Bills

• The language in the bill deals with the need to maintain our roads and bridges by establishing a substitute: a road usage charge for in-state travel, to be imposed beginning in January 2027 on clean energy vehicles. Revenues accrued from the charge will supplement the motor vehicle fuel tax as the Commonwealth transitions to clean energy in the transportation sector.

S.2228 – An Act to set equal contracting conditions for electricity customers on basic service

• Electric bills have gone up for everyone. But in recent years they’ve gone up more for customers of the “basic service” plans of Eversource, National Grid, and Unitil than they have for everybody else. These people have been hit hard and, for many of them, a “municipal aggregation” alternative is not available.

• How can this be? The experts we consulted point to a section of state law as the singular source of disadvantage for people on basic service. Cities and towns that do municipal aggregation are free to negotiate fixed rates with power generating companies for any period up to three years; they go long or short, depending on market conditions.

• In contrast, the statute in question limits the utilities to negotiating contracts with generators for periods of no longer than six months. The lack of flexibility means that, just recently, the utilities had to go out for new pricing in the middle of inflationary bombogenesis. Their customers are getting whacked.

• This bill will not hurt municipal aggregation programs, which we strongly support. They will be able to operate as they have in the past. What this bill will do is inject fair competition into a situation marred, at the moment, by a thumb on the scale.

• SD.2216 requires the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) to investigate whether the state should join the Western Climate Initiative (WCI), the cap-and-trade market that includes California and Quebec.

• This bill requires EEA to submit a report to the legislature detailing the benefits and costs of the market-based compliance mechanisms required to participate in the WCI. The report may include recommendations on pursuing and structuring potential participation in the WCI and other similar regional market-based compliance programs.

• If EEA finds that participation in a regional market-based compliance system like the WCI promotes compliance with Massachusetts greenhouse gas emissions limits, SD.2216 empowers the administration to adopt regulations needed to join regional market-based compliance systems like the WCI. Whether Massachusetts joins a regional market-based compliance system, however, will be subject to approval by the legislature.

• Jets are highly carbon intensive, especially private jets used for short flights with few passengers.

• The excise tax rate for gasoline used in cars is set at $0.24 per gallon. However, the excise tax rate for jet fuel has consistently been less than $0.20 for nine of the last ten calendar quarters going back to 2022.

• The bill brings the excise tax rate for jet fuel in line with the tax rate for gas.

• People who make energy efficiency investments in their homes increase the value of the property but have no ready way to make the increase evident to would-be buyers.

• This bill provides a solution, so that property owners can recoup some of their investment when they go to sell. It directs DOER to develop and implement a municipal opt-in energy performance rating program, built on three pillars: the conduct of an energy assessment on a property intended for sale, the subsequent calculation of an energy performance rating, and the sharing of the rating with buyers or prospective buyers, and with tenants or prospective tenants, before the sale or lease of a residential dwelling unit.

• This first-in-the-nation legislation gives Massachusetts residents the option, when filing their state income taxes, to contribute to a special United Nations fund set up some years ago to help developing countries deal with global warming. The MA income tax form already features six “tax check-off” options, all for good causes in Massachusetts. This bill adds a climate-conscious option, the first, and an option that reaches beyond the state, also a first. 

• Vulnerable countries designated by the UN for assistance from the fund include Haiti, Nepal, Cambodia, and Afghanistan. Today the fund’s resources come from developed countries and philanthropic sources. Massachusetts can blaze a path that other states will follow.

• Like its six predecessors, the fund would be a pass-through accounting mechanism that imposes essentially no administrative cost on state government.

• Currently, bars and restaurants have no statutory obligation to put closed captioning on their publicly-available televisions. Closed captioning is especially helpful for people with hearing loss — the third most prevalent chronic physical condition in the country. Closed captioning makes TV programs more accessible, which is particularly important when the programming relates to an emergency like a storm or the pandemic.

• This bill offers a simple fix: it requires any place of public accommodation, like a restaurant or bar, to activate closed captioning on their televisions upon request.