with make sure that we're addressing people's concerns and, you know, we don't want to, at all ignore these concerns that are important to address and make sure that people feel comfortable with this. New technology. I mean, it's a new thing in The United States. It's not a new thing in the rest of the world, and it's worked very well in the rest of the world. And I've been to Norway. I've been to Sweden, not Sweden, Scotland, and visited many offshore wind facilities, there to see before we did this here, to see how it worked and see, talk to to communities about how it was working there. And people are are very, very happy with the the industry and the way it's turned out there. I think that we can get there here as well. On the, you know, the issue with respect to the water, and having this these offshore wind facilities in the water, you know, I I've been involved in the offshore wind discussion for probably 15 years now, and it started way back with BOEM having public meetings to cut to do the first lease areas.
So the issues with respect to fisheries, with respect to where these wind farms go, has been, you know, very well thought out with a lot of a lot of, science and a lot of, people, stakeholders in the conversation. So I do in our own, review of that in the Energy Facility Siding Board, that too is a very rigorous review. It's an adjudicatory proceeding where evidence is presented, and decisions are made on you know, based on that evidence. There are conditions in the permits, that require, mitigation measures. If there are issues, the option developers to be responsible for that. But I think with respect to the the cables underground cables, you know, that's that's not a new technology. That's technology that we have all over all over The United States. It's not a dangerous technology, and it's one that you're gonna see in many, many towns. It's transmission. So that being said, you know, we definitely want to continue to have the conversation and talk to people about their concerns and, address them. I feel confident that this is a safe industry and that it will be good for the area. But, you know, I live here, so I wanna make sure that we talk to people here and hear what their views are.
XIAHROS - Thank you. Just a quick follow-up. What about the substations on top of the sole source aquifer? We are3081 an island, and, I think it's unique. And there's concerns if something happens to those substations. First of all, building them in, industrial areas is one thing, but on Cape Cod and in neighborhoods is questionable, but on top of our drinking water is very questionable. Is there something in the budget that would help the towns if something happens, If there's a fire at one of these facilities or some type of leakage, it would cost, I would think, millions of dollars. That's the question. Is there something in the budget that can help us if something happens?
TEPPER - Substations are generally owned by utilities, by the utilities themselves, and so they have, you know, funds that are available for if something goes wrong. We do have, you know, substations all over the state. Substations are not dangerous. There we we have them many, many times. I have one blocks away from my house. You know, they're they're a standard technology, but if something happened, utilities do have money to take care of that. They'd be responsible for that.
XIAHROS - I think that's enough for now. Thank you for the time.
TEPPER - Thank you too. Appreciate the welcome here for your weekend. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - So Kelly Doon.
DOONER - Thank you. On a second, third, through you, Mr. Chair. So obviously Massachusetts is probably one of the top three as far as utility costs go. I wouldn't be surprised if we're approaching number one. I heard, creative mechanism to save customers money, energy affordability being the governor's top priority, as well as diversifying, our energy source. So my question is, I guess, what are the long-term solutions? Obviously, a $50 credit does nothing for families who are who are paying thousands of dollars in utility bills currently. So what are the long-term solutions? And if we're talking about diversifying, the energy source, does that include expanding natural gas or is that just going talking in regards to diversifying, I guess, electric? If you could elaborate on that.
TEPPER - Well, right now, as you know, we use natural gas in the state, and it's an important part of our energy mix right now. And as far as sort of this overall big picture and how do we get to a long term, more affordable bills, I think there's a couple of things that that one thinks about. One is, as I said, there are sort of these three parts of the build, so you wanna focus on each one. So the one with the deals with the actual commodity, you wanna think about how can we lower wholesale electricity prices. And one way to do that, as I mentioned, is to diversify your energy supply. Another way to do that is to think about technologies that are going to reduce the cost of producing electricity. And one thing that you have to remember is that while sometimes electricity, generation can be expensive at the beginning, there are certain technologies that don't have any fuel cost at all. So once they're up and running, they're, much less expensive. So really wanna look at all the different options for clean energy, the governors about yes and not about no, and adding and not about subtracting.
So, I have on the transmission side of the bill, which is one of the parts of the bill that is growing the most and is, regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. We are spending a lot of time thinking about, building transmission smartly and using what we already have in the most effective manner possible. Like, are we can we use net new technologies to make the transmission lines run more efficiently? Are there things that we can do, that allow, the utilities to, make a it's very technical. Sorry. I'm getting a little nerdy on you. But, basically, there's new technology that will allow the electrons to run more smoothly and then less expensive. And on the last part of the bill, the distribution part of the bill, which is generally our utilities, one3349 of the things that, you know, we need to think about is how, how efficient are those companies being3355 run. Right? Are there things that we3357 can do to make that more efficient? Are there things that we can do so3361 we have we don't have to produce as3363 much of infrastructure? And this is a way of really reducing cost, you know, with the cheapest electricity you use is the one that you deal with. Right?
That's why we have award-winning energy efficiency programs here in Massachusetts. So one of the things that we really wanna do is use the programs like demand response programs. As you know, the cost of electricity3384 really depends on our peak, where our peak is, when we3388 use electricity the most. So to3390 bring down that peak is how you can lower cost. And one way to break down that peak is to make sure everybody's not lose using electricity at the same time. So you encourage people to use it in off-peak periods and or you encourage energy efficiency so you're using less of it. And that means we're using less electricity, our people go down, and we won't have to build as much. And if you don't have to build as much energy infrastructure, you save a lot of money. So I guess it's, you got me on a little bit of a depression because I care so much about this issue and, it's, you know, sort of what I've done in my career. And, you know, it is one of my top priorities to make sure that we are providing the best possible service, electric and gas service we can to customers.
DOONER - And I guess my question is kind of more so, you know, what the legislature can do because I don't know what is the most realistic expectation for everyone to use energy at the same time. So as far as if there's anything the legislature can do and just if that diversifying includes expanding natural gas or no?
TEPPER - So what I think about, we have several ideas about what the legislature can do, and we're gonna have that in our energy affordability bill. And so that doesn't include expanding natural gas or it might? Well, as I said, the natural gas is already part of our energy infrastructure.
DOONER - Okay. Just one more question. You mentioned concerns about the Trump administration's actions relative to the generation of alternative energy, with regard to obtaining 2030 emissions mandates. If we don't meet those emissions mandates, I guess, who is gonna be responsible for that?
TEPPER - I guess I understand this question. What do you mean responsible for?
DOONER - So if you don't meet those mandates that are set, better life?
TEPPER - Well, you know, we're gonna continue to work with the legislature and, attempt to do everything we can to meet those emission requirements. And, if there are issues that need to be addressed, I'm sure we have all of them work together in the bill set.
SEN COMERFORD - Good morning secretary. Thank you Mr. Chair and thank you secretary for the work of your excellent team. They are expert and dedicated and, they are so consequential to the Hampshire Franklin Worcester District, which is, as you know, where I work. I just wanna say a few thank yous. Thank you to the Clean Energy Center. The work is invaluable at GCC and UMass. And if you haven't seen the HVAC work, it is really emblematic of exactly what a state investment can and should do. So thank you so much. Thank you for the careful work around solar siting. I second appreciation for Undersecretary Judge. You have been steadfast, in front of the people I work for3579 and helping to negotiate and, of course, Commissioner Mahany as well, helping us navigate what is a pretty existential transition for us in Western Massachusetts. Thank you. Thank you to Undersecretary Antos for all the work of realigning and tweaking the municipal vulnerability program to stop it from unintentionally disadvantaging small communities. That's been3603 a very good and3605 important piece of work.
Thank you, of course, to3609 the Commissioner of MDAR for3611 the steadfast support of farmers. As you know, between 02/2016, over 27000 acres of state farmland was lost forever to cultivation. It's not coming back. Farmers earn about $94.95 cents on every dollar they spend, our farmers in Massachusetts. It's a completely unworkable economic proposition, and we've already seen significant federal cuts to Ag. So we are bracing in Western Massachusetts around all of3639 these issues. Secretary, you spoke about coastal resilience. As you know, I can't envision a world where there isn't also a focus on inland waterways. Thank you for acknowledging the devastating floods of 2023, and I am glad for the partnership between the Healy Driscoll administration and the legislature, which got especially, you know, really first ever in the Commonwealth, funding directly to farmers. But I think we must have an answer to both resilience and protection for municipalities. I'm hoping to see that, as you know, in the forthcoming environmental bond bill. And there are we have some Western Mass people here.
You know, there is a letter to your office, as you know, asking from every municipality, every state legislator, all planning agencies asking us to have a focused state effort on behalf of cities and towns and, of course, farmers. I appreciate our ongoing conversation also about what is fair recompense for the Quabbin Reservoir. 87 years ago on April 27, the state disincorporated four municipalities and flooded it. So largely, Eastern Massachusetts could have drinking water. And I do think that is a question for us about how best to to go forward, knowing what we know now about the value of water and knowing what it takes to steward that water and the sacrifice of those communities. I wanted just to say a few things about pilot. So, and this is one of the most important lines for me in the budget. So, pilot payments, as you know, are made based on the property tax value, growth of state-owned land in a municipality relative to the growth of the value of state-owned land throughout the Commonwealth. So the formula, I believe, is terribly unfair to municipalities in Western Massachusetts, which are just not seeing the property tax value growth above the state average and are penalized then because of that in their payments,
Even if the state acquires more land in a municipality and takes it off their tax rolls, the town may receive a lower pilot payment. This is the perverse thing about this formula. Just because the state-owned land elsewhere in Eastern Massachusetts largely may have increased in value. On top of that, these communities are not rewarded for stewarding the natural and working lands that have what I believe a high ecosystem service value. If we don't reform this formula, we can continue to invest in state-owned land pilot. That line item, which I certainly am proud to fight with you for, but we won't be helping the communities I represent, which can serve critical natural land that we need, I believe, to meet our climate and biodiversity goals. Here are just two of many, many, many illustrative examples. The town of Warwick, which has 11,879 acres of state-owned land, 99% of which is protected, receives $13 per acre. In contrast, municipalities in Eastern Massachusetts see much higher reimbursements like Acton. No shade on Acton, but it receives $785 per acre for 139 acres of state-owned land, none of which is protected.
That's just about the value3850 of land, not about what that land is doing for us. Also, from fiscal year 2015 to 2020,3856 the town of Peru lost nearly 30% of its reimbursement after acquiring additional, an additional 141 acres because of its decreasing property values relative to the state average. I wanna recognize that representative Joan Moschino is in the back. Representative Moschino and I have a bill on really valuing ecosystem services and natural and working3881 lands, which I think is part3883 of this, overall conversation. So thank you for, and to your team, really, for trying to work through what is the right way forward here. And I'm hoping that we can make this tweak even as we lean in to pilot. So here's my question. I'd love you to help us understand the the gap in funding caused by the federal budget cuts, and whether or not the administration has a plan to establish a new source of revenue to fill the gap, to help us meet our energy, climate mitigation, adaptation, conservation, and biodiversity, or agriculture goals, and food security goals? And how can the legislature be a better partner with you? We see you get hit, you know, in every headline. You know, headline after headline after headline. The work that3934 you're doing is being chipped away, by cuts by the federal government, and we wanna help. But we need to know, one, the impact3944 of those cuts, and two, what you're planning, so that we can really get in there and help as much as we possibly can. We want to, as I hope you know.
TEPPER - I really appreciate that, and I appreciate your comments on on the issues with respect to the constituents that there there are very few people that are as articulate and, what's the word I'm gonna use, tenacious, with respect to Something something, I would not I would not say that. But we do really appreciate the advocacy that we do on behalf of your constituents. So on the federal funding front, you know, part of the problem is that it's all very uncertain and changes all the time. You know? One day you hear this and then another day3998 it's something different. And it's hard4000 to separate from what's real and what's not, and it's4004 hard to separate what, you know, there are a lot of things that are in litigation. So it's hard to know whether what's gonna happen at the end of that legislation. You know? Will our attorney general has done a terrific job, in, you know, bringing several suits and winning, you know, injunctions and, TROs to prevent some of these things from happening.
But it's uncertain. So some things, you know, some things, you know, we feel good about, like, the grants that we won and that are, you know, rightfully ours. You're gonna we're fighting for it. I mean, the attorney general is working hard on that, and so far, she's been successful. So we're hoping that that will that will remain. As far as sort4062 of the regular lock grants and that kind of thing, I mean, we have seen very recently the federal government, eliminating programs that are really important, and we know that some of the food grants just this week were what they're saying eliminated. Keep that. Yeah. That's true. Right? So, you know, I think the governor has said we're we're not the state's not going to be able to fill all the gaps. That being said, I think we've got a lot of creative minds. We've got a lot of people who care about these issues, and I think, you know, working with you, I think that we can at least use our state resources in the most
COMERFORD - Thank you very much. And just, you know, I think I'm speaking for all of my colleagues. Right? We would welcome conversations about how we can be with you at this deep breaking time. Thank you. this up by 12:30, so we wanna keep this going. And I know we have quite a few more questions. With that brief piece.
PEASE - Thank you, mister chairman. Appreciate it. Thank you, Madam Secretary, for testifying today. My first question, I guess, would be, you know, you talked about having the diversity to bring down the cost over time and using different resources. Those are bad. But the hydro planet is, I believe, coming on now, and that's gonna hopefully help quite a bit. But, again, as you talk about natural gas, that continues to go down because I don't think there's a plan to increase any kind of infrastructure for natural gas even though in this country, we have a lot of incentive. And I never hear any talk with nuclear at all, which is another clean energy. And if not, I don't have to pass and nuclear's clean energy is that that improves the race at the end, but that's my opinion. So, I would like to hear you thoughts on that. But one other thing, and then I'll hit y'all at once and then I'll shut up. So the battery storage facilities, right, where, I guess, what is being done to maybe look into them a little bit more because of the dangers of them? I mean, they're they're a necessity to store the energy.
But if you look at some of the fires that have taken place from these battery storage facilities, they burn for days because there's no way to put them out with millions of gallons of water that you gotta pour onto them so the battery storage places next door to them aren't burning up. And it's so toxic that it reaches into the, obviously, the ground into the aquifer. But more importantly, well, not more importantly, just as importantly, the fumes in them are very toxic and have had catastrophic consequences in neighborhoods and areas. And me coming from an area that lives in the Pioneer Valley, obviously, if you have some burning in the, and the fumes are going up and down the valley, that's not gonna be good for your residents. So I guess what I'm looking for is I think I would like and I hope maybe there's a plan to look at that and put more safety programs or protocols in place to maybe reduce some of these fires that are happening on these battery safe facilities. And I would just like to hear your thoughts.
TEPPER - Yeah. I'd be happy to talk about that. On the nuclear front, there's, you know, these new technologies called small modular reactors and, a lot of work is going going into that, and research and we are part of that discussion, and think that it is definitely something that the state needs to be looking into, as that our regional colleagues. So we'll we'll be doing that with them, as well. On the storage front, I just met with a group of storage, developers a couple of weeks ago, having this exact discussion with them and then and their need to make sure that they're out there educating about their about their projects and showing people that they're safe, and making sure that all the fire chiefs, are, you know, having, conversations about these these these facilities and making sure that people feel comfortable about them before they come into their their, neighborhoods. So, reading through that, it's important. The education piece of this is really important. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - Rep. Owens.
OWENS - Thank you, Madam Secretary. Thank you, Mr Chairman, for, the opportunity. I have a lot of questions, but I'm only gonna ask one very easy one, and I'm gonna direct it at, your DCR team who knows me very well and is on the phone with me probably every day. And so thank you for all the good work that you're doing. Few years ago, I think, when the commissioner started, he suggested maybe having a, automated or a 311, system for, issues on DCR properties. This has been something that, as his team well knows, has has been a particular issue. So I'm just wondering if H 1 has, any funds towards building something like that, and I see the commissioner nodding. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER2 - The commissioner is gonna
SPEAKER32 - be so excited. They have a discussion. This is Alright.
SPEAKER25 - Head project. You love signing up this, sir.
O'SHEA - Thank you. Brad, it does impact our, funding. This year's budget has had funding for, 03/11. We have hired, three call takers, I believe, and, we'll be, in touch with the legislature about, next steps in terms of training, your offices and making sure that, everyone has the ability to access that information, and, we're really excited to to launch that, very soon. So thank you.
OWENS - Great. Thank you so much, and thanks to your team for putting up a SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - Joe McKenna.
MCKENNA - Thank you very much, Madam Secretary. And I have a question and a comment. My comment, built on what my colleague rep peace had said and it stems to our hearing last year at Bristol, Aggie School where I raised some questions about the solar plan that the state has, the incentive program and the latest iteration of that seems to be with the battery storage. And I certainly acknowledge the need for battery storage to make sure that the technology and the ability for solar to to meet a need. However, with battery storage now falling into the same category of solar as by right development that takes the control and the ability for municipalities to have any, local control over it is really frustrating. And it continues what seems to be a trend of the state taking that local control away from particularly rural communities to meet the needs of an agenda of more urban areas. And I just urge the administration to partner more with communities and to take these concerns about leaking into the aqua forest or a small municipal fire department being able to handle a catastrophic fire at a facility. And again, I recognize the need and the value of these facilities, but there needs to be more partnership and collaboration with the municipalities rather than a dictate from the state to the4518 municipalities. So that's my comment. My question is, in regards to. No. It's the price. I'm sorry, Evan. I'm drawing blank on my second, train of thought. So I'll leave it there with the, comment and pass along to your colleagues to continue. Yeah.
TEPPER - I would just like to say, I think one of the main points of the signing bill last year was to make sure that there was municipal participation and ability to include municipalities in all decision-making. Storage is now part of the energy facility's sliding board's jurisdiction. This means there'll be a lot more opportunities to talk about, municipalities to participate in these proceedings and talk about concerns that they have. So I know that, maybe commissioner, under secretary Judge wants to add more, but I would say that really part of the whole purpose of this site and permitting commission was to make sure that municipal, views are considered and that municipalities play a large role in this.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER - Yeah. I'll just add a little bit more on that. So, yeah, the Climate Act last year, there was a number of provisions in there that I think addressed this in some way. There's a lot of activity happening in this. So we definitely hear the concerns of municipalities and other communities, around battery storage and safety and environmental concerns. One thing that the act requires is the Department of Environmental Protection has to establish guidance in consultation with the Department of Fire Safety around, environmental and public health safety concerns. That has to be done by this summer, so that's underway. And in, at the same time, in parallel with that, we are also establishing, standard permit conditions at the individual facility setting work for very large battery storage facility and also the department department of resources to be establishing similar standard permit conditions, through their role in, establishing guidance and guidelines and rules for local permanent of smaller energy storage facilities. So a lot of work in this space.4659 I would actually encourage, folks to engage with the energy facility setting board stakeholder sessions that were just announced. They're going to be doing one on standard permit conditions and other criteria. They've been talking about the process that they're gonna follow. They have four sessions that are scheduled over the course of April and into May, and some of us will address some of that specifically.
MCKENNA - Thank you very much. And I do recall my second question a little bit different vein is in her, state of the state address, the governor dedicated to the AI industry, to artificial intelligence and to data centers which is tremendously exciting. I'm thrilled to hear it presents a great opportunity for the state and for our municipalities to have really lucrative development and stay on the front edge of the industry. The4709 catch is that these facilities require sometimes in the order4713 of several hundred megawatts of power. And so how do we as a state balance the the desire to stay on the cutting edge of AI which will be the next major industry for for decades, generations while also balancing the need for affordable energy now, not 10 years from now but now whether that's natural gas or the small scale nuclear. Thank you.
TEPPER - I think there's there's a lot to be learned from what other states have gone through with respect to their, data centers and what what it meant for electricity use, and I think there's many things that the state can do to ensure that it when data centers come in, they're producing their own power so that they're not taking power away from others, that they that they're providing certain assurances. I think there's a lot of things that we can do in that realm. I've had4765 my team really looking at this very hard because I too4767 have been worried about this happening here because it's happening so many other places.4771 So, hopefully, our, bill that we'll be providing will put4775 some of that, and we can have further discussions on what might work. Thank SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - you. John Marcy?
MARSI - Thank you, Mr Chairman, Madam Secretary. Good to meet you today and your team. So just building on some questions from before.4793 I don't wanna be a good horse, but, I just felt compelled to, bring up. We've talked a lot about the diesel trucks. I think the senator4801 brought that up earlier. But one of the things that's come up very recently, you know, that 27 car dealerships in Massachusetts signed a letter to us about the, Advanced Clean Cars Act being proposed. So my question is sort of what Mark McKenna said about, you know, taking, our our type of communities, the more rural, you know, suburban type communities and their feedback. What about the business community on things like this where they're the experts on this, and they know, you know, what their business will bear, what it won't bear, what the customers want or don't want. The trucks, like, we've kinda talked around a little bit, but when we start getting into actual dealerships, which, you know, some are big companies, some are globally owned, that could make a big difference to a community. So what about the feedback from the local businesses in that front? Thank you.
TEPPER - I'm gonna let an additional high school to talk about.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER 1 - Thank you. So we've heard, mostly about trucks, but did see, a letter that came to you all about cars. I think, you know, it's important to realize it's actually not a technology rule. It's an air quality rule. So back to the conversation that we've had about, the emission milestones or the tenant milestones that we need to hit over time. Transportation is our biggest polluting sector in Massachusetts. We need to electrify cars and trucks, trucks in particular. We all are guilty of the Amazon habit. Right? There are only more and more trucks, as we get this delivery of consumer goods to homes. These smaller and larger trucks, so we've been tremendously focused on the advance paying trucks rule. It was referenced really that we did provide some flexibilities around that, in particular, in response to concerns that we've heard from our municipalities about street sweepers, snow removal equipment. So we're listening. just to mention that because I think that's a misconception that we hear quite often. So as we are seeking to make sure that our air quality here in Massachusetts continues to be clean for all of us to breathe. We do want to make sure that we're doing this in a way that's workable for businesses and residents as manufacturers keep pushing those requirements down the line. So we're looking at additional flexibilities that can be applied in that area.
MARSI - K. No. Thanks for that. I just you know, we gotta stand up for our businesses here too. Right? They're, you know,4983 they're living in the now. Right? Not waiting for, you know, a power giant or a truck giant to, you know, do do4989 what the government told them. So that's why. Thank you.
4993 SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER2 - Absolutely. Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - I wanna, acknowledge Rep Ben Howard, reverend Abuela. Sorry for seeing that. Sally Turner, rep Kearns, rep Sullivan, Almeda, Rafael, and rep said with those who also joined us to wanted to make sure that they do that we saw you. And, also, next on the line is, schedule.
SCARSDALE - Thank you for the teamwork there. Thank you, Mr Chair, and to you, Madam Secretary, and your team for, all of the work that you are doing in, you know, on such5045 a vast field and so5047 many important areas. I appreciate your mentioning PFAS in your opening remarks. I think for my six communities, they are small, they are rural, and they are really staggering under the current requirements, you know, to make sure that the water is meeting the state standards. And of course now we have the four parks per trillion on the federal level and there are conversations about that going to zero. And already at the 20 parts, my water supervisors are saying, like, the test is such a sensitive requirement to trigger something and it could be like the wrong gloves or, you know, somebody coughing that triggers, you know, an incorrect analysis, and the sensitivity with false reading. So I'm5101 wondering if you can lay out the thinking for if towns and municipalities and maybe the state is already struggling with 20 parts, how we're gonna make the transition to be able to test for a number that's so, incredibly lower. Thank you.
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SPEAKER2 - Yeah. I'll let, Mr Michael. It's, I always say that, you know, he passes, one of the biggest challenges I think that we all share today. It feels very big and, you know, really trying to get out of this is important and how we do it, matters. So the commission
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER 1 - Thank you. Yeah. I think one of the reasons it feels so big is because, you know, it is an emerging contaminant, right? So even though we in Massachusetts have had our state drinking water standard in place for a number of years, we have also experienced somewhat of the phenomenon that you're talking about where the lab methods, even in our own state labs, we found early on that, you know, some of the containers that were being used actually had a PFAS component to their coating. So getting those out of the testing stream, making sure that we have reliable analytical results when we're doing this testing that is of the utmost importance, particularly when the filtration and other technology to actually address it if you find an issue is so expensive. So you don't wanna have a false read that then results in lots of planning and investment, to address something if it's actually not an issue. I will say the federal standard that you referenced, the EEA standard, is, of course, much lower, than our state standard. It came many years after, so they were trying to follow the science in the previous administration. They did set a milestone goal of zero per square trillion.
I cannot see this new administration at the federal level going in that direction anytime soon. So what we're watching currently is this April 2026 deadline. So we as a state have two years to set a standard that is equally as four more stringent than the federal standard, and we are looking to see whether this administration is standing by the four parts per trillion and the hazard index, whether they may offer more time, which seems somewhat likely. But working with our public water suppliers, including our small public water suppliers all along the way. So we've tried to just be really proactive, in reaching out to folks even when the federal standard was proposed. You know, to be clear, there will be a whole public process associated with this. You know, don't panic now that you need something now you don't. But, you know, from our state testing, we know that, you know, you and Ex Town may have an issue meeting this new standard. What can we do understanding the planning, and investment horizon for those water suppliers? It is not overnight. Right? So what can we do to partner with folks now to make the adjustments that may be necessary in the future, but we are continuing to watch and engage actively with the federal administration and what their plans are in that arena.
SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER29 - Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - Representative sorry. Senator Brady.
SEN BRADY - Thank you, Mr. Chair. But I know someone else has been quick. I know there was a question already asked about the energy bills and the consumer we represent that are suffering. I know that the government has some proposals to give a little bit of incentive back to the people. I've had meetings and logistics that we ran off and we brought to, etcetera. We have a source coming before us on the national grid. Any other thoughts that you think we can, help out the consumers? Because I know they're done with the time. They can't shut up PPC. But after April 1, I believe that they can. And I know that the consumers and the constituents are working out plans with some of the energy comes and can they spread the cost out. But, you know, I get a lot of elderly people that does stuff and even my own house, I own a three-decker. My gas bill last month was $2,900 because I eat the whole house and make a gas stove, etcetera. And the second thing, I'll be brief.
We passed some legislation to give incentives about anaerobic digestion because we were trying to find new energy resources, and we're gonna be have to be more self sufficient because what's happening with DC, I've been to some farms, and as was mentioned earlier, some of our farmers are suffering. So the there's a farm in different parts of Humber if we pass some tax incentives. They convert food waste into energy. And a guy that was involved with BlackRock created 200 jobs. You know, when the millionaire's tax went through, everyone thought people are gonna be leaving the state, and yet this guy created 200 jobs with six figure incomes. And it's a way to clean up the environment because, like, Coca-Cola brings their waste here, all the beverages. Newnan Brothers Oil brings their waste there, and it's creating jobs and also natural energy.
TEPPER - Thank you. Thank you for raising that. I think on, the first issue, is on the side as well.
BRADY - About the energy bill with the.
TEPPER - Yes. About the energy bill. And you would have mentioned
BRADY - EverSource in Nashville midnight on the telephone say they have edifferent energy companies but s there any other help that you would recommend we can give to our constituents?
TEPPER - Yes. So the energy bill that we are working on the affordability bill as you know several. Many provisions in it that we are hoping will tackle some of these issues including things to try to smooth out the price overtime but also going to the issue of your time that that shutoffs with, changing that the way that works to allow people more time not to have shutoffs. Thank you. On the
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER 2 - Anaerobic digestion is an eligible resource under our current incentive program. You know, we ran a special procurement over at that giggle. At the time, it was just cost prohibitive to proceed under a long-term contract, but it remains, an available resource under the RPS. I'd also note that, part of, those, companies that you mentioned can feed into the waste and energy system that we have in Massachusetts that has been continued, I think, in the 24th time at law. So but we're interested in talking to more in your district or anybody else's district, projects that might work, and then we could talk about how financing would work for them and move forward to it. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER15 - Rebellion? Thank you.
ELLIOTT - Excuse me. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Madam Secretary, for all the work that you and your staff do. I'd be remiss if I didn't, recognize the wonderful work that your staff of Undersecretary Cooper and Commissioner Regio, who I work very closely with and I did in the past and excuse me. So I spent several years at DEP and DCR. So I greatly appreciate the the work that you do and I just want5530 to follow-up a little bit, on Rep Smola's comments and underscore the concerns about the FTEs because we can give you not all the money that you want, but we can continue to fund you at a certain level. But when A and F places that cap on FTE, there is that restriction. And I can5551 say firsthand, and I'm sure for all my colleagues, the amazing resources that5557 DCR has and if we learned anything from COVID, we learned usage continues to surge and that hasn't stopped.
Deferred maintenance is chronically underfunded. But my question to you is twofold. I know what A and F does set that ceiling, is if in you know, and since ERIP, you know, DCR and DEP and other state agencies continue to slowly come back from that reduction in force. That being said, is there something you feel we can do when it comes to FTE, increasing the FTE? And secondly, my follow-up would be, I do see seasonals, which is so necessary during the time when people are out enjoying the parks and the campgrounds and the trails and the forests. That does see a slight increase, but5610 from my experience and I have5612 everything in my district, all of those items. We could use5616 more seasonals and as we see the increase from 20, know, from 22 to 26. Significant. If you had your druthers, would that number increase? Because I know that's not enough. I know firsthand it's not even remotely close to being enough.
TEPPER - We're working pretty hard to get to the path that we have right now. As the commissioner said, I think we're getting very close to to getting there. You know, there's a lot of, different priorities in the overall budget, and this is our cap now, and we're gonna we're gonna make sure that we need it.
ELLIOTT - And when it comes to seasonals, slight increase from last year, maybe 700,000. Just knowing again, it surges, doubles, triples. I don't know. Is that something that you could use additional resources for? Lifeguards?
O'SHEA - So, yeah, we're getting into this as well as the additional funding that the governor has mentioned that you have approved for the agency. We have been able to move a number of people over who were long term seasonals over to full time, FTEs. And so, in the last few years, we've we've managed to move around 75 people over from long-term seasonal to, FTE. We're always gonna be relying on seasonal employment given, the nature of our business, especially during the summer. But there are those subsegment of seasonal employees that really should be full time season full time employees, and we've really tried to focus in on those. So the numbers that you see that are increasing, just keep in mind that we're5722 adding folks on the FTE side, and the increases the budget increases for this fiscal year for our5732 seasonals is really tied to our COLA increases. So making sure that we we have so not necessarily increase in the numbers, but, of, you know, recognizing that COLA increases, have to increase. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER18 - Okay. Thank you, Krishna.
SPEAKER2 - Thank you, madam secretary and mister chair.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER - I'm muted. Thank you, Mr Chair. I'm over here. Wanted to get the mic so they could see someone talking instead of just hearing a voice and they can pass up here, and I apologize. I came to the meeting a little bit late. I know that you mentioned a little bit earlier on getting everyone to use the grid and beyond the grid and to use the energy. Katie, and I know you guys touched on a little bit about can you go into a little bit more detail on how the grid's gonna sustain that? If everyone is to be on this, energy source, how is it gonna be sustained? Because I know throughout the Commonwealth, there's several different, entities talking about how they have to shut down, to restore their energy and what that might do to different organizations like, first responders and or hospitals. So I'd kinda like to hear more detail on that. It'd be nice.
TEPPER - Well, you know, one thing that is, really important to recognize is that this was a very cold winter, and we had no reliability problems this winter with ISO New England. So that's very positive, very good planning, and, you know, making sure that, there was, reliability at all times from from ISM. I mean, I think it's really important this year. What the kinds of things that I was talking about were things like if you have an electric vehicle and you're charging at your house to give you incentives to charge at night when other people aren't using electricity. So that means that, you know, you're charging at night and so there's more electricity during the day. Or having a company come in and aggregate a bunch of, like, smart, smart thermostats so that at a time when it's peaked, maybe they people agree for a certain amount of money that they'll reduce their electricity used by, you know, a degree. You know, agree and get money for that. There's, like, lots of different ways that we can, use creative technologies to make sure that we're not using electricity all at the same time. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER3 - Thanks.
XIARHOS - Thank you, Jeff. It's been a long hearing, and I know at some point we have to end. But we I do have still a lot of concerns about the offshore wind and building substations in this town where I live, and many of us do. There are town counselors present. Is there any way we could follow-up and perhaps have you come back and visit some of the sites or link us up, Rep. Diggs and I, with one of your panel members. It's very important to us here on The Cape.
TEPPER - I totally I hear you on that, and, absolutely,5921 we're happy to have a further discussion.
5925 XIARHOS5925 -5925 Who5925 would be the person that we deal with?
TEPPER - Why don't you just, deal with me, and we'll just work with lower than that. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER25 - Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - Sure. Eric Holmes?
HOLMES - Thank you, I go back to the 311 Commissioner as mayor. Obviously, you know the value of a 311 system, former mayor. I've been asking IT for years to get us a 311 system, particularly for DCR, So I'm hoping whenever that's up and running, it needs to be leveraged across the entire states because, as you know, as mayor, we should be able to go anywhere we want and let that funnel to all the departments across the state instead of us having necessarily to call legislative people to get something simple done. It'd be great if we could track it through, 311. So I'm hoping, you leverage IT to have them also make it so that we can do other things other than just DCR. And two, when it comes to transportation, the other question that I heard that sparked me when it comes to transportation and the usage and challenges around it, I think we need to also think about, particularly in the city of Boston, people all of a sudden are washing cars on the streets. And so you'll have it so that, like, I have a street, Talbot Avenue, you'll have 10 folks just wash power washing cars. All of that drains into the stormwater drain.
And so and every time I try to talk to the police, they say there's no nothing from you guys that's not compliant. And so if there is something, if you can send that to me, if it's something that they can use to be able to go out and show why that's illegal to do from an environmental perspective. If there's some important they can put on people just washing cars and having all that trash and dirt and whatever that is draining to our streets to our storm water, that would be great. My issue today comes back to environmental justice. I see in the budget and you mentioned that, that we're going to spend $8,200,000 on environmental justice, And, I6058 can just tell you as an advocate for environmental justice for years, we've gotten to a place where I have to worry about how we're using environmental justice in the term. I really do believe it's been weaponized in ways that are not benefiting community. I represent, the Blackest District in the Commonwealth. It is 92% of color.
The District of what Webb Orwell represents is 94% of color and it's like people6088 want to come into our neighborhoods and think they're saving us like black, brown, Asian people don't know what we're doing. And they want to write all these letters from all across the country6096 and the world because it becomes the latest cause to live. We're going to go save black and brown people. Right? So I can't build a busway down Blue Avenue because they're worried about the trees. I can't build a shaddock. I can't build White Stadium. I can't build, even little small soccer fields. It becomes the cause celeb, the people coming in to save us. This is a community that's represented at every level by people of color. From Ayanna as congresswoman, all the way down to the mayor is Asian, but you still got to come save all of us like we don't know what our communities need. And so when you're dedicating $8,200,000 around something we thought was good, and we're saying, yeah, environmental justice, we have all these plans in place. It is truly being weaponized that we can't even get housing and things at this point in the neighborhood.
So as you're organizing and trying to mobilize all of these activists, they all are getting together, and they're literally I have a soccer field that we started at Brook Charter School having a conversation around in 02/2019. We went through a community process as a former state hospital site. 2019, we started. 2020, the Community Advisory Group, which oversees the state hospital, approved it. Three years, two years of community process. There's always there, you know, some neighbors who are unhappy. But they definitely leverage this, 'Hey, we just need 10 people to sign on to something and then we can go ' It's a city of 700,000 people. I can find 10 people to do anything I want. Right? So I need 10 people to6200 sign on to this thing, and then all of a sudden I can sue you from here to kingdom come. And my challenge has been, are we, your department, understanding that this is the process we're going through? This thing started in 1922, approved, went through the to the, you know, environmental commission in Boston. Now it's with your team. Then we are supposed to go through a three or six-month process.
The environmental justice things that we thought we were passing that were right added nine months to the review process. And so instead of it being three months to six months, it was 14 months. And then now we use the original flood zones from the beginning, but when the whole process is happening, when the Boston commission, approved it, now we've got DEP saying, well, wait a minute. We didn't use those same flood zones, so we potentially have to go back to the same process that took 14 months that should have taken three to six. So my question is, are you clearly aware of this weaponization? I'm hoping you are. Are we preparing so that we know that you can get literally, there are four houses. I can tell you the four addresses. There are 1,200 students in this school that we've been trying to get a soccer a soccer field. I'm not talking about White Stadium, which I hope we get the right answer from the judge this week on White Stadium. But I'm talking about just a soccer field that has moved from $3,000,000 in price to $5,000,000 in price over the last five years. All weaponization that these folks know that every single step, they can come back here, grab some more friends that they've now come, you know, been talking to one another, and sue you at the next level.
So right now, still with DEP, I'm hoping we can go back through this process much quicker than we did. But is your team prepared to be able to give deadlines, deliver the reports on time, because we can almost guarantee they're going to sue me again, and then they're going to sue after you say yes. After the citizens say yes, you say yes in the payroll process, you say yes again in the payroll process, they're going to still go to court and sue. You know that that route is coming. Can we just move through the process as fast as we can? I don't know how many lawyers you got, but do you have enough lawyers to just go and get this thing down because you know they're going to sue us and then eventually, you're going to have to just go on and say, yes, we're building it. I mean, we have all been elected. We are all accountable. If they don't like the idea, they can elect someone else. That's the way this works. But can we, as the elected people who represent these neighborhoods, be able to bring the economic development, transportation, housing, and all of these other things we need to bring to neighborhoods and not have these folks coming here telling us they know more about our neighborhoods than we know. That would be appreciated. So if you have something you can answer on timelines and how we can move these things, that would be great.
TEPPER - Thank you. Thank you for raising this. You know, and I am aware somewhat of some of the issues that you're talking about, but not I think it sounds like to me that I need to talk to you a little bit more about what's going on there. Do you know more about it?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER 1 - I've looked at a piece of it and the undersecretary here makes may have additions too. From the soccer field projects in particular, and I'll be careful because there is litigation ongoing now as you are all too, aware of. We are looking so it's not these things don't come back to NASC EP, the agency. There's an independent office of appeals, that they go to that, you know, takes a hard look. We as an agency have to participate in those, just as a 10 citizen group would. They and, you know, in concert with us because we appear before them all the time, are looking, at the processes right now in particular those well in the fields. Those tend to be, not speaking about that project in particular, but that tends to be the area where they get the most tensors in group appeals. So anything that's proposed in neighborhood, that needs a wetland permit from the local board, local commission, that tends to be an avenue that people take advantage of, when they want to prevent a project from moving forward. So looking through that office at ways to prevent frivolous appeals from being filed in the first place. You know, they get kicked when they come in. They have to meet certain standards, or they're on a fast track, so that projects aren't getting delayed, and costing more on the end.
HOLMES - Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER 1 - Before my time, I have a result very soon.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER 3 - Yeah. I mean, as you mentioned, environmental justice, it's used, you know, to the advantage of whoever who whoever's interest, they want to to advance. And our intent is that environmental justice really be embedded into every single agency and into the way that we make decision making, that we make policy. We have an environmental justice liaison in every single agency. We have a public development plan, so we hope that these new processes,6510 these new plans as we are6512 implementing them really make a difference in the outcome and that we really look at the equitable distribution of benefits and burdens. And there are some initiatives that we're taking around cumulative impact so that we're looking at the whole of the issue and not just the trees like you mentioned, but also public health and quality of life for the residents that live in those neighborhoods.
HOLMES - And housing and transportation and economic development, there are other things than just for trees. Right. I mean, I6540 still need to still build transportation and housing in my neighborhood. So I hope the6546 EJ, whatever new processes you6550 have includes what's community benefits. Like, little this soccer field is a community building benefit to be provided by the developer who who's about to run off because he's gotten all his money. I still need him to deliver this soccer field.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER 1 - I know we're short on time. I'll just add on6571 the end. Both with the cumulative impact analysis and more broadening these projects, looking to, as a state, make sure6577 that we are partnering private research institutions and others to make scientific information available to folks so that when there is a concern raised about, you know, this is gonna have an environmental impact in our neighborhood, a turf field, for example, that there was concern that PFAS that you really do from that field, making sure that people actually have access to information about how these things are built now, how the technology works, and the benefits that it can have, to a community. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - And vice chair?
FERRANTE - I guess the chair today is being nice enough to allow me to give the closing remark here. So just in closing, thank you, Madam Secretary, for coming and making planning your team. Again, I think you've heard today that the, we need to do whatever we can to lower energy costs, and I know you're the forefront of that. You know, also, I would I would add that, you know, from, outside of the energy costs, that there's a lot of legislators, that are here today that represent fishermen and farmers. And I had a nice meal last night with my role one of my, mentors, Terry Murray, who, my first day that I come in and I've been in the legislature for 16 years, the very first thing she said to me was, Ann, Margaret, you're not a legislator of the sexy stuff. You're a legislator of fishermen and farmers. So as the federal government tends to hurt and cut back on farmers, as they tend to cut back on people who, rely on food from farmers to eat and supplemental benefits such as SNAP and food pantries and what have you. And as the fishermen find that their boats are gonna be in neutral on May 1, just that you really do and your team really come together to try to figure out how we handle that prospect of the fishermen and farmers. Because so many times, and I'm not this is not about your administration, it's just in general, so many times they're the last ones on the list that get any attention from government, and it's time that they6706 become first on the list. So thank you.
TEPPER - Thank you so much for having us here today. We appreciate it. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - And I also I also wanna acknowledge rep Kilcoyne
SPEAKER13 - and,
SPEAKER1 - I think, I think we can, go to lunch. There's lunch upstairs, everyone, and, we'll get ready for the next meeting. Let's next hear you so. Recess for half an hour.
Stop back to meeting. And welcome secretary.
How are you? Good.
SPEAKER35 - How are you?
SPEAKER1 - Good. Thanks.
MONICA TIBBITS-NUTT - MASSDOT - So I just wanna say thank you, and thank you for giving us this time to walk through the budget proposal and then also give you the opportunity to ask any of the members of our teams any questions that you have. As you said, my name is Monica G. Tibbits-Nutt, and I am the transportation secretary and CEO of MassDOT. First, I wanna express my deep gratitude to all of you for giving us the opportunity to talk about this historic investment in transportation. The unwavering commitment to infrastructure and mobility really is reflected in this proposed budget and is focused on ensuring residents have reliable, accessible, and resilient transportation options every day. I also wanted to aeronautics division, rail and transit division, and the MBTA, and they will provide insight into their budget priorities. Transportation is fundamental to the quality of our lives. It connects our communities, strengthens our economies, and expands our opportunities. This budget reflects abold vision for mobility across our state really focused on investing is safer roads bridges and culverts that serve all 351 town the cities.
Really also focused on stronger regional transit, ensuring expanded and more reliable service and more efficient public transportation, helping people get to work, school, medical appointments, and everyday destinations on time. Beyond moving people, transportation creates jobs, both in direct service roles and in the industries that rely on strong infrastructure. This budget prioritizes workforce development, ensuring we have the talent and resources to deliver critical projects across the state. This year's budget includes $617,000,000 for mascot operations, dollars $2.00 4,000,000 for continued investments in our regional transit authorities, maintaining fair equity and service levels bolstered by $110,000,000 in fair share funding. Dollars 100,000,000 for the Commonwealth Transportation Fund debt service unlocking over $5,000,000,000 in additional transportation funding over the next decade, including $1,500,000,000 over 5 years for chapter 90 reform, including rural road improvements, dollars 1,500,000,000.0 for road and bridge life cycle management, ensuring long term infrastructure resilience, dollars $850,000,000 for MBTA maintenance facility modernization and power system resilience. Dollars $615,000,000 for the Austin multimodal project.
Dollars 200,000,000 for culvert and small bridge improvements statewide, dollars 185,000,000 for safety and congestion hotspot improvements. Additionally, through excess FY 24 fair share funds in the supplemental budget, we are allocating $400,000,000 for the FTA reserve, dollars 300,000,000 to replenish the MBTA stabilization reserve, dollars 67,000,000 for the continuation of the MBTA income eligible fair relief program, dollars 25,000,000 for the winter resilience assistance program, dollars 25,000,000 for RTA workforce initiatives, such as CDL cost assistance and training, dollars 17,500,000.0 for MassDOT workforce and project delivery reserve, dollars 10,000,000 for microtransit and last mile innovation grants. Now I will turn it over to our chief financial officer, David Pottier, who will provide further details on key financial priorities. Following him, you will hear from highway administrator Jonathan Gulliver, registrar Colleen Ogilvy, rail and transit administrator Meredith Schlesinger, and acting aeronautics administrator Denise Garcia, and lastly, MBTA general manager and CEO Phil Ng. Thank you again for your time and especially your commitment to improving transportation across the Commonwealth. I will now call on David Paugier.
DAVID POTTIER - MASSDOT - HB 1 - Thank you, secretary, and good afternoon to the esteemed members of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means. And thank you for this opportunity to present to you today. I am here to discuss the governor's H1 budget, House 1 budget, filed on 01/22/2025. This budget includes several key recommendations from the Transportation Funding Task Force, which are designed to address the ongoing needs and challenges facing our transportation system. Specifically, House 1 focuses on the following priorities. One, stabilizing public transportation and increasing7098 chapter 90 funding to ensure that our roads and infrastructure continue to be maintained and improved. Second, leveraging fair share7106 funds within the Commonwealth Transportation Fund or CTF to expand borrowing capability capacity, allowing for greater investments in transportation infrastructure. Third, prioritizing state of good repair and resilience particularly when it comes to bridges, pavements, and culverts ensuring our infrastructure is safe, reliable, and adaptable to future challenges and needs in the commonwealth.
Fourth, maintaining stable funding for regional transit authorities or ITAs and supporting innovative transportation solutions including micro transit and last mile providers which play a vital role in improving mobility and access for all our residents. Lastly, investing in MassDoT operations and workforce which strengthens our ability to effectively manage and deliver on these important projects as well as ensuring that our team has the necessary resources and support7158 to meet these demands. The governor's House 1 budget was filed on 01/22/2025. This budget goes upon last year's historic investments and recommends $617,000,000 for Mass operations aimed at stabilizing statewide transportation. Notably, House 1 proposes $617,000,000 from MassHealth operations, which7185 includes an increase in the snow and ice allocation7187 to $80,000,000 which aligns with our 5-year average spending level. Dollars $2.00 4,000,000 to sustain RTA funding levels with 110,000,000 from fair share resources to better address these service needs, 125,000,000 from Mass DoT contract assistance ensuring necessary support for critical projects on the Mass Turnpike, Dollars 11 Million to7212 fund the merit rating board, allowing for continued efficient operations of this important body, which maintains and updates7218 driving records in the Commonwealth. Dedicated funding to increasing staffing levels for MassDoT operations, strengthening the delivery of our capital program, and ensuring long term improvements while increasing overall efficiency.
These investments reflect our ongoing commitment to enhancing transportational services and infrastructure across our Commonwealth. Almost. I'll go on anyway. I believe the members have the slides in front of them. Great. Thank you. So I would be on the next slide. There we go. Okay. I would like to highlight a few key points regarding this year's budget. First, the non-toll operating budget has increased by 15% year over year to support the ongoing operations of the department. This increase is essential to ensure that we continue to meet the operational needs across MassDOT, across all our divisions. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, we're proposing an increase in snow ice allocation to $80,000,000 which better aligns with the 5-year average spending level. This adjustment reflects the realistic cost of maintaining safe road conditions during winter months and ensures that we are adequately prepared for the seasons ahead. For comparison, through March 25 we have spent a total of $103,000,000 statewide on snow and ice of which $97,000,000 was on non toll with $6,000,000 on our tollway. Slide 6 please. Next slide. House 1 allocates $765,000,000 of fair share funds to transportation.
In FY 25 the Healy Driscoll administration alongside the legislature significantly expanded transportation investments by directing fair share revenues to the Commonwealth Transportation Fund or CTF and increasing borrowing capability capacity, my apologies, for public transportation needs. The FY 26 proposal further enhances these efforts aiming to unlock $5,000,000,000 in capital investment transportation over the next 10 years. These funds will support $1,500,000,000 over 5 years for chapter 90, increasing this annual program7355 from $200,000,000 to $300,000,0007357 which includes additional support for roads in our rural communities, dollars 1,500,000,000.0 for road and bridge life cycle asset management, which addresses the condition of pavements and bridges across our Commonwealth. Dollars $615,000,000 for the Alston multimodal project. Dollars 200,000,000 for culverts and small bridges statewide improving this critical but often overlooked infrastructure. Commonwealth. Next slide. The FY 26 budget is complemented by a supplemental budget of using $1,300,000,000 in FY 24 surplus for surplus fair share revenues with 857,500,000.0 allocated to transportation.
Across these two pieces of legislation, the legis the governor's proposal achieves a nearly fifty-fifty split in fair share funding between education and transportation. The FY '24 fair share surplus funds in the supplemental budget support additional transportation investments, including $25,000,000 in RTA workforce initiatives for CDL cost assistance, trainings, etcetera, $25,000,000 for winter resiliency programs for our cities and towns. 17,500,000.0 for mass Workforce and project delivery staff, and $10,000,000 for micro transit and last mile innovation grants. Last slide, please. Lastly, here is a year-over-year comparison showing the significant increase in fair share revenues dedicated to transportation from $476,000,000 in FY 24 to July proposed to FY 26, plus the earlier mentioned additional $857,500,000 from FY 24 surplus reserves while noting the important projects supported over these years. Thank you for this opportunity to present to you today. I will turn it over to my colleague, Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver, to continue the presentation.
JONATHAN GULLIVER - MASSDOT - Alright. Thank you, David. And thank you to the, chairs and members of the committee. My name is Jonathan Gulliver and I'm the State Highway Administrator and I really appreciate the opportunity to provide testimony today about the highway division's proposed budget and the need for continued investment, and a brief snapshot of some of last year's accomplishments as well. So, I know you have the slide decks in front of you. If I could direct your attention to slide number 10 in your presentation. Last year I talked about, how your continued support of our budget has benefited the Commonwealth of Massachusetts across the board. Specifically, last year was the biggest7529 year for capital programs in the Highway Division's history, and we are preparing to exceed that this coming year as well. The strength of our project, pipeline continues and thanks to the legislature's continued partnership, we advertised 189 construction projects. Our total capital investment for construction statewide last year with new investments was 1,370,000,000.00, and we awarded another 1,100,000,000 in new projects.
We have another 573 road and bridge projects currently programmed for future advertisement in our 5-year capital plan. Investment in the Commonwealth's infrastructure is not only important to our transportation health but also for our economic vitality. USDOT estimates for that for every $1,000,000,000 invested into transportation infrastructure, it supports approximately 13,000 jobs. We completed some major projects last year and we have hit some critical milestones on a number of other projects as well. Among the projects that we have reached the finish line for or quickly approaching a major milestones for in 2024, we finished a massive reconstruction of the Stora Drive Tunnel ahead of schedule, I might add. We completed reconstruction of Route 18 in Weymouth, reconstruction of Middlesex Turnpike in Bedford and Bellerica, and finished the bridge carrying I-91 over the Boston And Maine Railroad in Greenfield. We also began several critical projects, including work to replace and upgrade tunnel lighting in the central artery, replacing the bridge carrying Route 27 or Route 9 in Natick, Route 151 corridor improvements in Mashpee, and the rehabilitation of Mount Auburn Street in Watertown, just to name a few.
Slide 11, please. On construction, last year we had 6 49 active maintenance and construction contracts, going throughout the state. The total for that amount is $681,000,000,000 and again all corners of Massachusetts as you can see from this map. As, the list on the right shows, this just like last year, a principal area of focus remains on bridges, followed by roadway improvement projects, reconstruction projects, and projects that are uniquely tailored to safety improvements. As the committee is aware, the highway division has one of the most wide-reaching impacts of nearly any other part of government. Because of our Chapter 90 program and because of the size of our capital program, we literally touch every single city and town in any given year across Massachusetts. Next slide please. Slide 12 for the presentation. We are continuing our critical focus on safety and the environment. First on safety, roadway safety, particularly facilities, fatalities continues to be at a crisis level in Massachusetts and across The United States. It is something that we take very seriously, and I know the legislature does as well. And in support of our mission to improve safety, we've provided radar speed feedback signs and7714 units to 21 cities and towns this past year.
We've also installed or7718 distributed 500 warning regulatory signs, 480 delineators, and 685 will direct rise I'm sorry, guardrail delineators, which covers a total of approximately 50 miles of roadway. We've also teamed up with a number of communities and want to know the city of Brockton, to improve seat belts use safety with a outreach program with them this past year, very successful. The campaign in Brockton, which was noted for having the lowest seat belt use in Massachusetts, saw the number of people buckling up spike 72%. Also related to safety, we released the safety action planning primer for Massachusetts communities, which assists cities and towns in obtaining near federal, SS or a discretionary grants. We7766 have also made significant strides in our investment into transportation-related environmental resiliency. In particular, our resiliency program was created in the state transportation improvement plan and in our capital improvement plan, we also developed a framework to prioritize investment that improves resilience for current and future weather events. As this committee knows, that is especially important for the many communities who are devastated by a number of powerful storms and flooding events in the last few years.
NASDOT is one of the key responding agencies helping communities recover from these storms, and secretary and I saw firsthand how some of7803 the this devastation in these communities have7805 had to deal with. It really is amazing when you get out to see it. A city like Lemonsdale that is completely flooded out or again any number of cities and towns across the Berkshires as well. And I think the community would agree that environmental resiliency is going to continue to be a major part of our program going forward. Next slide please. Slide 137824 on Sonice. So as David noted in his presentation, winters have undoubtedly changed and increasingly snowfall amounts are no longer the singular measure for gauging winter severity. This was a year this past year that was closer to average than we've had, but still less snow than is typical. However, what we have seen far more of in recent years and that continued this past year is icing events. This7850 winter in particular, we spent $103,000,000 to date. And although our plows were not out as frequently, our7856 staff and our sanders were. This7858 is because we need to be out frequently in7860 order to treat roadways to prevent the moisture that builds up during the day from turning into ice at night.
So this has this type of weather pattern that we've been experiencing as you as you talk to any other city in town across the state as well as, any other, DOTs across the country, they will tell you the same, that these type of weather events are a new challenge for us, that that we are all adjusting to. And again, we are out frequently dealing with these ice events. We also heard from our treatment standpoint, we distributed, more than 1,500,000 gallons of magnesium chloride on our roadways, 712,000 gallons of brine, and 304,000 tons of salt across the highway system. Next slide please. As you can see from this graphic, the community grants program had a very busy year this year. These grants, which enable targeted investments in communities across the Commonwealth, continue to be a strong and growing part of our program, and we thank the legislature for your continued interest and support of these very important programs for cities and towns. I'm going to highlight a few some of what you see here. This past year, we successfully provided municipalities with 45,000,000 in chapter 90 funds through the fair share funding7935 on top of the typical $200,000,000 program.
Those are those are funds that were distributed in a slightly different way than what we have done in the past and was also proposed in the current budget. The complete streets funding program awarded 22 projects for nearly 10,000,000. Local bottleneck program awarded 13 projects to begin design scoping for a total value of 5,000,000. Municipal paving program, was 15,000,000 in funding, for improvements for 29 different projects in 25 communities covering approximately 171,000,000 miles of new pavement7968 for municipal municipalities. Shared streets and spaces continues to be one of our major quick hit programs and, awarded a total of 6,500,000.0 for 30 individual projects. And our small bridge program is in the process of onboarding five new designers for anticipated 5,000,000 new design projects and an additional 10,000,000 in construction grants anticipated for 2024 application round. And finally, our rural road rates program awarded funding totaling $25,000,000 to meet the unique needs of successful applicants, for rural roadways. Next slide please on chapter 90, slide 15. Chapter 90 program continues to be the lifeblood of communities across the commonwealth, and in a very important transportation investment program at the local8018 level.
With that in mind, I'm happy to report to the committee that we completed the work for the chapter 90 program advisory group this last year, which was co chaired by MassDOT and Administration and Finance and engaged with 16 different cities and towns across the Commonwealth to review the existing program and look for ways to improve it. Working in partnership, the advisory group produced recommendations that include a larger program size, a multiple-year funding authorization, and new capital planning tools and training programs. Speaking of process improvements, we continue to receive very positive feedback about our GrantCentral program, which was just launched this past June, and I am going to get into that in the next slide please, slide 16. Alright. So, GrantCentral, as I believe many of you know on the Committee, is a portal because8071 of the major investments that we8073 now do for our grant program that we developed, and it centralizes our community grant programs into one easy to access and understand portal. The goal here is to provide more visibility and access to the programs we offer to vary to cities and towns and to try to link them up with the right programs that best meet their needs.
In less than six months, since its activation, the portal was launched. We saw more than 650 users join the program. And as I mentioned, this continues to receive very positive feedback, on the platform from all of our municipal partners that we work with. Next slide, please. Slide 17 on fair share funding. As I mentioned earlier and as David also mentioned, in addition to the 200,000,000 distributed to cities and towns in the chapter 90 program, this year, we were able to to distribute additional funding for critical roadway infrastructure thanks to fair share. The new funding, has been distributed and will be distributed in our budget using a road mile formula, which specifically boosts funding to rural communities. As, I am sure the committee knows, we have a funding program right now that that, is somewhat complicated. This really simplifies things and takes into account the, a number of different new dynamics that we deal with across Massachusetts, including remote work. I've noted a few times the ways in which we collaborate with cities and towns, which, also happens to put the highway division in a position of having very acute understanding of what the infrastructure needs.
And I can say that this additional funding is really going to go a long way for cities and towns. And again, chapter 90 continues to be the lifeblood of cities and towns, and this additional funding is going to help tremendously. Next slide, please. Alright. Finally, the last two slides I want to talk about is our fair shun fair share funding in the governor's proposal. I'm not gonna rehash every dollar figure that because I know, David went over it just a moment ago in his testimony. But our existing programs are working in partnership with the legislature. We have collectively yielded countless success8199 stories, with our program, and we want to continue that success. The governor's budget proposal seeks to accelerate and enhance those programs by8207 making strategic investments in the categories of traffic and safety, municipalities, and workforce.
Again, highlighted here on this slide and, the next one, please, on slide 19. As a whole, the investments in highway infrastructure totals almost $4,000,000,000 for these highway specific, programs. And again, these are ones that are very, very much needed, for the commonwealth and the highway division as a whole. In closing, I want to thank the committee again for the opportunity to testimony on this and as I could talk all day about our program, and we'll certainly be available for questions afterwards. I hope that the information that I have provided will help you inform your understanding of our program and highlights the strong investment in transportation and how such a huge return that investment has on our economy and citizens in the commonwealth. That concludes my presentation, and I'm gonna hand it over now to the registrar of motor vehicles, Colleen Nobleby, to talk about her program. Thank you.
CORLEEN OBERLE - MASSDOT - Good afternoon, honorable members of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means. I am Colleen Oberle, registrar of motor vehicles. It's a pleasure to share the important work of my colleagues at the Registry of Motor Vehicles and the Merit Rating Board today with you. Next slide, please. I'll start talking about safety. The RMV continues its efforts to support safety on the roadway through management of the statutory and regulatory programs under our responsibility. We understand the importance of commercial drivers in the ecosystem of the economy in Massachusetts while also enabling business success. Governor Healy directed the RMV back a few months ago to establish a commercial driver rehabilitation and reinstatement program. The RMV is required as part of this process to promulgate regulations to support this program8328 not later than 07/01/2025. I am happy to report that the RMV has drafted regulations to support the establishment of this program and the public hearing will be held on Friday, April 4 at 10AM in Boston.
Over the last year, the RMV has been working with our highway and master colleagues to implement truck safety devices program required of the act of, to reduce fatalities. Truck safety devices are lateral protective devices, convex mirrors, crossover mirrors, backup cameras. These devices are required for registered motor vehicles, trailers, semi trailers or units classified as a Class 3 or above by the Federal Highway Administration with the gross vehicle weight rating of 10,001 pounds or more that is leased or purchased by the Commonwealth according to the purchase contract and dates. In November of the current fiscal year, the RMV implemented the federal requirement from the Federal Motor Carrier Administration Drug and Alcohol Clearing8392 House in November of 2024. This program requires prohibited commercial drivers to stop8398 operating a commercial vehicle until they have completed the return-to-duty process. The RMV will be implementing another federal requirement in April of this year, while the compliance date is actually in June, which requires the RMV to establish an electronic connection to the National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will electronically submit medical certification information for commercial permit holders and8426 commercial drivers to the army, eventually eliminating the need for the actual driver to submit those documents. And driver education.
The RMV has statutory and regulatory oversight of driver education in Massachusetts. With this responsibility, the RMV licenses schools and instructors is responsible for the educational topics and program performance. Driver education is an important component of mass Dodge Beyond Mobility plan as well as a vital component of improving safety on the roadway. The RMV recently had an independent group conduct an assessment of Massachusetts drivers education. The Army has also engaged UMass Amherst to conduct a study of8470 the effectiveness of driver education. We are reviewing the recommendations from the assessment and will use the information from the UMass study once complete to create a multi-year plan to update and enhance the Massachusetts driver education program. Next slide, please. The RMV supports equity in state government in services in a variety of ways. I'll be highlighting some of that work we do on this slide over the last two years, the army has worked with our colleagues at the Department of Corrections on the reentry program for incarcerated individuals. We know that a state government-issued credential is a crucial element8507 of transition.
The RMV supports the issuance of mass identification cards at the Department of Correction sites. The RMV has a memorandum of understanding with sheriff's offices to assist with the issuance of Massachusetts identification cards, and we are also Massachusetts identification cards and we are also working to support a program that is training soon to be released. Individuals on commercial driving skills. In Massachusetts, a driver retraining course is required if you have three or more surchargeable events on your driving record within a 2-year period. If you have 3 or more you have 3 or more surchargeable events on your driving record within a 2 year period. Surchargeable events include motor vehicle violations and at fault crashes. If you do not complete this course, your driver's license is suspended. Alternative behavior choices in driving does not teach driving skills. It helps drivers learn to change their driving behavior. We are happy and proud to announce this course is being prepared to be delivered in Spanish and Portuguese in June of this year. In our efforts to continue our service to our customers, the RMV is offering the driver permit exam in American Sign Language that was launched last week and then the Poly language.
The RMV continues to offer in-person interpreter services both on the phone and in person for our customers. Another aspect of commercial driving is the commercial knowledge and endorsement exams are now offered offered in Spanish and Portuguese since September, this fiscal year. We are still seeking a commercial test site in the Berkshires for road skills testing, and I'm happy to say that we've made great progress by identifying one or two sites to hopefully bring this vital service in business process to the Berkshires so that people like the RTAs have a closer site to do their road testing. Gender X the army is working with the vendor to provide awareness materials as required by state law. Chapter 140 of acts of 2024 for the option of the Gender X designation on Massachusetts drivers licenses and identification cards. This is a campaign with a specific target audiences of teens to make them aware of this option. The army also supports situations where receiving government services is difficult On Wednesdays at our Boston Service Center, we service clients of shelters to issue Massachusetts identification cards. We also work with shelters to assist eligible applicants with the process of residency documents for a standard ID card.
Next slide, please. The RMV has many priorities for, the next fiscal year. Vehicle safety and emissions inspections. All inspection stations in Massachusetts8670 will have an upgrade and installation of a new inspection8674 station workstation for a total of 1850 workstations from this spring until the fall of 2025. The upgrades includes computers and printers, inspection cameras, sticker printers, and lane cameras. This upgrade will be completed at no charge to the station owners and is part of our recent contract extension for the inspection services. We8700 also have a partnership with the MBTA. The RMV has been working collaboratively with the MBTA to assist with8706 support for the commercial driver license process with organized testing8710 at our Boston service center. And certainly, the RMV has a role in relation to the, hearings that are held through the division of insurance board of appeals. The RMV has been working collaboratively to support efforts to reduce the wait time for board of appeals hearings. We will continue to work with our colleagues on any changes the Board of Appeals or the legislature may make. Electronic8733 titles. The RMV this year8735 is also initiating efforts to modernize processes to enable issuance of electronic vehicle titles. This will start with vehicles bought and sold within Massachusetts.
Governors Healey's proposed statutory language in House 1 will enable the RMV to issue both paper and electronic vehicle titles once approved. Safe driving workshops. The RMB has a workshop that strikes the right balance of delivering sensitive information to help improve the safety of our roadways while demonstrating human aspect of a government agency. This workshop called Shifting Gears addresses topics impacting older drivers, their families, and their caregivers. This program shares how age-related changes can impact a person's ability to drive safely and how to support older driver safety mobility. These workshops are offered throughout Massachusetts in8786 the fall of 2024. The workshops were conducted on Cape Cod in Williamstown, Blackstone Valley, Worcester County in the North Shore. The RMV has also done a lot of work supporting the HERO Act. The Healey Driscoll's administration focus on veterans through the support of the HERO Act. A few of the initiatives that intersect with the R and D are the RMV fee exemptions for certain registration, driver license fees, exempts disabled veterans from paying if they are determined to have a 100% disability rating or deems them unemployable due to a service connected disability. Excise tax exemption.
They have to also have a 100% disability rating or deemed unemployable due to the service connected disability and proof of eligibility must be presented to the city or town where the excise was issued. Medal of Liberty. The RMV has been notifying and recently sent out 661 letters to the Medal8844 of Liberty. Past recipients for their eligibility for this license plate and sales tax8850 exemptions. Veterans who qualify for the disabled veterans license plate can use the Purple Heart specialty license plate for sales tax exemptions. And at this time of year we're really focusing on real ID compliance date of 05/07/2025. Massachusetts is currently at 57% compliance, which puts us in a group of 11 other states who have between 4059% real ID driver license or identification cards issued in Massachusetts. We have 3,100,000 real IDs or licenses that are issued for the past several months. The RMB has focused on raising awareness on the need to act if you want a real ID, we initiated a 12 week media campaign at the MBTA on buses, subways and commuter trains. We have been doing local radio8900 and media events to raise awareness at the Community level and to explain what is needed for real ID.
And what we8907 are seeing is increasing demand. Residents are responding. We are also participating with the executive office of, technical services. The RMV is connected to the state's information technology initiatives and their Department. The RMB is currently working with colleagues at EOTSS on an artificial intelligence advanced chatbot real ID virtual assistant to offer support to residents who want a real ID. We anticipate this being implemented this week on April 2. Our colleagues have also participated in discovery sessions on mymass.gov portal initiatives as the R and B is8949 the retail service of state government. And we have been working to align with the state data8955 analytics strategy by moving data to modern platforms. One component of this effort has already8961 been completed. Thank you very much for your support of the many responsibilities the registry has to ensure safety on the roadways. Excellent customer service and important revenue collection. I will now turn it over to rail and transit administrator Meredith Schlesinger.
MEREDITH SCHLESINGER - MASSDOT - Thank you. Good afternoon, members of the committee. I'm Meredith Schlesinger, rail and transit administrator for MassDOT, and today I'll discuss the governor's budget as it relates9001 to the Commonwealth's 15 regional transit authorities and other local transit providers. I'll also give an update on Compass Rail, our passenger rail program. Next slide, please. As some background, this map9015 shows the 15 RTAs and their service9017 territories serving over 270 municipalities. Each RTA is locally governed by9023 an advisory board composed of representatives from member communities and they provide fixed-route bus and demand response van service. RTA has provided approximately 26,600,000 unlinked passenger trips in FY 24. This means the number of passengers that boarded transportation. Prior to COVID in 2019, this number was 29,100,000. RTAs continue to demonstrate a strong recovery from the impacts of the pandemic. In FY 24, RTAs saw an increase of more than 4,000,000 passenger trips over FY 23 numbers. Next slide, please. The governor's budget provides $204,000,000 in total RTA funding. This includes 160,000,000 in state contract assistance provided to the RTAs in two buckets.
94,000,000 from the Commonwealth Transportation Fund as base funding for to be distributed via historical form 66,000,000 per share ETF funding that will9079 be distributed to based on by 25 distributions. MassDOT and the RTAs are in the second year of a 2-year MOU, which continues the collection of data on ridership, customer service, and satisfaction, asset management, and financial Next slide. In addition to the $160,000,000 in9103 state contract assistance for the RTAs, the9105 governor's budget also provides $44,000,000 in an additional fair share ETF fund. 30,000,000 for9111 a fair free grant program that supports RTAs9113 in providing system-wide year round fair free services. 10,000,000 for transit connectivity grants that support RTAs in creating or altering services that enhance excuse me, advance connectivity between existing public transportation routes, including those operated by RTAs and 4,000,000 to enhance the community transit grant program by providing additional support for expanded mobility options for older9137 adults, people with disabilities, and low income individuals for municipalities, nonprofits, and other transit.
This slide shows the sources of operating funds over the past several years to give a more complete financial picture. The chart shows all potential sources of operating funds for our, including the one time federal COVID-19 release funding shown in 2021 discretionary grant funding and fair free pilot funds. State contract assistance shown in purple has dramatically increased under this administration, while regular federal formula funds remain steady in9172 blue. The lighter green9174 on the rightmost side of each bar shows9176 local assessments and the discretionary grants and fair free funds make up the remain. Together these show all sources of RTA revenues. Next slide. Now, I'll briefly discuss the bilateral memorandum of understanding that is executed with each RTA. These agreements emphasize transparency, accountability, and data-driven decision-making. The current period ends9199 this June, and the cycle incorporated lessons learned from the prior FY 22 to 23 period by standardizing data collection and reducing duplicative reporting requirements.
MOUs include timelines for implementation and reporting and targets to be9212 measured against agreed-upon baselines. In addition, we have targets for tracking fleet composition, including alternative fuels, and accomplishment of recommendations from the comprehensive regional transit plans.9222 The MOUs also cover safety data and asset management information to inform capital planning, as well as a commitment to update the comprehensive regional transit plans. The last plan updates were published in January of 2021, and updates covering the upcoming five-year time period are getting underway. And we are also negotiating the next 2-year MOU. Next slide. In the coming year, we will continue to collaborate with the RTAs to promote the use of data to drive effective outcomes. We are excited to see operational enhancements and improvements, including expanded service hours, weekend services,9257 and route expansions continuing across RTA service areas through9261 our grant programs. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - Can you speak up just a little bit?
SPEAKER1 - Sorry. Thank you.
SPEAKER4 - That's alright.
SCHLESINGER - Examples include new services to connect Western Massachusetts across the Berkshire, Franklin, and Pioneer Valley service areas, as well as one connecting Southeastern Massachusetts across the, Brockton, Greater GADRA, and the, SRTA service areas, allowing riders to travel to key destinations across RTA boundaries. And lastly, we'll continue our collaboration, including quarterly meetings of the RTA Council. Next slide. We continue to invest in RTA capital needs to ensure that RTA assets are maintained in a state of good repair. We also continue to focus on asset management tools to support RTA decision-making and inform DOT's CIP. We also continue to collaborate with RTAs on planning and implementation of9312 fleet decarbonization through battery electric9314 buses and other zero-emission vehicle options, including such as hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, emitting fuels, such as compressed natural gas, propane, or hybrid electric vehicles. We continue to encourage the pursuit of competitive funding programs at the federal and state levels to support capital needs.
An example of a successful collaboration included our work with the Cape Cod RTA obtaining FTA bus and bus facilities low no grants in FY24 from the Federal Transit9342 Administration, totaling $18,495,000. We also continue to provide technical assistance to the RTAs in the areas of workforce training, feasibility studies, and other planning initiatives. Next slide. While funding from MassDOT's inner city passenger rail projects is included in the CIP rather than through the operating budget, I wanted to take this opportunity to update the committee on efforts to advance West East Rail and other passenger rail initiatives. In the fall of 2023, MassDOT introduced CompassRail, passenger rail for the Commonwealth, as a statewide vision for inner city passenger rail. CompassRail includes our existing Amtrak services along the Knowledge Corridor, like the Vermonter and Valley Flyer, as well as upcoming services along the West East Corridor between Boston and Albany. West East Rail is a component of Compass Rail, and its capital and service goals will be accomplished through a program of projects. Near-term projects include early actions for the Inland Route, which has received a $108,000,000 federal award.
This project includes improvements to the tracks between Springfield and Worcester to enable two daily round trips between Boston and New Haven, Connecticut, via Springfield. This project is beginning design now, and service is expected to begin in the 2029 to 02/1930 time frame. Next, we have committed resources towards planning and design of a new station in Palmer as well as a design and construction of track capacity improvements in Pittsfield. The Palmer project began last year, and we've already made a lot of progress by identifying the preferred location. Soon, we'll begin the conceptual design of a potential future station. Also ongoing is the Springfield area track reconfiguration project using federal funds from the Federal Railroad Administration. We are nearing the end of preliminary engineering and the environmental review phase, and the next step will be executing our $36,800,000 award to complete final design.
We also continue to advance the full Boston and Albany quarter. This quarter has been accepted into the Federal Railroad Administration's quarter ID program to develop a service development plan for the quarter and an associated capital project inventory. These deliverables will position the Boston and Albany quarter, which includes rail segments West of Springfield to Pittsfield and Albany for future investment. For all the investments we've been making, we are seeing big returns in the form of ridership growth. Our inner city passenger9479 rail program began in earnest in 2018, and since then, ridership has doubled.9483 In Massachusetts and across the nation, inner city rail has demonstrated incredible demand, and we have good reason to believe that continued investment will bring continued success. This concludes my testimony today. I'll now turn it over to my colleague, Denise Garcia, acting aeronautics administrator.
DENISE GARCIA - MASSDOT - Good afternoon, honorable members of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means. I'm Denise Garcia, the acting aeronautics administrator, and I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to share some highlights with you from aeronautics today. Next slide, please. The aeronautics division is made9526 up of two groups, the aviation and airports group and the advanced aviation technologies group. The Aviation and Airports Group was originally designed to focus primarily on our statutory and regulatory responsibilities across the board, as well as the capital programs at our 35 public-use airports. This core organization continues to serve in that role, but also oversees the advanced aviation technologies group. This group has taken shape over the last several years and is focused on shared services from SDOT and the MBTA across a wide spectrum of capabilities to include drone operations and the introduction of new technologies needed in the aviation field. Next slide, please.
The aeronautics division oversees 35 public-use airports that include commercial and general aviation airports. As you can tell by the map, our airports are distributed throughout the Commonwealth. Some of our airports are located near disadvantaged communities, gateway cities, and environmental justice areas. The economic impact of these airports is significant, supporting our local communities. Next slide, please. The 35 public use airports are economic drivers for the Commonwealth with over one and a half million operations annually. Together with Massport, these airports support 200,000 jobs, 7,200,000,000.0 in payroll, and nearly $25,000,000,000 in total economic output while generating nearly a billion dollars9620 annually in tax revenue. Aeronautics division regulate registers over 2,000 aircraft, maintains over 75 miles or approximately 800 lane miles of paved runways and taxiways, oversees airport development, including engineering, planning, and environmental, and performs airport inspections and accident investigations.
Our capital program includes horizontal and vertical construction, and our pavement maintenance work is extensive. We leverage considerable FAA airport improvement program funding to the max extent impossible to fund our projects. Next slide, please. Our Advanced Aviation Technologies group is a shared service entity working with a highway division, the rail and transit division, and the MBTA. We also do extensive work for other agencies and quasi-state agencies in the Commonwealth. For the drone operations program, we collect huge amounts of data on our transportation assets and translate it into actionable information. The drone operations program conducts missions across the Commonwealth, including inspection, asset management, construction management, a variety of environmental use cases, as well as incident response and emergency management. The data and analysis team makes a vast impact by safely and securely collecting, storing, analyzing, and disseminating uncrewed aircraft system or drone-sensitive data in the form of user-friendly analytical products that serve our customers and decision-makers well.
The data scientists and data analysts are now managing over 20 terabytes of data. This big data allows us to move from9718 a periodic maintenance construct to one that is predictive based on a strong and validated analytical basis. The Commonwealth's uncrewed aircraft system integrated program benefits the Commonwealth by integrating emergent technologies to ensure a seamless process within our enterprise workflows. Our team is also working to ensure the safe introduction of new aircraft systems that will move people and goods in a clean, green, and equitable way. This work includes the use of drones for package deliveries and larger aircraft that can move cargo and people safely and sustainably. We're developing and integrating sensor technologies that ensure that our airspace is safe and secure around our airports and other critical structures. Next slide, please. Our drone team operations are significant. And over the past three years, we've accomplished approximately a thousand flights per year, and to date, they've exceeded over 5,000 flights. The key shows the variety of customers as well as the sporadic stance of the Commonwealth that we've covered so far. Next slide, please.
The Commonwealth's Concordiaircraft System Integration program is making some great strides in very practical ways, including the recent past. We are testing next-generation technologies that are truly game changers9800 and can off often improve safety, reduce task times, improve9804 the quality of data, and often support a business case of orders and magnitude9808 reduction in costs over time. One of our challenges is to fly drones for longer distances, often referred to as beyond visual line of sight. The aeronautics division has been awarded a waiver to fly our entire real line beyond visual line of sight. Our team is building upon the broad-based waiver and expanding its utility by adding new drones. Our team is integrating a variety of sensor technologies to ensure airspace situational awareness, safety, and security by using radars and other integrated advanced sensor technologies. The drone-in-the-box technology will continue to be tested in the pilot at a variety of locations across the Commonwealth and is being used to support a USDOT smart grant in collaboration with the rail and transit division. Additionally, we've held recent demonstrations with three drone companies, Dragonfly, DroneUp, in A to Z delivery, exploring how drones could be used to support medical delivery use cases, such as home medical delivery.
We're also continuing our engagement with NASA to help define approaches for community engagement necessary prior to the deployment9876 of these new systems. Our9878 advanced dam mobility efforts are significant, including the development and construction of new electrification infrastructure at our airports. The lower picture shows an advanced air-mobility aircraft called the pivotal BlackFly, which was demonstrating in October 2024 at our drone test site in Lynn. This is a completely electric aircraft. We've developed a strategic plan for integrating advanced air mobility into Massachusetts'9902 multimodal transportation network9904 for future demonstration and9906 deployment. We're also continuing to build a system to detect drones9910 around airports and are coordinating on an MOA or counter on crewed aircraft systems with state and federal partners, which will be completed in May of 2025. And we're working with the enhanced and forced protection unit on that. Lastly, we're positioning Massachusetts as a hub for advanced game mobility by advancing pilot projects and fostering industry partnerships in green aviation technologies. Next slide, please. Lastly, our education and training and workforce development efforts are exciting and are making a9940 positive impact.
Outreach includes working with Girls Inc in Lynn, Massachusetts, Endicott College in Beverly, the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, Roxbury Community College, and the Boston Public Schools. With our9953 part partner, Mass Autonomy, we've created training programs to upskill our bridge inspectors as well as other MassDOT employees. The beauty of this is that the same curriculum, albeit somewhat modified, can be used in our outreach and education program work with underserved communities in a variety of institutions. In the future, we9973 look forward to working with the leaders of the Westfield Technical Academy aviation maintenance training program, which we hope9979 to expand upon. This program trains students in grades 9 to 12 in aviation maintenance, opening a whole new world of opportunity in the form of jobs that are in high demand in Massachusetts and across the nation. We're also working with Western New England University, Cape Cod, Cape Cod Community College, and the Harvard Kennedy School, that is keen to collaborate with us. In summary, it's been my pleasure to have had the opportunity to share with you some of the work that Aeronautics is currently doing in the Commonwealth. And at this time, I will turn it over to the general manager from the MBTA, Eng. Thank you.
PHILIP ENG - MBTA - Good afternoon, Chair Crighton, Chair Diggs, and esteemed members of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means, and thank you for the opportunity to present today. Also, a thank you to the administration and the legislature for the support and recent investments we've had received to date, which have been crucial in enabling us to improve our transit system. We are focused on rebuilding our infrastructure, our service, rebuilding confidence in the T to10059 make public transportation not only viable, but the preferred choice to travel. We want this to be an option for residents across the state and for visitors to Massachusetts. The governor's budget recommendation for fiscal year10071 26 provides a crucial road map to further advance this goal. Next slide, please. As you can see, we proudly serve 176 cities and towns across Massachusetts, offering a diverse network of subways, commuter rail, buses, ferries, and10093 power transit services. We10095 operate on the understanding that the state's economy is directly tied to a robust and efficient public transit system. Next slide. And we are rebuilding our workforce.
We're using our dollars to hire the appropriate staff to build10115 a stronger, more capable workforce that can deliver meaningful work, deliver10119 meaningful projects that improve10121 the transit experience. To date, the MBTA employees, as of 12/17/2024, exceeds10128 7,750. That's a 20% increase since 2023. We've had over 1,500 new hires10136 in 2023 alone and over 3,800 hires in the last two years, and that's due to targeted workforce investments. Plus operator training classes have increased from 30 to 100 a month, and recent related attrition has been stabilized at 7 to 8% when previously it was over 10% in 2023. Next slide. And as you can10162 see from this slide, we're working hard on improving service. Last year, we eliminated over 226 speed restrictions across 29 plus miles of track that exceeded our goals, and we continue to fill our commitment by ensuring that any new speed restrictions that arise are addressed in days, in weeks, not months or years and has been in the past. Our red, orange, green, blue, and Mattapan lines have seen improved weekend and off peak service as well. On buses, 379 additional bus trips per weekday. That's a 3.2% increase since January of 2024.
And the MBTA is now running 75 more Saturday trips and 250 more Sunday trips than we did in 02/2019. And our recent surveys show that rider satisfaction has increased from last year of 30% in January of 24 to over 69% in January of 25. And for all modes, more frequent, reliable service, improving our headways, meaning the time between trains and buses, faster service, more trips, more times of the days. Commuter rail is transitioning towards regional rail. Heavy and light rail benefiting from the track improvement program, and we're updating our rolling stock with new new new cars across all of our modes, ferries, consistent, rationalized network of inter harbor transportation services, buses, improving support for existing communities where rider density has grown, meeting municipal and business partner needs, and power transit, working towards a seamless transition between power transit vehicles and fixed route service. From this slide, you can see ridership is on the up system wide compared to last year, showing that the improvements that we're bringing are bringing riders back. Increased ridership boosts fare revenues, but we continue to advocate for sustainable funding sources to support long term transit investments.
The Healey Driscoll administration has been incredible with their support. Communal rail is transitioning towards regional rail. Heavy and light rail is benefiting from the track improvement program as as again, as we update rolling stock as well. And ferries, consistent, rationalized network of inter harbor transportation services. Plus, is improving for support for existing communities, right at density, municipal meeting municipal and business partners, and power transit continues to, improve across fixed routes as we connect with those. Next slide. Accessibility is improving. I'm proud to say the MBTA is more accessible today to customers with disabilities than ever before. Hundreds of new low floor buses, audio visual stops, and service announcements, and free traveling free travel training, we're striving to become a global model of accessible public transportation. Accessible transit benefits everyone, older adults, parents, students, commuters, tourists, and many other riders that we serve every day. And recently, many high platforms have been installed in Beverly and Wellesley.
Fully ADA-compliant, Green Line D branch, and type 10 Green Line cars, which are 50% longer, will continue to improve accessibility across our light rail. Next slide. And we continue to modernize our system. You can see here the recent recently launched tap and go that gives real time, accessibility for everyone entering our system. The Green Line train protection system will provide audio and visual alerts by the end of 2025. The MBTA Go app that we launched on iPhones and Androids provides real time service updates, elevator status, and multilingual support and alternative service when necessary. A new dashboard system has reduced train bunching on the Red Line by 50%, and fair10400 transformation projects, including red and orange line signal upgrades, is a priority for us. Next slide. And last week, on March 24, we launched a new service, the 4 River New Bedford commuter rail lines beginning began revenue service, bringing passengers to South Coast communities for the first time in over 65 years. I'm thrilled to welcome these communities to the MBTA service area with 6 brand new, fully accessible, state-of-the-art stations in Meadowboro, Middleboro, Totten, Freetown, New Bedford, and Fall River.
And we're proud to offer 32 direct day weekday trips every 70 minutes between Boston and Fall River and New Bedford. This project has been in the making for years. It's an example of the t's ability to deliver and to pivot and to adjust to challenges as they arise. And I encourage everyone to take the service, with fair free weekends through the April. Next slide. We've been working hard to ensure that every dollar that we have is used wisely. Our grant teams have been successful in 22 federal grant applications, winning 834,700,000.0 in discretionary grant funding in addition to federal formula funds. And this funding will be crucial to address critical infrastructure needs, including the North Station Draw 1 Bridge, a $1,200,000,000 project that we're advancing. And we'll continue to work with our partners in the congressional delegation to fight for additional funding where and when it becomes available. Every dollar counts. Next slide. So10495 here's a quick glance at our budget process and timeline as we present to our10499 board and subcommittees leading to the planned final board vote in June. The pro form a presentation was given in February, where we walk through the MBTA's 5-year financial projections.
The pro form is a model that assists in our financial planning processes, and this year's model incorporates a proposal from the governor's H 1 budget recommendation, allows us to identify future budget constraints and gaps so that we can appropriately plan for future years and is the first step to10528 building the fiscal year 26 budget. And last week, we presented the budget, preview deck, and then we moved into preliminary budget, and we will move into preliminary budget in May. And in June, we will seek the board's final vote on the fiscal year 26 itemized budget well before the statutory deadline. Next slide. So it is with deep gratitude to the Hilly Driscoll administration, the legislature, the MBTA board of directors, and our workforce and the public. This proposed budget addresses the MBTA's budget shortfall. It gives us long-term financial stability, ensures continue continued reliable service for the communities who rely on the tea on a daily basis and for those visitors from near and far who come to visit the Commonwealth. It allows us to make key and wise investments in projects that the public deserves. It allows us to continue upgrading commuter rail coaches, improving red and orange line signal systems, enhancing station accessibility,10587 and building a more resilient infrastructure across the system for generations to come.
These improvements will have an immediate and meaningful impact on the riders who depend on us every day. More reliable, more efficient, improved service. That's the foundation for a sustainable and reliable transportation10604 network to serve our communities10606 for years to come. It's an investment in tea. It's an investment for the riders and for our communities that we10612 serve. It gives our employees the tools that they need to do their jobs.10616 Next slide. So the goals for our fiscal year 26 to 30 capital investment plan are tied to ensuring that we continue with the state of good repair, that we continue with timely maintenance, doing the work when it's needed, and ensuring that future repairs are, minimized in terms of replacement. Ensuring that the T continues to build upon10642 these recent progress so we could deliver for our riders now and in the future. As we build for the future foundations of infrastructure, we continue to seek additional funding to fulfill our goals, improving service for our riders, ensuring improved service in the near and long term, improving frequency, reliability, decarbonization, and rider enhancements to ensure that they have a state of the art travel trip. Recent Commonwealth funding has allowed us to advance many significant capital investments.
However, we also realize that there are more demands for capital needs that we that we have to find resources to fund. The MBTA will always maximize the public's return on investment and will responsibly manage the funding that10686 is entrusted to the authority. Next slide, if they're working. So this includes the10694 780,000,000 in fiscal year 25 supplemental budget and draw down over the multiple years recurring 500,000,000 per year increase in contract assistance, sales tax revenue projected to decrease in fiscal year 26 per stated sale tax transfer and H 1 budget proposal, and achieve savings targets between 78 to a hundred 5,000,000 per year to allow the MBTA to balance our fiscal year 26 and fiscal year 27 budgets. The financial risk that must be monitored include, threats of tariffs, unpredictable sales tax revenue, and ridership, which we're continuing to grow but managing, as we move forward. Next slide.
And we're committed to a new way of doing business, delivering meaningful results10743 for our riders, to our visitors to the communities, challenge challenging ourselves to deliver on time under budget with added enhancements such as station and system upgrades where possible, leveraging unencumbered access, solidified partnerships with contractors, rebuilding institutional knowledge within the MBTA workforce, instilling pride in the organization, improving morale and confidence so that we can better deliver. Two plus billion dollars for TRACK's state10771 of good repair as an example. That was10773 our capital needs assessment back in 2023. With last year's track improvement program, we probably are over 50% of the state of good repair and nowhere near using a million billion dollars that was originally predicted. It shows that we can be more efficient. In that one year, we delivered probably 40 years of work instead of working on overnights using the track outage diversions, able to really rapidly accelerate work, improve service, and be more cost effective.
So with new workforce, new training, new procedures, we continue to improve delivery. We continue to be more effective, strive to be more efficient, and to deliver meaningful results. Last slide, please. So in closing, I'll say, I know we have a lot more work ahead of us. We have a lot of challenges still to be taken, but I'm proud of the progress that we've made over the last two years. We will continue to challenge ourselves to do more. We'll challenge ourselves to deliver, maintain safety as a priority, all the time that will never waver, and continue to build our internal knowledge and skill sets, our capabilities, and improve the morale of our workforce so they can better deliver. Deliver meaningful results for our riders means faster, more frequent, more reliable, and robust service. So thank you again for the opportunity to speak today, and I look forward to answering any questions.
DIGGS - Quick statement and then a question. I love hearing under budget. That's the first I've heard all day about being under budget, so that's a beautiful thing, especially working on something like the MBTA is very, very key. Quick question about the MBTA. When are you gonna come to Buzzards Bay? You know, I know that we already have a fast track to Buzzards Bay, but we don't we need an engine to make it all the way to Buzzards Bay. So, of course, we want it over the bridge too, but we'll take a little bit before we can get the whole thing. We'll take Buzzards Bay First.
ENG - Well, we are looking right now as we develop a capital investment plan on how we ensure that we continue to, build off of last year's successes, maintain our existing infrastructure, and then strategize how do we move forward with these other10908 needs that are, expansions,10910 modernizations, and improving service to different communities. We're committed to always taking a look at our capital investment plan and pushing the envelope to see how do we move in the direction that we need to knowing that we still have constraints. So I don't have10925 an exact answer right now, sir, but I'm certainly willing to have a follow-up with you.
DIGGS - Perfect. Thank you. So the question I have, going back to snow and ice, H 1 recommends $80,000,000 of snow and ice removal. As part of that, the10940 CTF transfer, with the global warming, what happens when we have the funds that when we don't have as much snow and snow and ice? I know I was a truck driver, so and I do understand Brian and all that stuff. But if there's if we don't use10957 that money, where can we transfer to other places?
POTTIER - Thank you, assistant chair. For the Snowline Funding, we typically held harmless when it comes to spending for the10971 year to for that effort. So anything that is for this year, particularly we were funded at a $30,000,000 level as the, as the administrator mentioned, we're currently over a hundred million dollars So for this particularly, we have to use deficit spending to get us there. We're allowed to spend up to $50,000,000 in excess of the budget For those years, we10988 have we have had some shortages in the years past. The money is available for10992 ANF for other needs10994 in the budget for the cycle. So if we do, if and particularly, we would certainly love to see a long term trend11000 where we have lower spending. But as the administrator mentioned, this year was somewhat of an aberration where we spent a higher number than we have in the last 5 years. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - K. Thank you. Madam Sher?
FERRANTE - So question for you, madam secretary, but before I give you that question, Mr Eng, thank you for your presentation. Thank you for all the progress you've made, with the t. It goes without saying that we're hearing, better input from our constituents11029 in terms of using the tea, and11031 it goes a long way. Madam Secretary, my question to11035 you is, recently we had this outbreak of drones, and it seemed like drones were everywhere. And being from Gloucester, it seemed like it were a disproportionate amount of drones just because we're a single shot from Boston to Gloucester right over right over the water. And I know at one time the governor gave an interview when she said that there may be legislation to sort of limit where drones can go, how they can go, and where11061 they can go. Do you know if we'll see anything like that from you this session?
TIBBITS-NUTT - Do you know if we do have anything, ACI administrator?
GARCIA - We currently have a drone policy that's under review, but we haven't had the chance to address, you know, swarms of drones as you saw in New Jersey. But we are signing an MOU with, the11089 force protection unit at Hanscom to start working on what they call counter UAS. UAS uncrewed aircraft systems is the same as drones. But a county UAS program is something, we're working with the DOD on to try to resolve, you know, potential issues like that that could arise in the future. Thank you for your question. Thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - But Tim Hawkins?
HAWKINS - Sit in the back. Yes. We were all paying attention and on our best behavior, even though you couldn't see us. I'm just coming here not with a question, but gratitude. The MBTA station in South Attleboro, at one point, was the busiest one of the busiest in the state. And due to decades of neglect, it had to be closed, which was just horrifying for our gateway city and actually not even the lower-income part of our gateway city. They felt they were neglected, and that was like the final nail in the cost coffin. And with the new admission administration, the ever so humble Phil Ng came in and just magic people getting on the train again. And that started a whole host of things. Mary Ellen DeFryas was able to get us together and work. So the GADRA works with RIPTA. We've got truly regional transportation. It isn't just at the state line. It doesn't stop at the state line. Enhances the use of the station since it brings people from both states to our train station. Mastercard District 5 has been very, very willing to work with us on the, traffic issue getting in and out of the Market Basket Plaza, just around the board. Secretary, I haven't ever called you about this because everybody is so easy to11202 work with under your department. And I just wanna say thank you and thank you for your leadership.11206 That doesn't help. That doesn't happen without your support. Thank you. And I'll go back to my place. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - Oh, Garcia?
J. GARCIA - Thank you, Mr Chairman. Madam Secretary, I represent the wonderful cities of Chelsea and Everett, and I want to start off with thanking you and your team for the recent investments you've made in terms of the 01/2004 bust and the recent proposal to expand the Silver Line11242 extension. Today, though, I want to discuss with you the issue of quiet zone designations,specifically, the Chelsea commuter rail station, which is on the Newburyport and Walkport line. For four years, we have pushed for action, yet little progress has11269 been made in obtaining this quiet zone designation to lessen or eliminate the honking of11277 the commuter rail. And this is causing huge economic harm to our community.
For context, Coldwind Hotels, which is a provider they serve to Logan Airport, they lost a $7,600,000 contract because pilots and flight crews cannot get the rest they need from the hotels that they've opted to stay in, which are adjacent to this commuter rail station. And for more context, this commuter rail station, commuter rail, actually, goes through public schools, a senior housing, a health center, and the regional FBI headquarters. Yet, MassDOT and MBTA are slow to act. I will give you credit, secretary, because you did intervene, and it was thanks to your intervention intervention that we were able11343 to get a response. But since then, our city manager and our municipal staff have tried to continue to get drawings from your staff that continue to be delayed. Secretary, my question to you, what concrete steps is your agency taking to reduce the rail noise in densely populated communities? My second question, is there some sort of financial component that we11381 need to be targeting in this year's budget to accomplish this goal?
TIBBITS-NUTT - Thank you, Representative. And we have been working with the city manager before I handed over to the GM to try and address this. I know that this has been an issue far before any of us came in, and I know we have been out there. We have heard it. But one of the biggest considerations we have to have are the requirements for safety from the FRA. So to explain that a little bit more, I'm gonna hand it over to the general manager. But thank you for identifying that we have been trying to work. There are no easy solutions for this, but I will now hand it to the GM.
ENG - Thank you, Sir. Thank you, Rob. I see you. Yes. In fact, last year, I made a point to go to City Of Chelsea, meet with, Chelsea DPW and city manager. We are trying to make this a priority, understanding how long this has been. Secretary is right. There are guidelines regarding grade crossing safety from FRA that we are mandated and need to do to ensure safety. And that is associated with the noise that emanates from the horns, from the trains and the crossing gates. But we are committed to working with the city of Chelsea on the designs and to see what we can do to expedite that. I'll make it a point this year to follow-up with another visit, and make sure if there's any holders on the MBTA side that we don't we don't hold those up. If it's a review of plans, I'll make sure we commit, and I'll have a point of contact for the city of Chelsea to help expedite and move this along.
J. GARCIA - Thank you. Thank you. And I do wanna clarify. I am aware, and I had to intervene to make sure there was some sort of communication, but the communication continues to be lacking. We need responses that are timely. Four years is not timely. Thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER21 - Oops. Mola?
SMOLA - Thank you very much, Secretary, and appreciate, your testimony today and the testimony of your team. I just wanna focus on two quick things. Real ID or registrar Ogilvy, you had mentioned that we're 57% in compliance. So just to put that into context, you know, this was passed in 05, I think on the federal level, and it was supposed to be implemented in 08. And, you know, it's been delayed many times. Nothing to do with the Commonwealth, but can be federal standards. But I am slightly worried that, as we approach May of this year, you know, we're still lacking 43% of the folks that have real IDs. I can envision all of my colleagues up here getting the telephone calls from constituents who can't get on planes and who can't, meet the requirements to get into a federal building of of real ID.11549 Can you just give11551 me an idea? And this may be an unfair question, so11553 I won't throw it at you anyway.
Can you give me an idea of why we are still, after all this time only hitting 57% compliance rate? Is it because people are hesitant to go get the real ID?11564 Is it because, you know, you gotta drag them kicking11566 and screaming to get there? Is it because it's tough to get appointments? Is the the process restrictive? Again, not something that's the commonwealth's responsibility, but can you give me an idea a little bit about why we're at that 57% rate? And is there something else that we need to be doing or giving you support on to bump that number up because we're only literally weeks away from reaching that compliance state. And, you know, before we kinda said okay and we kept it on our radar screen, but then the compliance date was a year out and two years out, it got pushed out again. Maybe it's gonna get pushed out again. I have no idea. It's been happening for real 20 years now. That's so bad. But yeah. So but can you just give me a little bit of feedback on that?
GARCIA - Sure. I think one component of it is those of11607 us that have been, in Massachusetts or United States for a long time have lived through the several different extension periods. The checklist for Real ID compliance came out in 2005, from the 9/11 commission. And, from the motor vehicle perspective, it's been a rough road and journey of with all these extensions and getting consumers and residents to pay attention. So, all of the marketing that we have done, we kicked off in probably September, October of 2024 has really raised awareness. I've gone to communities and talked to the Springfield area and did media availability, local radio shows in New Bedford, Fall River. I went to the Worcester Airport, greeted people getting off the plane. The whole idea is to raise awareness. There's one part of the effort that the federal, government, federal motor carrier no. Excuse me. Transportation Security Administration with Department of Homeland Security, issued, federal rulemaking in the fall.
And what they were offering is a phased enforcement program. So that program went through, but then we had a change in leadership at the federal government level. We're awaiting, guidance and information on the policy on phased enforcement. So an agency would have to apply with a plan, to the federal government to qualify for phased enforcement. What we've heard from our Transportation Security Administration partners over the last several months is that the they would not do any hard stop of somebody that didn't have a real ID, government issued document upon travel on May 7 that they would ask people for additional identification, hand them a flyer and say, you really11712 need to look into if you don't have an active11714 US passport, to potentially get one of these if you're qualified. So we don't think there's gonna be a hard stop, and we also do not think the date is going to expand. So we are seeing an huge increase in, demand. And so while we are an employment based license, business, we are, accepting walk ins for the Real ID license renewals and upgrades at all of our service centers. That's been going where really well. We've increased the number of appointment availabilities.
We're looking at, and asking for volunteers from our team to work Saturdays and Mondays since we are a Monday-through-Saturday shop right now. And we recently added11757 500 appointments for Saturdays. We're adding appointments for Mondays, and we're seeing consumers, reacting. And so as any of us, whether it's myself or any of our colleagues get complaints or or concerns, we connect with consumers for service. one of the things that, I think is important for everybody to understand is that there are documents that are required to apply for a real ID. You have to have proof of lawful presence, which typically is in the form of a birth certificate or US passport, has to be an active passport. And, some of the individuals, especially the older generation that have had a name change and maybe have not considered, showing us a marriage certificate. Some of the11802 name changes can be, challenging for people, so that's part11806 of our messaging. Also, if you have a name change from your lawful presence document, your birth certificate particularly, then we need to see proof of how that name change happens. There are some people that think they the document is required. There's other people that say, I don't think I need one. So we're really trying to make sure the information is accurate and precise. If you are traveling, doing domestic travel, and you don't have an active US passport, then you probably do need a government-issued ID if you qualify. I hope that answers your question.
SMOLA - It does, and I appreciate the information. Thank you very much, registrar. Secretary, I will save any questions related to fair share because we're gonna get another crack at you in a couple of days. So, I don't wanna take up with today's time, but I do wanna mention one thing. Small bridge program. I'm a huge believer of it and I know most of us, if not all of us are here, especially those of us in rural parts of the Commonwealth. It's a great program. I was huge advocate of it when it first came around the bend years ago, but But I want to talk beyond the small bridge program and you know, I've brought this up at hearings before, not just to this administration, but the previous administration about outside of the small bridge program, these municipalities that don't qualify for the small bridge program and resources. Bridges across Massachusetts are absolute killers. They're budget busters when a municipality has to fix it. They don't have the money to do it. Obviously this goes in stages. You know, they limit access to one lane and then eventually these things close.
But in some cases, and we've had the we've seen a few examples of this in Western Massachusetts, and one in my district where it virtually cuts off a small rural11909 community, a big part of the community from emergency service vehicles, from access11913 for bussing, and it creates a chain reaction effect financially for the community. And we know once11919 these close, it takes years, if it ever even has a shot to open up again. So, I'm not sure if that's just a statement or if there's a question there other than if the administration has looked into this. We're looking at the fair share again. We'll be talking about that in a few days, but I'd really like to see something, and I don't know what that something is about going beyond the parameters of the existing small bridge program because these municipalities just can't. They can't hack it. Unfortunately, financially, it is just an absolute killer. And in those cases where it's really restrictive and it really binds a community because of the geography and the road infrastructure, they need help. They need help from the state and I know the state does everything they can and this is not a knock on the administration or anything other than just I hope that you'll broaden the thinking about that program. It does great the way it is. We wanna see some version of it do better. So leave it there.
TIBBITS-NUTT - Thank you, Representative. And this is something that we have consistently heard. This is also11978 something that we have talked not only11980 with the municipalities, but also the residents. We've been spending a lot of time out in11984 Franklin and Berkshire County about this because we do know, especially when you're talking11988 about the dirt roads, the gravel11990 roads, how much of an impact this can have because it isn't just slowing down traffic, it isn't just inconveniencing people, it really is stranding them. I will hand it over to the administrator to talk a little bit more about what we're doing, not only to that program, but also additional technical assistance to the municipalities to help through this process.
GULLIVER - Thank you, Secretary. And, rep, I know again, the secretary is going to be talking about fair share in more detail in a few days, and we'll certainly make sure she's prepared to talk about this particular topic. It, is something that we, as we look at the 1,500,000,000.0 that the secretary that the governor had proposed in the budget from a fair share standpoint, a lot of that is going to be programmed for a combination of municipal bridges and state bridges. And in particular, our focus is on, working with those communities on some of those quick-hit kind of projects. We have the MassDOT uses a different wide type of preservation contract that allows us to get in and a work with the city or town to quickly address, those, those problem bridges and get them up and running again quickly. So our intent is to, and I'm sorry, I just misspoke. We use that for our state bridges. Our intent is to expand that program with that new fair share of money to also address12063 municipal bridges when they need. The other thing that the Secretary just alluded to, and I know I know many of you on the committee have, certainly passed this along to your communities, but we really, really look to them to work with us when, when there's12077 an issue, if there's any confusion about, the, the bridge inspection reports that they get back, if there's anything, any ideas they want to bounce by us, we, we have a, a big municipal program specifically to try to work with them to provide that technical assistance and steer them in the right direction when it comes to town and, city infrastructure. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - Senator Comfort.
COMERFORD - Thank you, Mr. Chair. Madam Secretary, thank you. You've been in Western Massachusetts with your amazing team a lot, and I'm very, very grateful. And I really appreciate hearings12112 like this because I think it's important for12114 someone like me in Western Mass to hear a colleague with whom, you know, I have great esteem talk about, the problem with rail noise. Because in Western Massachusetts, we beg for rail noise. Right? We're on the other end of that problem. So I was I'm con concerned and confused as I look at administrative Schlesinger, who, again, I hold in very high esteem, the detail around the compass rail. And I don't see more about projects like the Berkshire flyer or Northern Tier Rail, which are, I believe, very viable. And I know, MassDOT with your leadership is interested in furthering them. But when I don't see it on a statement of work for the coming budget year, I get concerned, because we are doing a lot, as you know, to try to get on the map of MassDOT and our communities, every community from Berkshire County to Middlesex County sent a letter to you and the governor asking, for you to really do everything you can to further Northern Tier Rail. So, if we could have just a little detail there about, why, it's not on this document, that and Berkshire Flyer and what MassDOT is going to do in the coming year, to help, help advance these with my thanks.
TIBBITS-NUTT - Thank you, Senator. And, administrator, if you wanna start with the update on the northern tier, and then we'll go to the Berkshire12205 Flyer, if that's okay.
SCHLESINGER - Sure. And thank you for all the support you've given for our rail program,12211 and on transit as well. That's really honestly just, an oversight of too much information, to include necessarily and because the northern tier project right now is in sort of the planning phase, and that's just a different department. So I know that, our head of planning came out to work with some folks about developing a scope for a potential grant application, if there's another, funding round that DOT, USDOT, offers. So that's in the works that they're starting that application in anticipation of that coming out in the fall.12244 And the Berkshire Flyer will, be running this summer. We have finalized dates, so to begin, first summer, you know, in June 21. But that first, you know, summer weekend and go through Labor Day. We're also working on seeing if we can have, some sort of year-round bus connection. So, we're working with Amtrak on their 3-way bus service as well. So that is happening. We are starting to get the marketing campaign underway, so we'll be reaching out to, you and a lot of other folks who've been really invested in that service. And we're also continuing to work12279 with CSX to finalize the agreement for the summer and going forward. And the Pittsfield project about track, that I mentioned about track capacity expansion at Pittsfield is for the Berkshire Flyer. That was part of the agreement that we have with CSX to expand to have the service. So that project is moving forward. It just it's an oversight to not spell it out in the document. That was helpful. Thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER21 - Webex.
SPEAKER25 - Thank you, senator.
XIARHOS - Thank you, chair. Thank you, Madam Secretary. I really like MassDOT.12318 You do a lot for us, really. And I'll start with, right around the corner, the wrong way driver access, that technology is right here. When you leave the college, if you happen to get on the wrong way, it'll alert, and you're saving lives doing that. And it means a lot to us here on Cape Cod, especially Rep Diggs and I. Also, the cameras that are on all the bridges and most of the intersections, that's public safety. We appreciate that. Probably the biggest issue for us on The Cape, my colleague, reps, mentioned small bridges, but we have two giant ones. And it's a big topic for probably everybody. Right? Nothing goes to Cape Cod or the islands without getting on those bridges just like you all came here today probably. So, couple of things. I'm glad that you are moving forward on the Sagamore, at least. That's huge. Right now what's happening is taking some of the homes or the beginning of eminent domain. So there's a lot of concerns on that. If you could address where we're at on the bridges, eminent domain, and we've also had people that live near the bridges that their homes are not getting taken, but they're right on the edge. And they're gonna live with 10 years of construction. That has come up too. And I know that you're, gone out of your way to meet with people, and there's a meeting coming up at Mass Maritime, which is great. We appreciate all that. It's a huge issue on Cape Cod.
SCHLESINGER - I was wondering if this was gonna come up. I was starting to get a little concerned. I will hand it to the administrator, but before that, we have definitely heard from residents because we've been in communication with the ones that are having their homes taken for a number of years, but we're also making sure that we are going out there in person and talking with the residents. Because I think anyone that does this work, eminent domain is not something you do very often. And independent of whether a homeowner is happy that it's happening, it is really important to be able to answer those questions for them and make sure, not just them, but also the businesses around there, that they know exactly what is happening and the timeline of that. So I will hand it to the administrator to talk about where we're at right now and to answer any further questions you have.
GULLIVER - Thank you, Secretary. So,12473 I'll, kind of go in reverse order. So again, building off what the Secretary said12477 with our eminent domain, or as we call it the right-of-way process, we have been in contact with the homeowners. This is an early action. They consider it by Federal Highway. Typically Federal Highway doesn't allow us to do any, right of way takings, easements or full property takings until a little bit further along in the process, because these are, in, at least, I believe it's 12 cases. It may be as much as 13 without, having it in front of me, full house takings. They allowed us to move forward considerably in our timeframe. So that's why some of that is starting now, even though we're still, 18 months away from the, project being let out. There are many more takings, for smaller easements, construction easements that are going to happen besides those, those 13, 12, 13 houses that I just spoke about. Those will be contacted in the next phase of our process. So they will be contacted as well sometime in the next six12534 months or sooner.
And, again, as you noted, we are holding an open house to give12538 people a sense of the scale of the project and how it may impact them. And, just, just as a point of reference, I think as you're aware, the, the bridges are built being built offset from the current bridges so that we can maintain live traffic during construction. In both cases, they are proposed to be on the interior side of the canal from where the existing bridges are. So,12557 that's where those impacts will be. And again, that's bridges are. So that's where those impacts will be. And again, that open house that we're having, will be pretty clear. And we've had many, many meetings. So we've talked to a number of those folks in12569 a more unofficial manner over the, over the past couple of years, as this has progressed, as, far as, the, two projects go, the, they are both going forward on a permitting timeline with both projects being permitted at the same time.
We do have full funding for the Bourne Bridge, as you're aware, that that'll be I'm sorry. Sagmore. The12591 Bourne Bridge, we applied for funding but did not get it this last round. That was part of a discretionary program that, Federal Highway put out. We have been in contact with them for future rounds. That is one of the elements of the federal funding, program that remains a little bit, murky as far as how they're going to approach this. That entire program is up for reauthorization this coming year. And we have not yet gotten guidance from Federal Highway on how that will proceed in the future, but certainly we are going to avail ourselves of any potential funding sources to get that bridge going as well.
XIARHOS - Thank you for those, answers. Thank you for coming to Buzzards Bay. All the meetings that you do, they're great. What about the people that are not having their business or home taken, but they're right on the edge? Do they get some type of compensation or something?
GULLIVER - The only compensation we provide is for direct property takings, but there are some we certainly are willing to talk to people if they feel like they're being impacted more than, than maybe we have initially thought and something to stress12659 too. This is a, design build job.12661 So the full scope of12663 the impacts have not been completed yet.12665 We're still at about 25% design. So it may be possible for some of those properties that are right on the edge is that as we progress with that design over the next six to eight months or longer before we let out the project, they may be more impacted than we initially think right now, but certainly we encourage dialogue with them. And if somebody is living really close to this construction zone and feels like they may be impacted, we really we ask them to call us and we will be happy to sit down with them and walk them through what we can try to work with them on that, on whatever that may as12697 assessment might be.
XIARHOS - Fantastic. Thank you very much, both of you. Thank you, chair. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - Pass to your right, Sunil Duna.
DOONER - Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know we're gonna be talking about fair share in a couple of days, but I'm gonna kick it off today for you guys. And I'm sure many of you are are sick of hearing me talk about Middleborough, but I'm gonna talk about Middleborough. Could you pull up slide 6? Is that possible? Thank you. The last bullet point on page 6 says 185,000,000 for safety and congestion hotspots. I'm just hoping you can touch on what those funds could be used for. 05/14/2023, a 15-year-old boy was killed on Route 24 right outside the Hannafords. His name was Dylan Levesque. His life was taken on Mother's Day in front of his mother. That's been a dangerous intersection that's been documented for almost 12 years now. The family petitioned for a traffic light, and from my understanding, it's now going to be moving forward in 2029, which is still four years out. Is that funding that could be used for a project like that, or are those funds already allocated or planned for other projects?
TIBBITS-NUTT - My understanding is that that project is funded.
DOONER - So is but is12790 is that hundred and 85,000,000, is12792 that something that it would be used for as projects like that or no?
TIBBITS-NUTT - Yes.
DOONER - Okay. And so that project is set for 2029 still?
GULLIVER - Yes. Yeah. The funding would not impact the schedule of that project that's still going on as currently planned. So it is for fiscal year 29.
DOONER- Right. And just wanna make sure there's been a lot of delays on it, that that doesn't happen moving forward given what happened just two years ago now. And then with the RMV, I can't seem to find, you know, like a line item for operating costs and breakdown for the RMV's budget. I know I'm a new senator, but I have two veterans on either side of me that also could not find the breakdown. Is there a reason we don't have that or a way that that could be given to us? Email's fine. I just like a breakdown of, like, operating
POTTIER - We have an all encompassing email excuse me. Budget and it's fine to all operating across across all our lines of business that we have. Certainly, we budget on a department in an RMV, a highway, a rail and transit, breakout. We certainly have that. We can certainly share that only because of the length of time, the length of the availability for, the presentation state. But we certainly absolutely budget on that. And we also do a presentation, full presentation to our board as far as budget versus actual as well, but we can certainly get that information to the committee. Absolutely.
DOONER - Thank you. Cause I didn't see it in the governor's budget recommendations. I didn't see it online. And just for the sake of transparency, I think the tax taxpayers should be able to see a breakdown of where every dollar is going associated with the12889 RMV. Thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - I'm so bad at12895 that.
SPEAKER16 - Ariagua. Sorry.
SPEAKER11 - Thanks so much.
REP ARRIAGA - Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, and thank you so much. My name is Representative Arriaga from Chicopee Western Massachusetts, and I have a question in regards to the12913 aeronautical division. So we're hearing12917 a lot about the drones and we know that's coming into12919 the future. AI is here and kids and everybody nowadays has a drone. So I'm glad to hear all the different partnerships that we have with the state to ensure that our airspace is safe. That's essential. I represent Westover and I myself am a flyer, so I understand the critical nature of it all. My question is in regards to what are we doing, if anything, to be proactive with air12941 traffic controllers? As we know, they're in hot demand, they're short-staffed, and I'm assuming Massachusetts, we're not the only ones with this, issue nationwide globally. And we want to ensure that our airspace is safe so we can continue doing the business that we are doing, bringing visitors and such. So what are what steps are we taking to be proactive in this arena? Thank you.
SCHLESINGER - Oh, thank you. That very good question. Currently, the FAA is, hiring a massive amount of air traffic controllers. And if you go to the faa.gov website, there's a lot of information that addresses how to become an air traffic controller. They12978 have a school in Oklahoma City, and you're correct. There is a worldwide shortage right now of air traffic controllers. UMass has got a simulator out at Westover. You've probably seen it. You know? So we are encouraging students to, go into STEM careers such as aircraft maintenance, air traffic control, and pilots, you know, just to try to, work with workforce development. And we're working with some of the other secretariats on that as well too to try to get the number of, students, in the Commonwealth interested in those programs.
ARRIAGA - Thank you so much. Senator Vemman.
FATTMAN - Thank you, Madam Secretary. I want to pay you a compliment. This was a very good presentation, and I appreciate the fact that you brought up all of your deputies with you, to outline each individual department. That hasn't happened at every single hearing. And I know just as a member of this committee, that's something I appreciate. And, without hopefully jeopardizing their jobs, I would like to pay some specific compliments. Jonathan Gulliver, who has done a tremendous job communicating with my office on particular issues of concern in my district with regards to crumbling concrete, peratite. Same with Mr. Bickford, Chris Kivior. We appreciate that. And also a shout out to central Mass. Barry Lorian is a great, great public servant and his deputy, Tom Emmerich, great guys, always responsive, and, public service is not always an easy job to do because of the criticism that people get. So occasionally, when you have the opportunity to praise people, I wanted to take a moment to do that. January first of this year, the advanced clean truck and heavy duty omnibus bill was gonna be put into place, at the RMV for diesel vehicles. I have raised a lot of concerns about that. I still have those concerns. I know it's been delayed in implementation, and I have several questions with regards to that, regulation. I'm curious if someone can answer how the advanced clean truck and heavy duty omnibus restriction applies to Mass DOT, first generally with your fleet and then more in particular with snow plowing?
13125 GULLIVER13125 -13125 I'll13125 hand it to the registrar if I'd mix up any of the13127 regulatory framework here. But, we don't have any waivers from that provision as well. So we our fleet would have to be in compliance as well as the private sector on it. There at this point, there's no direct impact with it because, as you noted, it was it was, delayed. That was my understanding is, and again registrar. Please let me know if I'm mistaken on this, but that was a DP regulation that was going into effect that the RMVs responsible for administering. But it has been delayed,13157 that if it were to13159 go into effect when it was supposed to have, we would have had to move in compliance. And, as I, think, you know, that, that, part of the reasons for it being delayed is that the availability of some of that equipment was pretty sparse. So it would have been an impact for our broader fleet that we probably wouldn't have felt this year, but certainly in the next couple of years, had that had the availability of that equipment not, not increased, we would have been impacted by. So at this stage, we are in good shape again, where we, have the fleet that we need. We've been working closely with, our snowplow contractors to make sure that they have what they need as well, but it's something that, I think industry as a whole certainly has been watching closely as to where, which direction it's going into the future. And we will adjust as needed.
FATTMAN - So if before you pass that along, approximately how many snowplows, the heavy-duty type that you see in the major snowstorms running across the Mass Pike, how many of those do we have? What's the number in our fleet?
GULLIVER - So our fleet in total is just under13223 4,000 pieces of equipment. The majority of that, about 30, I believe13227 it's about 3,200 off the top of my head is, is contracted. So, it would be a mess. So we have we relied very, very heavily on, contracted equipment for, for our program. And, they, certainly, as well as us would, have to be in compliance with that regulation.
FATTMAN - So those contractors are well, this is gonna be for the RMV because the way I understand it, municipalities are bumped out till 01/01/2027. But private13258 commercial, subcontracted vendors would be January first of next year 2026. Is that accurate?
GULLIVER - I believe that's correct. But
OBERLE - So, this topic is and has been complicated, and there's some additional guidance that we're waiting. I would like to suggest if you're amenable to it that we schedule13284 time with members of our team13286 and whoever, from13288 your office and go over a discussion in more detail, identify what other questions or challenges you have so that we can help resolve them.
FATTMAN - Yeah. That sounds great. I don't have any challenges. I don't have a diesel truck. Someone tried to convince me to do that, and I didn't think it was a great idea, for multiple reasons. Can maybe you just ask answer maybe one or two questions in that regard just to understand. So if I am a private individual living outside of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and sometime next year, midyear, I, A purchase a diesel vehicle, and B, move to Massachusetts. Can I register that vehicle in Massachusetts?
OBERLE - I believe13328 the answer is no. Oh, it's the manufacturer's certificate of origin that will tell us whether we can register it or not. So it has to have that language, that California language on the manufacturer's certificate of origin.13342 So it'll depend on, the labeling on that document of whether or not the vehicle can be registered or mass.
FAYYMAN - In layman's terms, can someone maybe expand upon that?
OBERLE - Manufacture's certificate of origin is the birth certificate for13354 a vehicle. And years ago, back in the nineties, when we adopted the low emission standards, for California, it was I think it's LEV emission standards, low emission vehicle standards that we all have to abide by here in Massachusetts now. So the same similar language needs to be on the vehicle birth certificate in order for it to be eligible for registration in Massachusetts.
FATTMAN - So do you envision a waiver for anybody who falls into that potentially where13382 they might I mean, it just I can imagine13384 someone moving into the Commonwealth not understanding that they couldn't register13388 their vehicle getting here and13390 then basically being told you can't have this vehicle. You need to change that out, and that could be a significant problem. I don't know how often that happens, but I can. I've had to move before, and I know how complicated that can become.
OBERLE - No. There's no waiver that we're aware of. As administrative Gulliver said, this is a DEP regulation, and we are have the responsibility for enforcement. It's, brand new only. So I think if we do a discussion, virtual meeting, that would be helpful.
FATTMAN - Yeah. And the only point I'd make about the contracting of those vehicles is that they're gonna have a problem too. And, you know, when I looked into that diesel vehicle, it was maybe 50 to $60,000 The electric version of it was about 112. That was two13444 years ago. I'm hopeful that that came down,13446 but just of significance, I think.
OBERLE - And we have already been hearing from individuals about this. I've also met with the mass trucking association around their concerns because it's not just the availability of the vehicles, but also the availability of the charging infrastructure, especially when you're13463 not. I mean, it affects diesel pickup trucks, but especially when you're talking about 18-wheelers. We have also been talking to our colleagues across the country. California is one that is much further ahead when it comes to EV trucks and the charging infrastructure for them, and they are struggling. So this is also conversations with the manufacturers themselves to get an idea of what is the availability gonna be because there are a number of vehicle manufacturers that are stepping back from EVs. So this is probably one of the more complicated things that across the state across the country we are dealing with.
FATTMAN - Yeah. No. I appreciate that. And, I think it's gonna be a real challenge moving forward. One of the things and this is the last thing I'll say. I had the opportunity to ask,13508 Mass Municipal Association about13510 this just because on the municipal level,13512 they were talking about the challenges of those charging stations you referenced and13516 having to go, you know, send a13518 vehicle out for 24 to 48 hours straight as as diesel, you know, gasoline based, then then figure out how do you change that procedure. Do you purchase another vehicle to charge it simultaneously? Because I think the average lifespan is like a 4-hour time period of operating something like that. So, obviously, 6 times 24 gives you the 6 times 4 gives you 24. So it's a real logistical problem for those municipalities. So appreciate the fact that you answered those questions. We'll definitely follow-up and, thank you for your time. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER35 - Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - Rick Kearns.
REP KERANS - Thank you, Chair Diggs and Secretary Tibbits. The back row is we're sticking with the stand up because we're in the back row. We are paying13566 close attention because we've got a tenth-grade math teacher up here, and that would be rep Hawkins. First, I just wanna congratulate the GM on the South Coast rail and your stellar progress on the13578 T. Thank you as well to Angel of your team and to you for the progress on the bus stop in Danvers. Thanks to the highway administrator for 114 progress and the Topsfield Bridge replacement. Thank you, registrar Ogilvy, for Eddie Paladino and his handling of our many inquiries on the CDL issue. I do have a question, and it's13599 this, to the new acting administrator at mass aeronautics. Beverly Airport continues to operate and expand without regard for the neighbors in surrounding neighborhoods in Danvers and Wenham, which I represent, and which suffer with unrelenting noise from small student-piloted aircraft. We also have an13623 EJ community two and a half miles from the airport. The newest venture is, an expansion which includes a new hangar, the size of a football field in a residential area. You mentioned regulatory oversight. I can't see where you are, but you mentioned oh, hi. You mentioned regulatory oversight. Might you be willing to consider exploring regulatory solutions to the noise concerns people have and increasing the role that your agency13657 plays in balancing private aviation interests with public health? Thank you.
SCHLESINGER - It's actually down to, federal regulations of who owns the airspace and who manages13675 the, FAA part 150 noise program. It's regulated on who can establish noise contours around an airport, who can approve noise exposure maps. And when it comes to trying to avoid new13693 noise at the end of a runway, let's say there's a community a mobile home park at the end of our, runway. We could we at the local level, the airports, the municipal airports have the authority through the FAA to, change the flight paths where maybe they make a turn at a lower altitude and they don't fly as far out. But the state does not have that kind of jurisdiction that the airports and the FAA have in this matter. And that's why you haven't seen a program at the state level. There is a noise program through the FAA, and I know each of our airports also take noise calls, and many of them have an established program as well. But the jurisdiction, the way the laws are written right now falls under FAA part 150, and it's an FAA program.
KERANS - I'll follow-up with you. I have legislation to, provide authority to your agency to collect noise data and post it on your website, but I'll follow-up. And I thank you for the answer. Thank you. Okay.
SCHLESINGER - I think we would need additional staff if, you know, we13756 do take that on. That's a consideration.13758
PEASE - A piece. Thank you, and appreciate the whole team. Sentiments are Zach, you know, and all the time you have spent in Western Mass. So I got a couple quick things. On slide 11, I see that, there's a big big gap. I mean, there's a lot of gaps, but there's a big one out in Western Mass right where the, right where there's so many small, small, really small towns. And I also look at, the, you know, how your online portal has come online to try to help make that hopefully better, not only just to check it, but to apply for it. So I just wanted to kinda clarify that that was the case to help because they don't obviously have the staffing or the money to get the grant riders like a bigger city or even small cities or bigger towns. So that's the first one.
GULLIVER - So this one actually does not show grants. It only shows active capital projects. And, as a result, as you noted, there are some gaps in there. A lot of these are focused on actual state highways, part of the NHS system, where some of those smaller towns you just mentioned don't have. So they wouldn't necessarily show these bigger capital projects that are listed here, but, we are really focused on regional equity when it comes to our grant distribution. So13840 it's something that we take seriously and have have we we can get13844 you another map that shows you where it's been spread around. But, certainly many of13848 those towns have been recipients of some of those grants over13850 the last few years.
PEASE - I appreciate that. And that's really great to hear, administrator. And, the second thing is that's what question is, I guess, looking for information so you can follow-up, Madam Registrar. I'm just wondering how I know that RMV is not a happy subject because every even when I got my license, like, 5013870 years ago. So 40 years ago. So, you know, people used to always complain about the registry no matter what. But I am curious to see that with your new appointment versus walk ins, how is the flow? How is the customer service? How many customers do we take care of now compared to before there was the appointment and it was the walk-in? Are we are we I guess the question is and, again, follow-up later, please. Are we seeing a decrease in the customers we're serving? I know we do a lot more online now, so I get that. But, but the in person people, if we're having to turn them away, how many people were you seeing on walking basis compared to what we see in appointments now is kind of my my question.
OBERLE - Sure. So we can, provide that. I don't have an answer quite immediately off the top of my head, because we had the pandemic that happened, 2021 when it really changed, service delivery and really cut down the number of people that were allowed in the physical locations. I think that what our13930 goal and role has been is to try to stop the concept of emergency room visit mentality and try to manage people as best we can. What we found when we had appointments for registrations is that many times the registration business was the consumer didn't always know they were going to buy a car ahead of time. It's13952 sometimes a reaction to a great deal, an opportunity that arises or something with a repair bill arises, and you say, I don't wanna invest any more money in this car. So we were struggling with appointments with that business, and that's13964 why we, stopped it on the13966 registration side because it didn't seem to really, support the nature of that business. But on the license side, we've had a lot of great, feedback from consumers that come in and, wow, I got serviced in 15 minutes. This is great. So it's something that we would like to hold on to, for certainly part of our business. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - Of Sabadougie.13988
REP SABADOSA - Okay. No. It's back on. Alright. I have a question about RTA funding, and particularly slide 28. So I recognize this is done in aggregate data which can sometimes show things that perhaps are it can obscure things rather, but I see in FY 24 we put 15,000,000 into fare free, and in FY 25, we're putting in 30, which is great, but I guess what I'm struggling to understand is why then do we anticipate collecting more fares in FY 25 if we're anticipating to expand the fare free that we had in FY 24? It says 16.4 for FY 24 for fares and then 17.8 in FY 25, which is not a huge increase, but, no, it's a million-dollar increase. So I'm just curious.
GARCIA - I think14083 that generally reflects the, increase in ridership that we've seen, unfortunately, since some of the prior years when just ridership was much lower. But we can, take a look and dig14093 into that.
SABADOSA - But I guess it just it feels confusing if we're gonna offer more fare free when we see reduced fares.
GARCIA - Yeah. It's not every RTA has necessarily opted into the or the full fare free, and so they have implemented them into this of the available funding in different ways. So that might be that reflection. Great.
SABADOSA - So I guess one of my asks, if possible, then is if we14114 could see this broken down by our Absolutely. By our RTAs. I think it would be really useful14118 to just understand better. But thank you. I really appreciate all of the time and energy that's gone into this. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER25 - The
SPEAKER8 - bones?
OWENS - Thank you, Mr Chair. And just some, some praise first. My wife and I both finally got our real IDs, earlier this year, from the Watertown RMV branch. Everything went smoothly. So to answer your question, rep piece, it works great, at least for us. And I wanna thank also, the GM for, my constituents coming, using the red line from alewife down, inbound, have just, really had14164 a much improved experience, since all the slow zones have14168 been removed. So thank you very much for your14170 work on that. The question I had I wasn't gonna ask about local projects, but it's been it was in the slide14178 deck a couple times. Is it Austin multimodal project? That's 615,000,000. Does that include the 335 from the federal14188 government, or is that, is that, separate and apart? And is any of the funding for Austin multimodal, at risk? I know that's probably like a more like a two plus billion dollar project all told, and we this isn't a venue to talk about the design or the layover or anything like that, but I just it is a place to talk about the funding, and I just wanna know if any of that is at risk and what the plan is to make up the, difference going forward.
GULLIVER - It's so I can kind of answer it in this way is that we're the $6.50, I'm or $6.10, whatever the final number was that was on the Yealso multi model, that that was filling the budget gap that that is in addition to the other funding sources that you just mentioned. So the two full project total is just just a little bit over $2,000,000,000 and it's drawing from a number of different sources, drawing from state funds, it's drawing from toll funds, it's drawing from, and by state funds, I meant, our state capital park program bond, and then toll money, which is, which is separately, which is separately budgeted. It's also drawing from an investment from Harvard and BU and from the city of Boston as well. So that $6.50, thereabouts, is filling that last gap that we had earlier. We, we had proposed with ANF a number of different funding sources, and, they again have pushed, fair share as the best option to move forward with the most economical one. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - Rick Howard?
REP HOWARD - Thank you, Chair Diggs. I'm back here.14284 Sorry. My question was also on Real ID, but you had already answered it and exceeded it hours as well. But one thing I've heard from many of my constituents about the Real ID, there are confusions about that you have to be a US citizen in order to get Real ID. So if you can elaborate on and clarify on that because there's nothing mentioned on the website about who is qualified to get Real ID and also about the extended hours, the Saturday extended hours. Is that by appointment only? Or you can just do walk in on the Saturday hours? Because that would help a lot for folks that work during the week.
OBERLE - For real ID. So you can be here legally presence and have lawful presence and qualify for, a real ID. We can send you a list of constituents that, may qualify for that. And Saturdays are by appointment. Saturdays are focused on the license part of the business. We don't do registrations typically on Saturdays, but, we are allowing walk-ins on Saturdays for real ID because we know that as the weeks and the date, comes closer, we're seeing a lot more demand.14359
HOWARD - Excellent. And are those, in multiple languages about the Real ID, are they14365 being translated online with other languages as well?
OBERLE - So I believe, the identity checklist that we have are in the 15 languages. You have a language that's of particular
HOWARD - In my home district, of course,14383 English, Spanish, Portuguese14385 and Khmer, Cambodian.14387 Okay. I don't see a Cambodian one on there. I can't remember.
OBERLE - Nancy stepped out. I can't remember.14393 I don't think not sure we have that on our list of 15, but certainly, Spanish Portuguese. Yeah. I don't think so either. We offer the permit exam in that language, but I don't think we have translated materials.
HOWARD - Yeah. In law, we have 115,000 residents, and about 40,000 of them are Cambodian Americans. So that would be helpful if Khmer can be added as well. And I just wanna give a quick shout-out to MassDOT district 4 crew. So they've been great. They've been very responsive, so thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER3 - Balmita?
REP SULLIVAN - Thank you so much, Mr chairman. Good afternoon. I'm back here, and I apologize if you can see me. So my question so I represent Abington, Whitman, and East Bridgewater. And as you all may know, Abington's been in the news quite a bit regarding the MBTA. And I've reached out in the past because, we had a young girl about maybe several weeks before graduation was struck and killed by the, commuter rail. I believe Abington has between 7 and 8 crossings in a very small proximity of a Ben area. In the past, we have reached out to the MBTA asking for, a safety audit, review14469 around the speed and of the trains that go through the town of Abington. I guess my question to you is there's several questions, but one of the questions14479 is, is there a funding source that's gonna be put into safety audits? My understanding, reviewing, the auditors' audit of the MBTA, I14490 believe the last audit that was done was several14492 years ago in the city of Brockton.
Abington has been in the news more frequently. We had two deaths within no matter of a week. One was a suicide,14500 one was an accident. There is a major problem in the town of Abington when it comes to the rail crossings and deaths. And I understand money is always a factor, but at what point does a life cost more or is more important than the financial factor? I think it's important that we look at safety audits, and that should be a priority of the MBTA. You know, within the last 20 years, there's been over probably 20 plus accidents in the town of Abington since the MBTA14528 has been up and running. And I vividly remember a young woman, when I was younger, getting hit by the train and the talks of her foot14536 still being in her shoe and the Dunkin' Donuts14538 munchkins being lined up14540 on the tracks. So I guess my question is, is a safety audits of our rails a priority of the MBTA, and at what point is Abington gonna be a priority with all the deaths that are taking place in my communities?
ENG - It's safety of our grade crossings, both for vehicular and pedestrian is a top priority for us.14562 When I first joined the MBTA, one of the things we did immediately was implement, across14568 every single one of our grade crossings, measures that we did, actually when I was in Long Island as well. As a best practice, by FRA. And that was to address each grade crossing with new safety components. And that is, with new improved LED lighting, with the pavement marking delineators, as well as cross hatching to identify the areas that, are within the so-called area which the trains passes through to ensure that pedestrians and motorists know to stay outside of those great crossings. We're going to continue to look at how we can address both improving more safety with education and technology. So it is definitely a priority. But every single one of our grade crosses have received this treatment and we're monitoring that right now to see what improvements we've seen that. But I do know that those treatments do work, and we're gonna continue to have to work with each of the different communities on specific improvements that we can add to those locations.
SULLIVAN - Is speed also a factor when you look at safety audits on the trains? I know that, from hearing from my town officials,14637 there are other towns that are very similar in the amount of crossings and their towns14641 and the proximity of the land mass. And it's our understanding that those towns are at the very least, one town has been able to, petition the MBTA to slow the trains down. And I understand that a 30-mile-per-hour train or a 40-mile-per-hour train potentially could14659 still kill a pedestrian, but it may save a life that's in a car. And that is kind of where my head is at. You14665 know, we've had both pedestrian and14667 car accidents on the MBTA line. Going 60 upwards of 70 miles per hour through a very small proximity of a town is very concerning, and I've heard from several residents regarding that. So I just kind of urge the MBTA to I understand that there'll be pushback as far as being late to Boston or being late to the communities people live in.14689 However, a life is important. And I understand suicide is a hard thing to, kind of, dispel in the sense that if a14697 person wants to take their own life, it is something that is going to be difficult to, completely, stop. But if there's a way to minimize that exposure, I'd be really interested in hearing from the AVTA regarding that.
ENG - Sure. The speeds of the trains, are always dependent on the track infrastructure, the geometry of the tracks. But any whatever speeds are dictated through those gray crossings, the signals and the gate, gates are all, designed in or in accordance with that. So as our train is approaching, the lights will go first, and then the gates will come down. And all of that will be predicated on the speed. Aside from education, aside from that technology, and aside from, the enforcement with regards to how people maneuver through a grade crossing, the only other way really is to take a look at grade separation. That is obviously a capital cost. But those are different treatments that can be done, and each one of them has a method. one of the other things that we do with all the communities is what we call Operation Lifesaver. And that's where we have our safety folks, our police, and we really go out and really engage with the riders, with the public, the pedestrians, because a lot of this also is education with regards to safety in and around our train stations and our grade crossings. But, certainly, those are all things that are taken into account when the speed of a train is identified.
SULLIVAN - So I know that the operation Lifesaver has been an important tool, and I applaud our public health nurse who has been very, a strong advocate in that sense, working with our public and14795 also our students and our administration. But I guess my concern is that the standard may be still a little bit too high when it when you're when you're choosing and picking what rail crossings would qualify for a safety audit and maybe that the MBTA should look at those policy and those standards regarding safety audits and maybe lowering those standards, especially when it comes to the life and safety and welfare of communities like mine.
ENG - We'll take another look at that. Thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER3 - Senator Creighton.
CRIGHTON - Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Madam Secretary and your entire team here, everyone that presented. You know, I'm really appreciative of the efforts the Haley Driscoll administration has made in water transportation, in particular for, our stop in Lynn, which today just opened, for the first rides of the season, much earlier than had ever been done before. I guess, if you could just elaborate, I know you touched upon in your initial presentation just a little bit about what House 1 puts towards, water transportation, how the ridership numbers have been, potential for full year service, what it would take to get there, financially, and then also if there are any other, locations you're considering for the future for in terms of expansion to either either the secretary or the GM, whoever?
ENG - Well, water transportation is, something that we're definitely invested in. We wanted to make sure as we tackle this, we focus really ensuring that we have the right leadership. So, Les, one of my first priorities was to appoint a full-time, water transportation director of ferry services, David Perry. We did not want this to be a part-time role. We also, as you mentioned, chair Creighton, are excited about the ridership. It's continuing to go up on the, the ferries. And because of that, the strong ridership that we've seen, particularly with Lynn, is the reason that enables us to each year that we've successfully moved forward is to increase the, starting earlier, running later. Quietly, over the last year and a half, we did purchase a few additional ferries because we knew if we're gonna run reliable and robust ferry service, We need to be able to have backup boats for maintenance and allowing us to continue to improve.
This year, because of those boats that we bought, not only did we run Lynn earlier, but we're also able to separate the, Quincy Winthrop, service to allow for, those two routes to be run individually, say, shaving 30 minutes off of each of the trips each way. You know, so those are the things that we're looking at right now. There are going to be continued opportunity to see how water transportation can14956 be further expanded, particularly in a14958 harbor water transportation, because we think there's so many opportunities for us to grow, in this14964 area, making those connections, not only to the rest of our14968 system, but just being able to take partake in the ability to use the water network that exists. It allows the, quite frankly, the ability14978 to enjoy, you know, weather and outside, when using mass transportation. It is exciting where we're going, and I look forward to being able to continue to grow water transportation here for the Commonwealth. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER3 - Promotion. I see.
MARSI - Thank you, Mr Chairman, madam secretary, and team. Thank you for being here. Other than, you know, the unemployment office, I think our teams worked most with your team. And, so just that's why, you know, we're very thankful for the responsiveness. You know, Mr Gulliver, Dan, you've been very, very helpful. You know, we have a lot of projects in my district, you know, Route Route 20 in particular. I'm gonna have a safety bent to my question, just to say that. Of course, Eddie, you know, you know, he's always got, got something to help us with. And, every every it touches every one of my towns. So thank you all. My question, like I said, is around safety. You know, you you've you've heard some of the other reps talk about it when you know, from the rail side, but, you know, just the other day, we had some, you know, some contractors that work with MassDOT killed on I-91 the other day. I hear from it from my residents, you know, Mr Gulliver, we talked about this, you know, in the past, you know, also, you know, mister Souza last year. What and I have filed some bills to kinda help with this, I hope. But, what's the plan to, you know, keep everybody safe on the highway? Because they're they're in the road as just as much as, you know, other public safety people.
GULLIVER - Thank you, Rep. So15081 as you're aware, there are a number of pieces of pending legislation that are, that's there right now, including, legislation to add, to put some lights, different colored lights on, which we know from, numerous studies across The United States. Right right now, we're restricted to amber lights. Right. But that, both, both green and blue lights have a far, far more, effective penetration when you're dealing with weather like we had today, like fog, you can see it from a much further distance and just far more visible, and it and it really does cause people to slow down. We've been, working with our unions in support of that. The governors are very much in support of all of these initiatives as well, and we've been meeting regularly with state police to get their support on some of these changes as well. So we're hopeful that's going15127 to go through, this year. We certainly think it would be a huge benefit to us. In15133 addition to that, we've been working to bolster up our fleet of equipment that, provides safe measures for our staff. So things like bump trucks, which, provide, you know, an additional measure of safety by having something behind you as the as things are going on.
And we've also taken another look at all of our policies and procedures around, some of the more dangerous things that our people have to do in each and every day, including things like picking up road debris or when they're doing that initial setup. And, we've made some changes to those two, although in some15166 cases inconvenient, makes them more safe15168 when they're out there doing this work. So we're very much committed to it. We have,15172 we, our relationship right now with15174 our union putting this forward has been great. But, again, it remains a challenge and, and there's, the, you mentioned the accident in West Springfield last week, horrific, horrific15185 accident. I believe that I saw today that it was the, largest, single work zone fatality incident that we've had in the history of the Commonwealth where,15196 three construction workers were15198 killed by what we believe to be an impaired driver. That's a case where they had all those protections in place. And this is one of these things where we work, very closely with folks at the RMV, with our partners like AAA and others to really do messaging,
To do whatever we can to slow people down, especially when they're working around when they're when they're driving around work zones because despite best of efforts, there's always going to be, an irresponsible driver that can that is, going at a very high rate of speed like we saw the other day, and that makes them makes their way into one of those work zones and, and really causes a dangerous situation. This also highway safety remains a priority across The United States, not just in Massachusetts, but every single state that we work with. We're in a number of national organizations, including AASHTO that, are working cooperatively to, to really both bring awareness to the issue and also, come up with some common ways of trying to address it, including some of the things I just mentioned, but certainly some of those awareness campaigns, but it, really is a, you know, somebody who receives all these reports in real time as they happen. I can tell you it's disheartening. You know, you don't you don't wanna see anybody get hurt on their highways. And it happens far, far too much.
MARSI - Yeah. No. I appreciate that. And you, the keyword there is awareness. That's one of the reasons I brought it up. You know, I have a constituent that that while we were at another hearing in another town, you know, told me about it. And, like, and I knew I was going to see you guys today. So I wanted to bring this up because, like I said, people are thinking about it, not just the, you know, the employees, but, you know, the roads. So for awareness purposes. So thank you. And so District 3, thanks you guys for all that you could do. And I'll second the Barry Lorian comment. I got him on speed dial. Thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
That.
SPEAKER3 - Rapsusa.
SOUSA - Thank you so much. Thank you all for being here today for, sharing the information, the tremendous work you do. It's when dealing with our constituents, we know it's not easy. The complexity of the issues that, that everyone up here is tackling. My question is about, CLPs and CDLs. So just for a little bit of background, I have, my previous life, I was chair of the school committee in my district, and, anyone in school administration now will tell you that, you get phone calls when a principal all of a sudden resigns and your kids can't get to the bus. And big issue with that is that we don't have enough drivers with CDL. And I know that it's also a big issue across the MBTA, RTAs. But for school buses, it means that, children are left in the cold waiting when buses have to do double runs, and it becomes, or some of them don't make it to school at all and it becomes a really big issue.
And I know one of the concerns that the issues that we have with getting enough CDL, drivers is that a lot of them fail. They get through their permit. It's great that we have such an inclusive process for the CLPs that's in multi languages, but they fail in the under-the-hood component of the test, for a number of reasons. And a couple of other states have explored removing, amending the under the hood component for, inner city buses or buses that are that are gonna be in close proximity to a mechanic. I mean, I understand the need for interstate travel, but to drive a school bus, and if it's15425 the reason, main reason why people are failing the test, has there15429 been is there any appetite to looking into that? Has there been any discussion about reevaluating whether or not we could do away or amend the under-the-hood component in order to get more drivers, CDL licensed specifically for school buses and passenger buses that are not gonna operate interstate?
OBERLE - So, I'm not aware of any internal recent discussions, but we can certainly look at it. It was a topic I think that came up about a year or two ago. So, I'm not familiar off the top of my head with that particular fail reason, but I will commit to look at it and get back to you.
SOUSA - Thank you so much.
DIGGS - I wanna say, Mass Dot, thank you for, what you're doing. You know, my son was killed on April going the opposite way. So to know that you're doing things to put awareness so people can react instead of being killed, is huge. And, just wanna say thank you. So, Rep Holmes.
HOLMES - Thank you. I wanna begin with just, didn't know if you heard in the last session about 31115511 being something that we're gonna try to do for DCR. I know I15515 can use an app on MBTA and report a problem. I15520 think the same. Can we leverage at least the MBTA app across all of your secretariat? Like, I see a problem on the highway and it's trash or something. I should be able to snap a picture of that just like I can snap a something's wrong on the MBTA. Is there an idea or is there a way to get all across in secretariat essentially a 311? 1311. Meaning, I don't have to go to this one. I don't have to go to that one. I don't I can just bang 311, and you guys figure out amongst look how many of you guys are here. Amongst your secretary here, go fix this problem, please. Is there a way to get that to happen?
TIBBITS-NUTT - So this is something we have looked at. The biggest concern we have is we don't want people using their phones while they're driving.
HOLMES - So the answer is you're not gonna do it or you're just worried about I see Gulliver. You're saying, hey. Don't take your picture. You want them to pull over. That's the reason why a highway doesn't have it?
GULLIVER - So we actually, it that's exactly the reason. The law is, obviously, it's hands free. So we don't want you15585 to use your phone. We don't encourage people to look at their phone. We it's been some time since we've reviewed this, maybe the last couple of years. So we can certainly look at it again, see if there's a hands-free option where you can just do the voice to text. Certainly, we'd be it's not for lack believe me, I'd much rather get a direct constituent question rather than hear from you. So I'd like
HOLMES - And I'd much rather not have to call my staff than have to call your staff who then has to call the person. I would much rather all those three steps were eliminated. Someone can just I like them doing the job. Like, if you see a problem, go report it. That would be great.
GULLIVER - Absolutely. Why don't you let us take a look at that, and we'll see if there's some newer opportunities. That and things change quick and there might be a new chance to do it. And, that's developed in the last couple of years, but that has been our big, big concern as people not using it in the hands for.
HOLMES - At least you got an answer. The thing that I would say when Madam Secretary, when I talked to the general manager, in his calls and things, what he continues to communicate is communication. So the reason why I think you get so two reasons. One, I think that extra billion dollars that you hear all these people saying they all love all the work you do now, right, whether that be Republican or Democrat today, is because now you have an extra billion dollars, we can actually do it even though there was this whole imp this whole impetus to not vote for the millionaire's tax. We all need it, and that's one of the reasons why things are so much improved. But then15680 two, communication. When I talked to general manager, like he says, I called him about the Forest Hills issue last week. No one of the buses are coming. No one of the trains are coming. That communication when you walks up improves customer service. And so I think just across the board, that is the thing that's gonna improve in your entire secretary.
My big issue is what I heard today around R&D. And so when I hear rep fees say, hey. What are we doing? People having, you know, they can what do we do about people walking up? And then I hear, I forget who it was down there because I can't see oh, he and his wife had a great experience. RMV is perfect and is running great. I would say no. It is not. For me, COVID has changed the way we think we should interact with people. And so many people say I'm not going back to work. They're saying, you know, my life is easier from home and the like. So my problems around, the answer that I heard is that we have moved towards appointment based for licensing and other things.15752 And I think the way we have the RMV set up today, those with15756 limited means, those who are seniors, even though we have 800 number, those who, don't have English as a first language are still15764 disadvantaged than any one of us sitting15766 on this panel. We have means, we have phones, we have money, and the like. And when we move to, we're not gonna treat the15774 RMV like an emergency. That's the answer I heard. Know that emergencies are still happening.
Know that people have an emergency today. They show up to the emergency room and nobody's there because they can't because we're not taking them because there is no place for them to go.15789 So that leads to people driving with their without their license being official. That leads to them particularly in Boston, I even when you go get the application and you go through that whole filtering, I can go online and finally I can get an appointment today, probably in the Western part of the state, Pittsfield, all these other places. I go to Boston. You're gonna give me weeks weeks before I can get an appointment. And I think the way I see it and the way I feel from15820 my constituents is like we're hiding15822 behind COVID. It's the same thing like, and customer service goes way down from that experience. So I have an emergency today. I don't get served today. I have to go wait weeks or drive 50 miles to get an appointment. My customer service in Boston goes way down. And so15841 this is the one place where if something goes wrong on the MBTA, I don't15847 think people actually expects to be the call the15849 general manager. Something goes wrong where I don't have my license. I need my registration. I need to move a car. I need that today. That's an experience where I expect something today. And so I know we've moved with COVID to be I'm gonna hide from people who don't don't call me.
I'm one of those guys who when you when I make a phone call, I'm yelling, representative, operator, zero. Give me a person. And I feel like in so many ways, we are15879 hiding people from constituents. And that's just I15885 see it most in the r and v, and I really hope we start to move madam registrar towards saying, what does the customer need? Because when I show up in the R and D, I've had to drive an old man 85, had to drive him down the Fall River because we couldn't get an appointment from Boston to get an appointment. And you get into the R&D, and guess what? It's nice. It's big. It's wide open. Nobody's there because we were used to serving emergencies and people roles and roles of people. But now everything about an appointment, sure,15918 you roll you roll it, and I bet the experience of the people working behind the counter is great. it is. I saw15924 how comfortable they are, but emergencies are still happening, and15930 people feel as though they are not15932 being served. And I hope we move towards actually serving emergencies and not just letting them continue to happen. Do you have a comment, registrar, or did you wanna just leave it there?
TIBBITS-NUTT - So, I appreciate the feedback. It's always good to get, the direct, feedback. But I feel that from my going out to the field and from the leadership team I have, they spend a lot of time in the lobby doing the best they can to try to help everybody the same day, even if they don't have an appointment. We've invested in putting people in the lobby in this role we call the navigator to try to bring language services to the lobby, to really put a focus on the people that may come in, not have any guidance from anybody about15979 how to navigate government services, that we spend the time trying to15983 connect them to foreign language15985 services, whether it's on the phone or many of the navigators that, serve in the role in the service center lobbies speak at least one other language other than English. So, I'm sure there are instances where people may have difficulty getting for services, but I feel like my team has been16002 very focused and dedicated, trying to reach all the different16006 constituencies. I16008 certainly hear you what you're saying. We're not meeting them all.
HOLMES - Well, I'm just gonna simply say, their experience, I am sure, in the registry is far improved. Right? They're having a much better work experience, but the end end user client isn't Because the fact that most they're still thinking they're gonna still be able to show up, and get service. I'm gonna just end with MBTA, Mr General Manager. I think the reason you do do so much well so much better is because I bump into you literally on the train and on the buses, and that's not for pictures. You're actually out working, and I appreciate the fact that you're actually working on the rails. So couple things. One is, can you explain escalator repair and while why so many escalators are not in good repair? Two, can you explain I see some new people out with some new jackets, around enforcement, I think, because of the fact that if you go when I use the trains, all I hear often is, people are stealing from us left and right. People I hate when someone I go and I go through the turnstile and someone comes right behind me. It's offensive to me that they're robbing us like that.
So can you explain how we're gonna like, you people take the bag and they throw the bag on the other side so the gate opens up and they can walk in. I'm hoping we're tracking how many times that alarm is going off every day because when I hear it just constantly in the system, I know people are stealing from us and not paying their tolls. And I and you think you're at 700,000 there. I'm sure it's much more16112 than that because there are so many people who are invading. So if you can explain16116 why escalators are16118 not in good repair, must be a reason I'm figuring. Where are we in the state of good repair? What are we gonna do about more enforcement? And then finally, when we move that many people from that major project that we just did to get all of these tracks back up and running, that was a herculean effort. Amazing effort. Where have all those people gone? Like, when you do a superstar effort like that, what is our next superstar effort that's gonna now take us to the next level? Because where we've come from with the MBTA in the last year and a half is incredible. And so let's go from where we are now to where we're heading. That would be great to understand.
TIBBITS-NUTT - I am so sorry. I am solo parenting, and I have to go grab my daughter. So I am so sorry. Under any other circumstance, well, my wife is out of town. So I'm gonna sprint out of here. I will follow-up with anything you have to say, and my team is here, including my undersecretary. So my apologies. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER3 - Understand. Drive safe.
ENG - So let me take the escalators first. One of the things that I made a priority when I first got here is our stations, not only from the concerns originally of components that, were falling, but making sure that they're clean and the safe16198 environment. I did appoint a head of stations and facilities to Dennis16202 Farley. But we know escalators is one of those components that have not gotten the maintenance that it needed, the dollars to replace them as they're needed. Dennis and his team is working very closely, with the, with the maintenance regarding escalators, and also developing with regards to every station that we're improving, is to ensure that when we're putting money into a station, we are taking a look at escalators, elevators, and stairs, to be quite honest. There's a number of components in16234 our stations that16235 have gone, under invested, and escalators is one of those. I wish I had a solution to solving all of them. The capital16244 investment to replace escalators is huge. But we are focused on really taking a look16250 at how they've been maintained in the past and how do we keep them safe and functional as we put capital Dallas to replace or reconstruct stations.
Regarding fares, that has been another area that we're very focused on, ensuring because aside from the proposed budget with regards to helping our operating, we do know how important the fares are. They will not solve our financial picture completely themselves, but the fares do matter. And every single one of those fares is important. Last year, we hired the first time, what we call fair engagement representatives. There's 16 of those fair engagement representatives right now. And, initially, they've been trained on in interacting with the public with regards to education, and that education is about the importance of paying fair, reminding them that we now have a new fair payment collection tap and go that makes it easier to pay your fares, but also, that for those that have a need, that we have income eligible for the first time across all of our modes. Those fare engagements, they work in teams. And every station that they've been to, we have seen that the fair collection, and fair payments have gone up about 30% where they are right now.16325 And the other component16327 is they have been originally starting on green, and riding the trains and at certain stations on the green line. But then we've recently moved them to Orange in some areas where we see fare evasion such as Back Bay.
And we also put them on the commuter rail. So they are moving about the system and they continue to engage. And just a little bit more with fair collection. One of the things that we really pushed hard on, was to get, the gates at South Station and Back Bay installed this year. That was something that's been long delayed. And I'm pleased to say that right now, South Station, working with the developer for the overbill to accelerate their schedule. We have that on pace to start, right now, at South Station. And then Back Bay will be later this year. We saw how much fare collection, was able to improve on the commuter rail. At the same time, Kyolas, our operator, has been, working very hard with their employees to ensure that they are walking through and validating. And we have seen that, number get closer with the number of validations, with the number of trips. So we're working on all fronts with regards to how we can improve fair collection. The next big thing, is to make sure that we don't fall backwards on the track work that we've just done. But there's a whole host of important things that are tied to improving track.
And I mentioned how literally in one16415 year we probably took, about only 10% of our track subways, subway tracks in a state of good repair to over 50% in a state of good repair. And if I had gone through the original needs, that would have been a billion dollars. And we probably spent about 400,000,000 to do, probably half of our needs. So that shows how we can be, much more cost effective. Right now, we're also focused on a long-delayed upgrade to our red and orange line signals. They're analog. They're going to become digital. And we're really striving hard to have it done before the World Cup next year. That may be pushing ourselves a little more than we can, but we've really been, aggressively pursuing that. A lot of that work is taking place right now during weekends. But we're also pushing on how we give access to those contractors, just like we did with the, track improvement program. We're giving these contractors uninterrupted weekends so they can work around the clock. We're also doing areas where we've been able to keep people on trains by single tracking. Another way of giving contractors more dedicated time to be productive, to be effective, and to get more production done while keeping people on our trains.
And so signals is important. We continue to focus on rolling stock. Orange Line cars, all new by the end of this year. They're all running new now, but we'll have completed the delivery of all the Orange Line new cars. Red Line, we probably have a little over 40 new Red Line type four cars here. And little by little, we'll we'll take out the old cars, and we'll have a much more reliable fleet of Red Line cars. And the last cars of that will be delivered in 2027. Going forward, type 10 green line cars are being built right now. We're excited about the first pilot green line cars next year, at which point we'll be able to, start to retire the16531 type sevens and the type eights. We will have a much more consistent rolling stock on green line, blue line. We're taking a16539 look at overhauls on the needs to ensure that our existing cars, which has been one of our most reliable, stays reliable for the life of those cars. And then commuter rail, where this capital investment plan is looking at the new locomotives that we need to keep out to build, deliver the level of service that we want. We're working very hard on getting more bilevel coaches because as we improve frequency, on our commuter rails, we need to have those coaches so people are gonna be, sitting in safe, clean, and state of the art cars.
Couple of key things for, commuter rail as well. The battery electric multiple units to electrify Fairmont is progressing. We're excited about that. And we have signal upgrades going on right now in the Worcester Corridor. That will be done, sometime next year. And at which point we can improve the frequencies on that Worcester Corridor from about 45 minutes between trains to every 30 minutes on trains. So as we continue to build out our system on commuter rail, it's how do we make it more subway-like? Subways is gonna be continuing to ensure that we're improving service not only in the weekdays, but on off peak, and that we're continuing to see. And it's all because of the support of the legislature and in our past budgets that the hiring we've done is going to allow us to actually be more efficient, and deliver better service. And as we build more skill sets in house, we can better manage the third party consultants and contractors that we that we contract with. So there's a whole host of things building off of the track infrastructure. It's the power, the signals, the rolling stock. But our stations, as you mentioned in the beginning, escalators, cleanliness, safety, and security, all of that is being taken with that.
HOLMES - Thank you. He looked at me. So I'm just Hills, I wanna just say I need my, new like, Quincy's getting their new busway, their new bus maintenance. You know when I'm a get my Parris Hills bus maintenance facility? 200,000,000 or 300,000,000, whatever that thing is going to cost?
ENG - We right now we're taking a look at, us as a network. We have 40% of our riders using bus. The operators and luckily for us, Rep Sousa, we've been very blessed with being able to see a lot of folks wanna be bus operators at the MBTA. And because of that, we've been able to run more bus trips, more reliable, less drop trips. We also know that our bus fleet is something that we need to invest in, our existing busses, because the more people that use mass transportation, whether it's electric or not, is getting people out of their cars. The bus maintenance facilities that we have today do need to have investments in that. And at the same time, we are making tough decisions on how to make sure that we're investing in, facilities as we get new electric busses. We do have an order right now with New Flyer. They have been delivering I think we have about four or five new electric busses, and we'll have 10 by the, within a short period of time. The challenge right now is to invest and make sure the bus maintenance facilities for electric busses is up and running and still have sufficient dollars to keep our existing fleet and those facilities. So it's a balancing of procuring new and keeping the old. And all of the bus facilities are important to us. We are taking a look at how we can better manage, and distribute bus, maintenance facilities across our territory.
DIGGS - Thank you. I misspoke, so I said something like my son was going the right way. He was hit by wrong way drivers. So thank you very much. And, that was a real great, conversation that we had, and, thank you for do you have anything I'm gonna say? Oh, Repdigzarus.
XIARHOS- Thank you. I'm glad you brought that up. Repdig's son was killed, by a wrong-way driver who killed, herself and four others. Five people in a horrible moment that we all wish never happened. And that's why I mentioned what you do about safety. It's not always about dollars. It's about human lives. Real quick, two questions. One for you, sir, and one for the registrar. Upper Cape Tech High School is right at the Born Bridge Rotary. They are in a tough spot, very dangerous how the students come in and out of that driveway. It needs to be reconfigured. We're waiting because, we don't wanna reconfigure it kind of if the bridges are coming. So there is a plan that I've seen that would fix it, but it's tied in with the new born bridge, which could be 10 years from now. So the local selectmen and myself being the Rep were asking if you could at least put that on your radar or maybe do that ahead of time. It looks like it can be done and then go into the rotary that's currently there. And then when the new one comes, it should be fine. But those students that are going in and out of there and walking across the street, it's very precarious.
GULLIVER - Rep. But I'm not familiar with it, but we will absolutely take a look at it. And if16887 there's a way to advance it, sir, certainly, we will. So I'll huddle with our district staff, who's more16893 in tune with that, and we'll see what we can find out.
16895 XIARHOS16895 -16895 Thank16895 you very much. And for the registrar, Madam, the real ID situation, I'm glad it was brought up. We do have16902 some constituents that say that16904 they cannot use the Yarmouth registry. We only have one on the cake, basically, and they're not allowed to go to that one to get a real ID. They say they have they go online and it kicks them to other ones. They're not allowed to go in person or, use that online. I don't know if that factor
OBERLE - That doesn't make sense to me, but that's some kinda error.
XIARHOS - Okay. Good. Because I understand what you were saying.
OBERLE - Yeah. There's no prohibition from, not doing real ID at South Yarmouth, and we have that big, beautiful, newly renovated site. So we'll get that clarified.
XIARHOS - Thank you. Fantastic. Thank you, Chair Diggs.
DIGGS - You're welcome. Thank you, everybody, for being here. Great conversation, and, we look forward to seeing you again soon. And if you have any questions, you know how to get in touch with us. So have a great day, and I can close this out. It's adjourned.
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