To the Conferees re: Climate Legislation in 2024

July 27, 2024

To the Conferees: Chair Barrett, Chair Roy, Majority Leader Creem, Vice Chair Haggerty, and Ranking Members and Minority Leaders Tarr and Jones,

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the policy director at Progressive Massachusetts. We are a statewide, multi-issue, grassroots membership organization focused on fighting for policy that would make our Commonwealth more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic. 

Thank you for your work in negotiating a final version of climate legislation, reconciling S.2838 and H.4884.

This past Monday was the hottest day on record, according to a European climate service. The urgency around robust and equitable climate action could not be clearer.

Massachusetts has in recent years made important commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with the recommendations of the International Panel on Climate Change and the Paris Climate Agreement. Setting targets is critical, but meeting them requires real work, consisting of the decarbonization of all sectors of our economy. And we must do this work in a way that does not reproduce the inequities endemic to the fossil fuel economy from which we must transition away.

We urge you to include the following provisions of the Senate or House bills in the final legislation you produce:  

  • Putting Gas Companies on a Path to Provide Clean, Non-Emitting Renewable Energy (Sections 46, 74, and 76 of the Senate Bill; Section 24 of the House bill): Among other measures, these sections would allow gas companies to sell networked geothermal energy, limit the expansion of new gas mains unless there are no feasible alternatives to gas, require that the public interest in greenhouse gas reductions be considered when evaluating proposed expansions to gas mains, permit gas companies to meet their “obligation to serve” by providing customers with renewable substitutes, encourage gas companies to repair or retire leak-prone pipelines, and require gas companies to implement an orderly transition to non-emitting energy for heating buildings.

In short, as the Department of Utilities made clear back in December, there cannot be a future for gas in Massachusetts. The DPU can only do so much on its own, and we need legislative action.

  • Electrifying the Commuter Rail System (Section 138 of the Senate Bill): This is a critical component of an MBTA-wide plan for decarbonization.
  • Easing Access to Solar in Historic Districts (Section 106 of the Senate Bill): We need to remove roadblocks to residential solar if we are to achieve the scale necessary.
  • Updating Our Bottle Bill (Sections 45-58 of the Senate Bill)
  • Updating the Massport Charter to include attention to climate change and environmental justice (Sections 108 & 109 of the Senate bill sections; Sections 65A&B of the House bill)
  • Removing Woody Biomass from the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standard for Municipal Lighting Plants (Section 115 of the Senate Bill)
  • Establishing Labor Standards and Reporting for Clean Energy Procurement (as reflected in the adopted amendments #120 in the Senate and #100 in the House)

Similarly, we echo the demands of the Mass Power Forward coalition to include the following in a final bill:

  • Siting and Permit Approvals tied to a robust cumulative impact analysis. Such an analysis must be holistic, incorporating past and current exposures to pollution and other chemical sources, as well as other factors found in the built, natural, and social environments, and their impact on quality of life and public health.
  • Clean air for environmental justice populations and all. (as found in Senate Bill Amendment 100; House Bill amendment 15). Environmental Justice (EJ) populations are disproportionately affected by air pollution. By including air quality policy in the climate bill, we will improve indoor and outdoor air, especially for EJ populations and residents burdened by pollution from congested roadways and ports, and mold in housing.
  • Ending large-scale gas pipeline expansion (as found in Senate Bill Amendment 16; House bill Amendment 17): Every new mile of high-pressure pipeline installed is an expensive asset that will have to be paid off over decades by ratepayers or, if stranded, by taxpayers, and such expansion irreconcilable with meeting our climate goals.

Thank you again for your work on this important issue.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

Letter to the Economic Development Conference Committee

July 25, 2024

To the Conferees:

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the policy director at Progressive Massachusetts. We are a statewide, multi-issue, grassroots membership organization focused on fighting for policy that would make our Commonwealth more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic. 

Thank you for your work in negotiating a final version of the economic development bill.

I am writing today to express our strong support for sections 4, 6, 101, 102, 114, 165-169, 179-218, 254, and 257-280 of S.2869. These sections would raise the age of criminal responsibility to 19, thereby ensuring that 18-year-olds are kept out of the adult prison system.

This reform is good for public safety, good for the economy, and good for advancing racial equality in the commonwealth.

Public Safety: An overly punitive approach towards young people increases recidivism by taking away access to education and other supports that are vital to rehabilitation and smooth re-entry. 18-year-olds are, let’s remember, largely high school seniors. We want everyone to be able to finish high school, and we can best achieve educational outcomes by ensuring that young people are in an environment set up for that. Education and supportive services are essential for young people to become stable, contributing adults, and that is essential to community stability.

Economy:  Involvement with the adult legal system creates significant barriers for young people in obtaining education, skill-building, and career development opportunities. Keeping 18-year-olds out of the adult system will help them to better achieve their full economic potential, and when that happens, we all benefit.


Racial Equity: Legal system involvement is concentrated in particular communities — especially low-income, Black, and brown communities. When we cut off economic opportunity from Black and Brown youth, both as teenagers and—as a result—as adults, we are exacerbating the racial wealth gap in Massachusetts and compounding deeply rooted inequalities.

Massachusetts has the opportunity to make our communities safer, our economy stronger, and our commonwealth more equitable. We urge you to take it.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

End of Session Letter on Criminal Justice Reform

July 15, 2024

Via Electronic Mail

Senator Karen Spilka

President of the Senate

Karen.Spilka@masenate.gov

Representative Ronald Mariano

Speaker of the House

Ronald.Mariano@mahouse.gov

Representative Aaron Michlewitz

Chairperson, House Committee on Ways and Means

Chairperson, Joint Committee on Ways and Means

Aaron.M.Michlewitz@mahouse.gov

Senator Michael Rodrigues

Chairperson, Senate Committee on Ways and Means

Chairperson, Joint Committee on Ways and Means

Michael.Rodrigues@masenate.gov

Representative John Lawn, Jr. 

Chairperson, Joint Committee on Healthcare Financing

John.Lawn@mahouse.gov

Senator Cindy Friedman

Chairperson, Joint Committee on Health Care Financing

Vice Chair, Senate Committee on Ways and Means

Vice Chair, Joint Committee on Ways and Means

Cindy.Friedman@masenate.gov

RE: 36 Organizations Urge Support of Criminal Legal System Reform

Dear Senate President Spilka, Speaker Mariano, Chair Michlewitz, Chair Rodrigues, Chair Lawn, and Chair Friedman:

We are a coalition of 36 advocacy organizations focused on improving public health and safety through corrections system reform. We are heartened that several important and broadly supported criminal legal reform policies were advanced out of committee, reflecting the legislature’s commitment to the well-being of incarcerated people and our communities. We believe that now is the time to move these bills to the floor, all of which would affirm the human rights of incarcerated individuals, prepare them for successful re-entry, reduce racial inequity, and promote the health and safety of our communities. Passing these bills is especially important in this moment of transition at the Department of Correction — we have an opportunity to reshape correctional culture in a way that is more conducive to rehabilitation, prioritizes continuing to safely reduce the prison population, and improves transitions back to the community. We urge you to bring the following bills to floor votes with enough time before the end of the session to ensure that if there is a veto, there is time to override.

Currently in the Joint Committee for Health Care Finance

  • An Act to ensure appropriate access to medical parole,  H.2319 (reported favorably from the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security): This bill would carry forward the promise of medical parole, which was established by the 2018 Criminal Justice Reform Act (CJRA). It clarifies language to ensure that people with cognitive incapacitations have access to the process, reduces delays, and provides for appropriate parole supervision and judicial review. 

Currently in the Senate Committee on Ways and Means

Currently in the House Committee on Ways and Means

  • An Act related to rehabilitation, re-entry, and human rights for incarcerated persons, H.2325 (reported favorably from the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security): This bill would establish universal baseline standards for conditions of confinement for everyone incarcerated in Massachusetts state prisons, county jails, and houses of correction. The standards would actualize reforms to restrictive housing enshrined in the CJRA, reduce the harm incarcerated people experience and help support successful re-entry into the community. 
  • An Act to strengthen family and community connection with incarcerated people, H.2314 (reported favorably from the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security): This bill rolls back unnecessary restrictions on prison and jail visitation, which is a critical system for maintaining community connections and supporting successful re-entry.
  • An Act establishing parole review for aging incarcerated people, H.2397 (reported favorably from the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security): While the prison population overall is decreasing, the percentage of the population who are elderly is increasing. This bill would provide an opportunity for parole for all incarcerated people over the age of 55 who have already served half of their sentence or at least 15 years. 
  • An Act ensuring access to addiction services, H.1966/S.1247 (reported favorably from the committee on Mental Health, Substance Use and Recovery): This bill would end the practice of incarcerating men who have not been convicted of any crime but who have been civilly committed for involuntary treatment for alcohol and substance use disorders under M.G.L. chapter 123, section 35 (also known as “Section 35”). 

Currently in the Budget Conference Committee

  • Ensuring full implementation of No Cost Calls: Last year, Massachusetts passed legislation to guarantee free communication between incarcerated individuals and their loved ones (“No Cost Calls”). This policy has already improved vital community connections for incarcerated people and their families. To continue this progress and ensure effective implementation, we need both dedicated funding and robust reporting by the Department of Correction and County Sheriffs. We ask the budget conference committee to dedicate $35M in the Communications Access Trust Fund for No Cost Calls in prisons and jails (item 1595-6153 in the House FY 2025 budget proposal) and to make technical fixes to the reporting requirements, so that policymakers have the information they need to effectively monitor the No Cost Calls law (Section 29 A&B of the Senate FY 2025 budget proposal).

Together, the above bills will create effective implementation of existing law, advance human rights,  improve conditions of confinement, promote successful re-entry, provide meaningful pathways to safe release for elderly people and those who are very sick or incapacitated, and help to ensure that we invest commonwealth resources in our communities. 

As the formal session enters its last weeks, we strongly believe that there is still time to meaningfully reform our corrections system to further public health and safety, reduce racial inequity, and support commonwealth communities. Indeed, we believe it is urgent to do so.

Thank you for your time and attention to these important issues. 

Sincerely,

Abolitionist Mail Project

ACLU of Massachusetts

Actual Criminal Justice Roundtable of the Southern New England United Church of Christ

Boston Immigration Justice Accompaniment Network (BIJAN) 

Bristol County for Correctional Justice

Campaign to End Life Without Parole (CELWOP)

Coalition for Effective Public Safety (CEPS) Steering Committee

Coalition for Social Justice Action

Coalition for Social Justice Education Fund

Color Of Change

Committee for Public Counsel Services

CORI Initiative, Center for Law & Social Responsibility at New England Law | Boston

Decarcerate Western MA Bailout Project

DeeperThanWater Coalition

Disability Law Center

Drop LWOP New England

F8 Foundation

Families for Justice as Healing

First Parish Brookline, Unitarian Universalist

First Parish Concord, Unitarian Universalist 

First Parish in Bedford, Unitarian Universalist

Greater Boston Legal Services CORI & Re-entry Project

Human Rights at Home Clinic, UMass Law School

Jane Doe Inc., The Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence

Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee

Massachusetts Against Solitary Confinement (MASC)

Massachusetts Association for Mental Health

Massachusetts Parole Preparation Partnership

Massachusetts Peace Action

Prison Policy Initiative

Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts

Progressive Massachusetts 

Real Cost of Prisons Project

Showing Up for Racial Justice Boston

T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights

Unitarian Universalist Mass Action

Women and Incarceration Project

Letter to the Conferees on the Affordable Homes Act

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the policy director at Progressive Massachusetts. We are a statewide, multi-issue, grassroots membership organization focused on fighting for policy that would make our Commonwealth more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic. 

Massachusetts faces a growing affordable housing crisis. To rent the average 2-bedroom apartment in Massachusetts requires an income equal to $37.97 per hour, more than twice the minimum wage. Home ownership has become increasingly out of reach, as the state’s median home price has passed $600,000. The high cost of housing has led to displacement, and in a growing number of municipalities, the local workforce can no longer afford to live there.

We are grateful for the work spent on the Affordable Homes Act (H.4726) this session, as it contains a number of critically important tools for addressing this affordability crisis. 

We appreciate the inclusion in both chambers’ bills of provisions such as legalizing accessory dwelling units as of right with minimal restrictions (Sections 7 & 8 of the House bill,  Sections 10 & 11 of the Senate bill), streamlining the process for using surplus state-owned land for housing (Section 105 in the House bill, Section 135 in the Senate bill), and creating an Office of Fair Housing (Section 5 of the House bill, Section 8 of the Senate bill). 

When negotiating a final version of this bill, we urge you to incorporate the great ideas present in both bills, notably the following:

  • Eviction Sealing Protections (Section 66 of the Senate bill), which would provide tenants with the ability to seal an eviction record in certain types of cases at certain times. Right now, there is nothing tenants in Massachusetts can do to seal an eviction record—even if they did nothing wrong, won the case, or paid off any rent due. The moment an eviction case is filed—regardless of the reason or the outcome—a tenant has a permanent and publicly available eviction record on the Trial Court’s website that creates a significant barrier to finding a next place to live.
  • Tenant Opportunity to Purchase local option (Section 36D of the House bill), which would provide cities and towns the ability to pass ordinances to give tenants the right to buy their buildings by matching a third-party offer when their building goes up for sale. TOPA gives tenants, or a non-profit they designate, a chance of becoming owners of their homes, preserving affordability and requiring no loss of profit to the seller. 
  • Banning Broker’s fees (Section 37 of the Senate bill), which would ensure that renters are not burdened with unreasonable costs and would promote transparency and fairness in real estate transactions. As tenants struggle to afford to rent in our increasingly unaffordable housing market, brokers’ fees can make housing options unattainable due to the increase in upfront costs required. A renter who moves every few years could have to pay such costs each time, and tenants on housing vouchers face restricted housing options due to the barriers these fees create. Moreover, MA is an outlier, as in most states landlords have to bear the full fee. The Boston Globe has excellent recent reporting on this issue: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/07/10/business/rental-brokers-boston-september-leases/. 
  • Foreclosure Mediation Pilot Program (Section 150 of the Senate bill), which would help ensure housing stability. Under mediation, a homeowner and lender meet face-to-face with a mediator and discuss how to address a default. Sixteen states and DC have already adopted this proven policy. This excellent Boston Globe article underscores the importance of such a program: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/07/12/opinion/homeowners-foreclosure-mediation-legislature/. We also echo the call for minor modifications to the language as urged by the Homes for All coalition. 
  • Inclusionary Zoning by Simple Majority (Section 13 of the Senate bill), which would allow cities and towns to pass, by simple majority, ordinances that require up to and including 13% of new units be affordable. Inclusionary zoning helps increase the economic diversity of affluent communities and expand affordable housing options. 
  • Small Properties Acquisition Fund (Line Item 7004-0073, line 312, in the Senate bill), which provides not less than $10,000,000 for a Small Properties Acquisition Funding Pilot established in item 1599-6084 of section 2A of the Acts of 2022. This would provide subsidies for nonprofit acquisition of homes from the market, and by including funding for the production of affordable homeownership units that can be kept affordable in perpetuity.
  • Housing Shortage Commission (Section 142 of the Senate bill), which would establish a commission to produce a report about policies that can provide sustainable and equitable housing solutions to: (i) improve housing production; (ii) address racial wealth disparities in housing; (iii) ensure regional equity in housing; and (iv) prevent chronic homelessness, with the commission’s purview including studying a transfer fee, a vacancy tax, a blight tax, an increase in the excise tax, and community land trusts. 

We hope that these measures will find your support. Poll after poll shows that voters across the Commonwealth want comprehensive action on housing, and this bill can be an important step forward. 

Sincerely, 

Jonathan Cohn 

Policy Director 

Progressive Massachusetts 

Climate Organizations’ Priorities for the House Climate Bill

To the 193rd General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, House of Representatives,

RE: Climate Organizations’ Priorities for the House Climate Bill

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has made a commitment to environmental justice and to meeting our climate goals in order to ensure a livable planet and a just transition for all. The  Legislature is poised to take a major step towards modernizing the electric grid and promoting the electrification of transportation and buildings. We call on the House of Representatives to take this opportunity to meet critical environmental justice (EJ) goals and to equitably and rapidly transform the gas industry into one that meets the Commonwealth’s climate goals while keeping gas rates down.

The undersigned organizations present elements that must be in this year’s climate bill when it lands on Governor Healey’s desk.

  1. Siting and Permit Approvals tied to a robust cumulative impact analysis. A cumulative impacts analysis (or a reference to it in legislation) will not be meaningful for EJ populations if the analysis is limited to foreseeable impacts related only to the project. In a dramatically streamlined permitting process, like the one envisioned in S.2829, redrafted as S.2838, a cumulative impacts analysis that takes the entire context of a community’s pollution and industrial burden into account is a critical protection for environmental justice communities. A cumulative impacts analysis is not a cure-all or a blanket requirement for a project proponent to redress all of the burdens existing in a host community. It would allow project proponents, decision-makers, and the public to better understand the existing conditions in a host community, weigh the benefits and burdens associated with projects that promote decarbonization of the electricity sector, and ensure that the people living in the communities where that infrastructure is sited are able to benefit from it.
  1. Clean air for environmental justice populations and all. Environmental Justice (EJ) populations — people of color, Indigenous people, low-income people, and limited English proficient speakers— are especially affected by air quality problems. Including air quality policy will improve indoor and outdoor air quality, especially for EJ populations and residents burdened by pollution from congested roadways and ports, gas stoves, and mold in rental housing. Policies should include updating the state sanitary code to require annual mold inspections and create clear timelines for remediating mold in rental housing; Setting and achieving ambitious air pollution reduction targets by 2030 and 2035; Requiring installation of air filters in existing eligible buildings, such as schools, residential buildings with more than 2 tenant-occupied units; Requiring advanced filtration systems (e.g.,MERV 16) for new eligible buildings, such as day care facilities, residential developments, hospitals, schools, long-term care facilities, school aged child care programs, temporary shelters, nursing homes; Expand outdoor air monitoring ultrafine particulate matter and black carbon in pollution hotspots identified by an advisory committee.
  1. End large scale gas pipeline expansion. The Commonwealth’s statutory mandate to reach net zero emissions by 2050 requires an orderly transition to clean  heat for buildings. Every new mile of high pressure pipeline installed is an expensive asset that will have to be paid off over decades by ratepayers or, if stranded, by taxpayers. Stopping the installation of these large scale pipeline expansions (more than 1 mile and more than 100 pounds per square inch), will improve public health and safety and reduce the future financial exposure of ratepayers and taxpayers. 
  1. Put gas companies on a path to provide clean, non-emitting renewable energy rather than fossil gas that leaks methane into the atmosphere and into our homes and businesses. Heating and cooling buildings contributes a third of the Commonwealth’s greenhouse gas emissions, mostly a result of burning gas. There are several important changes the Legislature can make to accelerate this transition to clean, non emitting energy.:
  1. Change the definition of gas company to allow  gas companies to sell non-emitting renewable thermal energy, such as networked geothermal systems. These systems are six times more efficient than conventional gas burners for heating buildings.
  2. Limit the expansion of new gas mains unless there are no feasible alternatives to gas that can provide substantially similar service, taking into account the public interest in meeting greenhouse gas emission reduction mandates and in avoiding stranded assets, the cost of which will be borne by ratepayers.
  3. Permit gas companies to meet their “obligation to serve” by providing customers with adequate non-emitting renewable substitutes.
  4. Reform the current program (called GSEP) to encourage gas companies to repair or retire leak-prone pipelines, rather than replacing pipes that are projected to cost ratepayers some $34 billion between 2022 and 2039.  We should instead encourage gas companies to install non-emitting renewable sources of energy such as ground source heat pumps connected through  networked geothermal systems.
  5. Require gas companies to plan and implement an orderly, safe transition to non-emitting energy for heating buildings.
  1. Other Important Policies From Frontline Communities
    1. Require the MBTA to electrify the entire commuter rail system: The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority should be required to develop and implement short-term, medium-term and long-term plans for each line of the commuter rail system, ensuring that the line is fully integrated into the Commonwealth’s transportation system and designed to make the system more productive, equitable and decarbonized. 
    2. Remove woody biomass from the alternative energy portfolio standard: Limiting the eligibility of woody biomass as an alternative energy supply removes ratepayer funded subsidies for toxic woody biomass by excluding large and intermediate-sized wood heating units from qualifying for credits through the Alternative Portfolio Standard (APS) and  is consistent with Governor Healey’s campaign platform. 
    3. Removing woody biomass from the greenhouse gas emissions standard for municipal lighting plants would close the “biomass loophole” for Municipal Light Plants (MLPs).  Last session, the legislature removed biomass power plants from qualifying for the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), with the passage of An Act Driving Clean Energy and Offshore Wind.  Because the RPS does not apply to municipal light plants , incentives remain for developers to build and operate wood-burning power plants in the Commonwealth, using ratepayer “clean energy” subsidies, or even to purchase biomass energy from other New England states. 
    4. Establish Labor Standards and Reporting for Clean Energy Procurement: A special commission charged with assessing the  impacts on the fossil fuel workforce caused by public or private efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or transition from fossil fuels to clean energy will provide us with the necessary information to develop labor standards and to make thoughtful decisions to achieve a just transition to clean energy. 

These additions expand the impact of the pending climate bill, from a necessary expansion of the electric grid itself (crucial to bringing in the thousands of megawatts of renewable electricity we need) to ensure that Environmental Justice populations are not overburdened and to protect gas customers and taxpayers from the ballooning costs of maintaining an expensive and dangerous gas system that will soon be obsolete.  We hope the House will show strong support for environmental justice and rapid decarbonization, and adopt these recommendations.

The following organizations comprising most of the members of the MA Environmental Justice Table, Mass Power Forward coalition and Gas Transition Allies:

  1. 350 Central Mass
  2. 350 Mass of Greater Lowell
  3. 350 Mass
  4. 350 Mass Boston
  5. 350 Mass Berkshire Node
  6. 350 Mass Newton Node
  7. 350 Mass North Shore
  8. All In Energy
  9. Alternatives for Community & Environment (ACE)
  10. Andover WECAN
  11. Arborway Coalition
  12. Arise for Social Justice
  13. Becket Energy Committee
  14. Berkshire Environmental Action Team
  15. Boston Clean Energy Coalition 
  16. Boston Climate Action Network (BCAN)
  17. Boston Green Action
  18. Boston Harbor Storm Surge Working Group
  19. Boston Teachers Union Climate Justice Committee, Steering Committee*
  20. Breathe Easy Berkshires
  21. Brimmer and May Environmental Club
  22. Brookhaven Residents’ Climate Change Committee
  23. Canton Democratic Town Committee 
  24. Canton Sustainable Equitable Future
  25. Cape Ann Climate Coalition Organizing Committee
  26. Centro Presente
  27. Chase Systems
  28. Citizens’ Climate Lobby, Mass. North Shore Chapter
  29. Citizens Climate Lobby South Shore & Cape chapter
  30. Clean Water Action Massachusetts
  31. Climate Action Group, the Unitarian Society of Northampton and Florence
  32. Climate Action Now Western Mass
  33. Climate Code Blue
  34. Climate Reality Project Boston Metro chapter
  35. Climate Reality Project Massachusetts Southcoast
  36. Coalition For Social Justice
  37. Conservation Law Foundation
  38. Elders Climate Action Mass chapter
  39. Energy Allies
  40. Fairmount Indigo CDC Collaborative (FICC)
  41. First Parish Unitarian Universalist of Arlington Climate Action Working Group
  42. First Parish in Bedford
  43. First Parish in Cambridge
  44. First Parish of Concord Environmental Team
  45. First Unitarian Universalist Society in Newton Climate Action Task Force
  46. Food & Water Watch
  47. Fore River Residents Against Compressor Station (FRRACS)
  48. Franklin County Continuing the Political Revolution- Climate Crisis Task Force
  49. Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility
  50. Green Energy Consumers Alliance
  51. Green Newton
  52. Green Sanctuary Committee of FPUU Medfield
  53. GreenRoots
  54. H.E.R.O. Nurturing Center Inc
  55. HEET
  56. HEETlabs
  57. Jewish Climate Action Network
  58. Lexington Climate Action Network (LexCAN)
  59. LISC Massachusetts
  60. Longmeadow Pipeline Awareness Group
  61. Massachusetts Climate Action Network
  62. Massachusetts Interfaith Power & Light, Inc.
  63. Massachusetts Youth Climate Coalition
  64. Melrose UU Church Climate Action Team
  65. Mothers Out Front Acton
  66. Mothers Out Front Amherst
  67. Mothers Out Front Arlington
  68. Mothers Out Front Bedford Chapter
  69. Mothers Out Front Brookline
  70. Mothers Out Front Cambridge
  71. Mothers Out Front Concord
  72. Mothers Out Front Downtown Boston
  73. Mothers Out Front East Boston
  74. Mothers Out Front Jamaica Plain
  75. Mothers Out Front Massachusetts
  76. Mothers Out Front Medford 
  77. Mothers Out Front Newton
  78. Mothers Out Front Northampton
  79. Mothers Out Front Somerville
  80. Mothers Out Front Waltham
  81. Mothers Out Front West Roxbury/Roslindale/Hyde Park chapter
  82. Mothers Out Front Winthrop
  83. Mt. Hope Canterbury Neighborhood Association
  84. Mystic Valley Progressives
  85. No Fracked Gas in Mass
  86. North Parish UU Climate Justice Group
  87. Our Climate
  88. Our Revolution MA (ORMA) Climate Crisis Working Group
  89. Partnership for Policy Integrity
  90. Pipe Line Awareness Network for the Northeast
  91. Progressive Massachusetts
  92. Renewable Renegades
  93. Resist the Pipeline
  94. Resonant Energy
  95. Sierra Club Massachusetts
  96. Slingshot
  97. South Coast Neighbors United
  98. Speak for the Trees, Boston
  99. Springfield Climate Justice Coalition
  100. Springfield No One Leaves
  101. Sunwealth
  102. Sustainable Wellesley
  103. The Enviro Show
  104. Third Act Massachusetts
  105. Trustees Collaborative for Parks & Open Space
  106. Union of Concerned Scientists
  107. Unitarian Universalist Association of Greater Springfield
  108. Unitarian Universalist Mass Action
  109. Vote Solar
  110. Watertown Faces Climate Change (a node of 350Mass)
  111. Worcester Congregations for Climate and Environmental Justice
  112. ZeroCarbonMA

FY 2025 Budget Recommendations

Saturday, June 22, 2024

Chair Michlewitz, Chair Rodrigues, Vice Chair Ferrante, and Vice Chair Friedman,

Thank you for your ongoing work in negotiating a final budget for the upcoming fiscal year. We were very pleased to see a number of the new initiatives in the budgets passed by each chamber, and we would like to call attention to the role the Fair Share Amendment has played in making new investments possible.

As you continue such negotiations, we urge you to include the following provisions in the final budget:

  • New Investments in Early Education and Child Care: Advancing the Common Start Coalition’s vision of a more robust early education and child care infrastructure with greater stability for providers, better pay for educators, and more affordability for families, as reflected in various parts of both the House and Senate FY 2025 budget.
  • Universal School Meals: Fully funding universal school meals by dedicating $190 million to School Meals For All (Line Item 1596-2422, as funded in the FY 2025 House budget).
  • Access to Counsel: Providing $2.5 million for implementation of a statewide Access to Counsel pilot program to increase access to legal representation for low-income tenants and low-income owner occupants in eviction proceedings (item 0321-1800 in the House FY 2025 budget).
  • Cash Assistance for Low-Income Families: Providing a 10% increase to TAFDC cash assistance grants for very low-income families with children (line item 4403-2000), as both House and Senate FY 2025 budgets did, a 10% increase to EAEDC cash assistance grants for older adults and people with disabilities (as in line item 4408-1000 of the Senate FY 2025 budget), and an increase of $50 per child to the annual TAFDC children’s clothing allowance (also the Senate budget).  These increases are essential, and families in deep poverty should not have to wait until next April for them to take effect.  
  • No Cost Calls Funding: Dedicating $35M in the Communications Access Trust Fund for no–cost calls in prisons and jails (item 1595-6153 in the House FY 2025 budget). This was an exciting victory last year, and we need to ensure committed funds for robust implementation.
  • No Cost Calls Reporting: Making technical fixes to the No Cost Calls reporting requirements, so that policymakers have the information they need to effectively monitor free communication (Section 29 A&B of the Senate FY 2025 budget).
  • Voting Access: Eliminating barriers to voting access by ending MA’s outlier status as the only state where if a voter doesn’t return the annual municipal census, they’re placed on the Inactive Voter list (Section 57 of the Senate FY 2025 budget). We need to continue the work of expanding access to voting.
  • New Flag, Seal, & Motto: Continuing the work to develop a new state flag, seal, and motto (as funded in line item 7008-0900 in the Senate FY 2025 budget).

Thank you again for your work.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

Testimony: Why the Wait on Taking Action against Misclassification?

uber Lyft

Testimony submitted from Progressive Needham member Bill Okerman on March 23, 2024

Dear Members of the Special Joint Committee on Initiative Petitions:

I write to you regarding the initiative petitions that were the subject of your hearing on March 19. I have for quite some time been closely following, and to a certain extent involved in (for example, I served as an advisor to a group of drivers called the Boston Independent Drivers Guild for a couple of years beginning in early 2020), this multifaceted controversy involving the legal rights and responsibilities of these so-called “app-based” tech companies operating here in the Commonwealth. 

The March 19 hearing covered a lot of ground, but with the various possibilities for “resolving” this situation looming, there are still a number of important but unanswered questions that really need to be answered to understand how we got to this point here in Massachusetts and to determine what should be done to address it.

For example:

1. Why did the Legislature enact legislation in 2016 to regulate Uber and Lyft, https://malegislature.gov/Laws/SessionLaws/Acts/2016/Chapter187, despite having been informed by the then-Senate Chair of the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development that these companies were misclassifying their drivers as “independent contractors” in clear violation of the Commonwealth’s “independent contractor law,” General Laws Chapter 149, Section 148B, https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXXI/Chapter149/Section148B?

See the remarks of Senator Dan Wolf at https://malegislature.gov/Events/Sessions/Detail/2453/Video1 [beginning at 1:38:30 and ending at 1:42:52].

2. Why, despite a clear statutory mandate, not to mention Senator Wolf’s very public 2016 plea, did it take so long for the attorney general to take action against Uber and Lyft for misclassifying their drivers as “independent contractors”?

Uber began operating in Massachusetts in 2011 and Lyft in 2013. Section 148B was initially enacted in 1990 and last amended in 2004, long before these companies began operating here (or anywhere). And yet the AG did not file her lawsuit against Uber and Lyft until July 14, 2020.

3. Why does the AG’s lawsuit against Uber and Lyft merely seek a “declaratory judgment” when there is nothing in the relevant statutory language that requires the AG to obtain a declaratory judgment to enforce the Commonwealth’s wage and hour laws, including Section 148B?

General Laws Chapter 149, Section 27C, https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXXI/Chapter149/Section27C, clearly mandates that the AG either (a) initiate a criminal proceeding, or (b) issue a written warning or a civil citation. There is no mention in Section 27C, or anywhere else in the General Laws, of the need for the AG to obtain a declaratory judgment. In March of 2023, the AG fined a “gig economy” company named GoPuff $6.2 million for misclassifying their drivers, https://www.mass.gov/news/ags-office-issues-62-million-in-citations-against-national-delivery-service-company-over-employee-misclassification-violations. Why did the AG decide to issue civil citations against GoPuff but did not do so against Uber and Lyft? And why has the AG never taken any action against companies like DoorDash, Grubhub, and Instacart for misclassifying their delivery workers? All of these companies are doing pretty much the same thing regarding the misclassification of their drivers/delivery workers.

4. Why is the AG’s lawsuit against Uber and Lyft taking so long?

When California’s AB5, which uses the same so-called “ABC test” as Section 148B, went into effect on January 1, 2020, California immediately sued Uber and Lyft for being in violation. On August 10, 2020, a California trial court ordered Uber and Lyft to reclassify their workers from independent contractors to employees. That order was affirmed by the California Court of Appeal on October 22, 2020, see, e.g., https://www.terplaw.com/blog/court-of-appeal-affirms-order-requiring-uber-to-treat-its-california-drivers-as-employees. Proposition 22 was enacted in the November election. The Massachusetts AG’s lawsuit was filed on July 14, 2020, and it is now scheduled to go to trial in May, nearly four years later! In the meantime, Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Grubhub, and Instacart have continued to violate Massachusetts employment law with impunity.

These are just a handful of the questions that need to be asked and answered here. There are many more, which I would be happy to discuss with the committee.

I don’t envy you your task in dealing with this regrettable state of affairs, but the bottom line here is that the challenge that the Legislature is now confronted with is ultimately a problem of its own making, due to its long-running failure to ensure the effective enforcement of laws that the Legislature has enacted over the last 150 years to protect workers in the Commonwealth.

Testimony on the Affordable Homes Act (Bonding Committee)

Green affordable housing

Tuesday, April 2, 2024

Chair Kennedy, Chair Finn, and Members of the Joint Committee on Bonding, Capital Expenditures, and State Assets:

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the policy director at Progressive Massachusetts. We are a statewide, multi-issue, grassroots membership organization focused on fighting for policy that would make our Commonwealth more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic. 

Massachusetts faces a growing affordable housing crisis. To rent the average 2-bedroom apartment in Massachusetts requires an income equal to $37.97 per hour, more than twice the minimum wage. Home ownership has become increasingly out of reach, as the state’s median home price has passed $600,000. The high cost of housing has led to displacement, and in a growing number of municipalities, the local workforce can no longer afford to live there.

We are glad to see that Governor Healey recognizes the need to use a variety of tools to address our housing crisis and strongly support the comprehensive approach in the Affordable Homes Act, H.4138.

We were delighted to see the inclusion of key provisions like the following:

  • Creating a five-year housing plan (which should focus not only on supply but also on affordability to different income levels)
  • Enabling cities and towns to pass inclusionary zoning ordinances by simple majority—a vital tool for increasing affordable housing supply and diversifying communities
  • Making it easier to use public land for housing development
  • Establishing an Office of Fair Housing
  • Launching a Social Housing pilot program
  • Authorizing $150M for public housing decarbonization and $115 million for sustainable and climate-resilient affordable housing
  • Permitting Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) of <900 SF to be built by-right in single-family zoning districts in all communities and prohibiting the parking mandates and owner-occupancy requirements many municipalities use to make ADUs harder to build
  • Enabling cities and towns to pass real estate transfer fees as a tool to raise money for affordable housing production and preservation
  • Creating a process to enable individuals to seal eviction records

All of these are essential to a three-pronged approach to the housing crisis: protecting tenants, increasing housing production, and investing more in affordable housing. We can do all three, and this bill does.

However, we would like to outline how to make some of these provisions more accessible and effective as well as some additional measures to consider including.

Real Estate Transfer Fee Local Option

Cities and towns across Massachusetts want to take action to address the housing crisis, but they are often unable to do so without state approval. Seventeen communities have now requested the ability to use this tool, beginning with Provincetown in 2010. In the years since this initial request, circumstances have only become more dire, and more cities and towns have passed such home rule petitions or are actively considering doing so.

Our housing crisis is simply too great to leave funding and financing tools on the table. All communities must be able to use this tool that will allow us to generate additional resources for desperately needed local affordable housing.

To ensure that the transfer fee language in the bill can best meet the needs of diverse cities and towns, we urge the following:

  • Setting the Right Threshold: Home sale prices vary greatly across Massachusetts, with rural communities and Gateway cities often having property values well below $1 million. They should still be able to benefit from this tool. Similarly, communities should be able to set higher thresholds if that is best for local needs and market conditions.
  • Maintaining Flexibility: Communities should be able to determine whether buyers or sellers of a property bear fees and should be able to create local exemptions that best apply to their community.
  • Applying Fees to the Full Transaction: Allowing municipalities to apply fees to the full amount of transactions, rather than only the amount in excess of a threshold, will allow communities with higher needs and sales prices to generate more desperately needed revenue.

Sealing Eviction Records

Having an eviction record is creating a devastating barrier for tenants looking for housing. Records are created as soon as a case is filed and are publicly available forever–– regardless of the outcome. These records impact people’s ability to obtain housing, credit, and employment, harming many and disproportionately impacting women and people of color.

Regardless of whether one does anything wrong or is actually evicted, being party to an eviction or housing case is being unfairly held against tenants when they try to rent a new place. Even winning in court hurts tenants.

We are delighted to see eviction sealing language in this bill, but we would recommend several steps to ensure that tenants can best be protected:

  1. Ensuring that dismissals, cases that tenants win, and no-fault evictions be automatically sealed by the court as opposed to a petition process which involves extra steps for the court and all parties.

  2. Ensuring that in non-payment cases, tenants can seal after 14 days of paying a judgment and after 4 years if they were unable to pay because of an economic hardship or other good cause reasons.
  1. Ensuring that in a fault eviction, where one must wait 7 years to seal, that an intervening eviction which prevents one from sealing can only be a fault eviction and not just any type of eviction case, such as a no-fault eviction.

  2. Clarifying that the court has the direction to consider disability and domestic violence issues in fault cases and to adjust the sealing process accordingly.

Additional Measures to Include

We join with over 240 organizations to call for the inclusion of Access to Counsel in the Affordable Homes Act. 9 out of 10 tenants are unrepresented in eviction court, leading to higher rates of displacement and community instability. Evictions negatively affect people’s physical and mental health, and result in job loss and decreased school attainment for children. Guaranteeing legal representation to all tenants facing evictions would have a major positive impact.

We also urge you to use this opportunity to repeal the ban on rent control and enable municipalities to enact local rent control ordinances to stabilize housing costs and prevent no-cause evictions. We have been seeing a growing interest in rent control across the Commonwealth, with multiple municipalities filing home rule petitions to be able to take action. Rent control is an essential tool to combat displacement, and cities and towns should be able to pass such policies as fit their local housing situation.

Cities and towns that want to take action should be able to do so, and we urge you to include a Tenant Opportunity to Purchase local option (along the lines of S.880/H.1350), which would enable cities and towns to pass laws allowing tenants to join together to match a third-party offer when their homes are being sold.

We also urge you to use this bill to establish a statewide Foreclosure Prevention Program to require servicers to participate in pre-foreclosure mediation with homeowners to explore alternatives to foreclosures, an idea put forth in S.653 and H.942.

We also urge you to take additional steps to increase our supply of affordable housing, such as by funding and writing into statute the Small Properties State Acquisition Fund, which would provide subsidies for nonprofit acquisition of homes from the market, and by including funding for the production of affordable homeownership units that can be kept affordable in perpetuity. We also urge you to add an affordability requirement to the Housing Development Incentive Program (HDIP) so that public subsidies to development address the need for affordable housing stock.

Lastly, A Technical Correction

We stand with the Massachusetts AFL-CIO in asking you to address a major concern about Section 35 of the bill. As written, this section would remove the application of prevailing wage laws to certain private development projects on public land. We hope that this was a drafting error and such language can be removed. The state should be using public land to both advance housing goals and create good-paying jobs, and these are not in conflict.

Thank you for all your work on this important bill and vital topic.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

Testimony: Investing in Our Commonwealth and Our Shared Prosperity

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Chair Michlewitz, Chair Rodrigues, and Members of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means:

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the Policy Director at Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group fighting for a more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic commonwealth. Thank you for your work on the FY 2025 budget.

In the following, we outline several key priority areas for the budget to ensure that it builds on recent progress in investing in our commonwealth.

Strengthening Our Commitment to Public Higher Education

Our public colleges and universities are essential vehicles for economic mobility of our commonwealth’s residents and economic vitality of the commonwealth itself. Studies have shown that college graduates are more likely to be healthier, earn significantly more on average, and are less likely to face job loss during an economic recession, and graduates of our public colleges and universities are more likely to stay in Massachusetts to live and work, contributing to our commonwealth and common wealth.

However, our state has been disinvesting from public higher education for the last two decades, with funding for public higher education still below its (inflation-adjusted) value in 2001. When the state reduces funding to public colleges and universities, the result is higher tuition and fees, and a growing debt burden faced by students and families.

The published in-state tuition and fees increase at public 4-year institutions in MA increased 135 percent from 2001 to 2021 after adjusting for inflation, and for two-year institutions, 81 percent, but real Median Household Income in Massachusetts only increased by 8 percent. Just between 2009 and 2021, the average student debt rose 52% for four-year graduates and 62% for community college graduates. When we close off opportunities like that for our students, we are all worse off. 

As you craft the FY 2025 budget, we urge you to incorporate key provisions of the Cherish Act and the Debt-Free Future Act, such as

  • Instituting fair and adequate minimum funding levels for public higher education
  • Ensuring that students are able to graduate from our public colleges and universities debt-free
  • Ensuring that adjunct faculty and part-time staff are eligible for state health care and retirement benefits
  • Reducing wage disparities on campuses
  • Increasing funding for student supports
  • Investing in green and healthy buildings on campus

Fully Funding Our Public Schools

The passage of the Student Opportunity Act in 2019 was a major win for education justice in the commonwealth. We are very appreciative of recent comments that the Legislature will fully fund the Student Opportunity Act’s fourth year of implementation, keeping the law on track to be fully funded by the 2026-2027 school year. Importantly, maintaining that commitment includes fixing the Chapter 70 inflation calculation glitch that, if left unsolved, could permanently reduce school aid and prevent the Commonwealth from meeting the real-dollar targets in the Student Opportunity Act.

Full Funding for School Meals for All

We also urge you to support full funding in support of School Meals for All (Line Items 1596-2422 and 7053-1925).

The research on universal school meals is clear: participation in school meals improves academic achievement, attendance, and student behavior at school; decreases childhood food insecurity; leads to children eating more fruits, vegetables, and milk; and reduces visits to the school nurse.

With the implementation of School Meals for All, more than an additional 100,000 students participated in school lunch in October 2023 compared to October 2019 in schools not previously serving universal free meals. This program has been a success all around, and we must ensure it continues to be so.

Advancing the Common Start Vision

As a member of the Common Start coalition, we would also like to amplify the common Start coalition’s asks:

  • $510 million to continue operational grants to child care providers (line item 3000-1045)
  • Increased funding that makes substantial progress towards the Economic Review Commission’s recommendation of raising early education and care financial assistance reimbursement rates (line items 3000-1041 & 3000-1042)
  • $75 million to increase access to child care financial assistance (line item 3000-4060)
  • $20 million for the Head Start Supplemental Grant (line item 3000-5000)

The Governor, Senate Leadership, and House Leadership have all expressed a commitment to strengthening our child care and early education system, and these investments would help to do that.

Access to Counsel

Without legal representation, many tenants risk becoming homeless. Indeed, most tenants are unrepresented and face eviction alone. It doesn’t have to be that way, and an Access to Counsel program is a proven solution.

We urge the House and Senate Committees on Ways and Means to include in your respective FY25 budgets $3.5 Million (Line-item 0321-1800) to start a Access to Counsel program in tandem with the full Access to Council bill language in S.864/H.4360, which provides the framework for a statewide program.

Increasing Assistance to Families in Deep Poverty

We also urge you to include a 20% increase in cash assistance grant levels (line items 4403-2000 and 4408-1000.

The maximum grant for a family of 3 with no income is only $783 a month, far below even half the federal poverty level – known as Deep Poverty – which is currently $1,076 for a family of 3.  The maximum grant for an elder or person with a disability is only $401 a month.  In January, Governor Healey cut the 10% grant increase that the Legislature had scheduled to go into effect in April.

Deep poverty hurts kids.  It causes health and emotional damage, toxic stress, impaired school performance, and homeless and housing instability. We must do right by our neediest families.

A budget is a moral document, and we urge you to include such investments to advance a vision of a commonwealth that works for all residents.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts