Testimony

The Major Polluters Who Caused the Climate Crisis Should Pay for the Cleanup

Wednesday, May 17, 2023

Chair Rausch, Chair Cahill, and Members of the Joint Committee on Environment and Natural Resources,

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I’m the policy director of Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide, member-based grassroots advocacy organization fighting for a more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic Commonwealth.

We urge you to give a favorable report to H.872/S.481: An Act establishing a climate change superfund and promoting polluter responsibility (“Polluters Pay”), filed by Sen. Jamie Eldridge and Rep. Steve Owens.

Massachusetts is already facing the impacts of climate change, and it will only get worse. The increased incidence of storms will damage coastlines and increase inland flooding: the state has projected that inland property damage due to climate change will increase by almost 50% by mid-century, with a disproportionate impact on low-income communities. Additional rail repair costs from extreme temperatures could reach $6 million per year by 2050 and a striking $35 million by the end of the century, and repair costs for electric transmission and utility distribution infrastructure alone are projected to increase by almost $100 million by 2050, with power outages disproportionately impacting low-income communities again. Not to mention the impact on human health and lives.¹

Meanwhile, major fossil fuel companies are seeing record profits. The very companies who lied to the public for decades about climate change are benefiting while all of us, especially the most vulnerable, bear the cost.

We already have a successful model for addressing these situations of public damages, private profits: the “polluter pays” principle. This principle is employed in all of the major US pollution control laws: Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (solid waste and hazardous waste management), and Superfund (cleanup of abandoned waste sites).

This bill would extend that proven principle to the climate crisis by establishing a climate change adaptation cost recovery program. It would require companies that have contributed significantly to the buildup of climate-warming greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere to bear a share of the costs of needed infrastructure investment, based on their historic emissions.

This bill would raise an estimated $75 billion over 25 years from the 20 largest polluting companies to provide funding for climate resiliency efforts such as restoring coastal wetlands; upgrading roads, bridges, subways, and transit systems; preparing for and recovering from hurricanes and other extreme weather events; installing energy efficient cooling systems; upgrading the electrical grid; and expanding green spaces and urban forestry.

Moreover, the bill understands that our sustainability transition must be a just one, with key provisions to ensure that sufficient funds go to environmental justice populations and that the funding goes to the creation of good-paying jobs.

Massachusetts has taken important steps toward climate mitigation in recent sessions and we must continue to do so to meet our state’s climate goals, but we also need to address the climate crisis that is already hitting communities. This bill shows a way forward.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

Endnotes

[]1 Gloninger, Chris and Asher Klein. “When a Major Hurricane Hits New England, the Costs Will Be Huge.” NBC News. July 25, 2019. https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/catastrophic-hurricane-new-england-modeling/92234/; Zhao, Bo. The Effects of Weather on Massachusetts Municipal Expenditures: Implications of Climate Change for Local Governments in New England. Boston: Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, 2023; 2022 Massachusetts Climate Change Assessment. Boston: Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 2022. https://www.mass.gov/doc/2022-massachusetts-climate-change-assessment-december-2022-volume-i-executive-summary/download.

climate

“Those solutions share one thing in common: they all require money.”

Tuesday, May 16, 2023

Chair Moran, Chair Cusack, and Members of the Joint Committee on Revenue:

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.

This year so far, the Legislature’s discussion about “tax reform” has centered on how to roll back taxes. The framing of “tax relief” has unfortunately warped discussion of the major issues facing our Commonwealth. “Tax relief” implies that taxes are a burden harming our Commonwealth rather than our collective investments in our collective well-being. And the framing of “tax relief” displaces discussion from the real burdens faced by residents of the Commonwealth: the high cost of housing, the high cost of health care, the high cost of child care, the high cost of higher education, long hours in traffic, a malfunctioning transit system—the list goes on.

Addressing those true burdens that Commonwealth residents face requires many disparate policy solutions, but they share one thing in common: they all require money. If we want to ensure that our students get the best education possible from pre-K to postsecondary, that everyone has the best health care possible, that everyone has a safe roof over their head, that everyone can get to where they need to go efficiently, cleanly, and safely, that everyone has clean air to breathe, then we need to raise the revenue to do it. Our new Governor has outlined proposals to move us closer to such goals, but they will exist only on paper if not backed by funding.

As such, we urge you to broaden the discussion of “tax reform” to think about how the Commonwealth can make a more progressive tax code that enables us to do right by all our residents.

Please give a favorable report to the following bills:

H.2708/S.1925: An Act to close corporate tax loopholes and create progressive revenue (Barber & Uyterhoeven / Rausch)
H.2743 / S.1835: An Act establishing a tiered corporate minimum tax (Connolly / Gomez)
H.2967 / S.1858: An Act establishing a tax on excessive executive compensation (Uyterhoeven / Lewis)
H.2856 / S.1788: An Act relative to restoring corporate tax rates (Keefe / DiDomenico)
H.2725/S.1875: An Act requiring public disclosures by publicly-traded corporate taxpayers (Capano / Miranda)

To provide a quick note on each of these bills:

H.2708 and S.1925 would increase the share of GILTI income (“Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income,” or offshored income made in Massachusetts) that the state taxes from 5% to 50%. This could raise up to $450 million in additional revenue each year and would bring us in line with Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island.

The corporate minimum tax—namely, the tax that corporations pay if they are able to wipe away all tax obligations through accounting tricks—is $456 and hasn’t budged since 1989 (the year after I was born, I might add). H.2743 and S.1835 would create a tiered structure for this minimum tax so that large corporations are paying their fair share.

By imposing additional taxes on corporations with excessive imbalances in how much they pay their C-suite executives versus their median employees, H.2967 / S.1858 would both raise revenue and reduce the Commonwealth’s sky-high income inequality.

A decade ago, Massachusetts lowered the tax rate on corporate profits from 9.5% to 8.0%. H.2856 and S.1788 would reverse that change to, again, make sure corporations are paying their fair share. According to MassBudget, each 1 percentage point increase in the rate could generate between $200 -$300 million in additional annual tax revenue.

Large corporations pay teams of lawyers to help them avoid paying taxes. We know that this problem exists, but without disclosure, we cannot understand the totality of the problem and best calibrate our response. The disclosure requirements required in H.2725/S.1875 would help us do that.

Our Commonwealth has the resources to ensure the best for all our residents, but we need to commit to realizing such a vision through our policy.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

revenue

“Transparency is essential to closing persistent gender and racial pay inequities.”

Tuesday, May 9, 2023

Chair Jehlen, Chair Cutler, and Members of the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development:

We urge the committee to give a favorable report to the following bills:

H.1849/S.1191: An Act relative to salary range transparency / An Act relative to pay range disclosure

H.1940/S.1181: An Act relative to transparency in the workplace

These bills would build on past progress toward gender and racial equity in Massachusetts workplaces.

The first set of bills would require employers to disclose salary ranges to employees who ask for them when hiring for positions, and the latter set would require companies and municipalities to submit their federally required EEOC data to the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s office. This information would then be combined with statewide figures to provide aggregate and accurate reports of the wage gaps within various business sectors that can be seen and understood both by workers and employers.

Transparency is essential to closing persistent gender and racial pay inequities. If we can’t identify the existence and extent of disparities within and across industries, it is difficult to make and track progress. We cannot change what we do not measure.

Moreover, studies have repeatedly shown the importance of pay range transparency to enabling prospective employees to better negotiate for fair compensation.

California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Nevada, New York, Rhode Island, and Washington have all already passed pay range disclosure laws. For Massachusetts to have a competitive and equitable economy, we should join them.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

wage equity

“More and more residents are unable to afford to live in our commonwealth anymore”

Tuesday, May 9, 2023

Chair Eldridge, Chair Day, and Members of the Joint Committee on Housing:

We see it all the time in polls, we hear it on the doors, and we see it in the data: Massachusetts has a housing crisis. More and more residents are unable to afford to live in our commonwealth anymore, priced out from one community to another and then out entirely, or face severe housing instability.

We need a comprehensive approach to the housing crisis, and strong protections for tenants must be a part of it. We urge you to give a favorable report to the following bills:

S.864/H.1731: An Act promoting access to counsel and housing stability in Massachusetts

S.956/H.1690: An Act promoting housing opportunity and mobility through eviction sealing (HOMES)

Right to Counsel (S.864/H.1731): These bills would provide legal representation for low-income tenants and low-income owner-occupants in eviction proceedings. The eviction moratorium that the Legislature passed earlier in the pandemic was a vital lifeline for so many, but eviction filings have now been climbing past what they were in 2019, pre-pandemic. Tenants enter such eviction proceedings at a major disadvantage: according to FY2022 Trial Court data, while 86% of landlords are represented, only 11.5% of tenants are represented. Tenants facing eviction are disproportionately poor, female, and BIPOC, and evictions can have lasting negative impacts on physical and mental health. Connecticut, Maryland, and Washington have already passed Right to Counsel policies, and Massachusetts should join them.

HOMES Act (S.956/H.1690): 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, especially 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. However, there is no current process by which a tenant can seal an eviction record, as there already is in states such as California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Utah, and Texas.

Notably, the Legislature already passed language around eviction sealing in early 2021, only for it to fail to become law due to a last-minute veto by former governor Charlie Baker. We urge you not to wait longer before bringing this issue back up, and we urge you to strengthen the language of these bills to allow eviction sealing to be automatic in certain cases, as opposed by merely by petition: the families facing eviction are least likely to be able to navigate a maze of paperwork.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

housing

“A right to reproductive health care is not a real right unless every individual is able to access that care”

May 2, 2023

Rep. James M. Murphy, Co-Chair Senator Paul Feeney, Co-Chair

Joint Committee on Financial Services Joint Committee on Financial Services

Massachusetts State House, Room 254 Massachusetts State House, Room

Boston, MA 02133 Boston, MA 02133

Dear Chairs Murphy, Feeney, and members of the Joint Committee on Financial Services:

We, the undersigned organizations committed to advancing reproductive freedom, equity, and justice in the Commonwealth, write today in support of H.1137 filed by Representatives Sabadosa and Balser and S.646 filed by Senator Friedman.

Massachusetts law, as currently written, requires insurers to offer coverage for childbirth and treatment of miscarriages, but permits cost sharing. For too many mothers and families navigating high deductible plans and increased out-of-pocket spending, the burden of this cost sharing results in long-term financial struggles.

Under this legislation, all Massachusetts-regulated health insurance plans would be required to cover the full spectrum of pregnancy-related care without any cost-sharing, ensuring that Bay Staters are not saddled with insurmountable debt post-pregnancy and enabling them to have greater control over their lives and financial futures. We are grateful to the Legislature for its bold action to ensure coverage without cost-sharing for all abortion and abortion-related care, a key provision of Chapter 127 of the Acts of 2022. Now, we must go further to break down financial barriers to all pregnancy-related care.

A right to reproductive health care — including care for all pregnancies, abortion, and miscarriage — is not a real right unless every individual is able to access that care, free from cost barriers. Being a new parent is tough enough. The last thing someone adjusting to life with a newborn needs to worry about is how they’re going to pay for the care they just received.

According to the Massachusetts Center for Health Information and Analysis’ (CHIA) 2021 Massachusetts Health Insurance Survey, more than 1.7 million people in Massachusetts are on high deductible health plans. That’s 1.7 million people…

Who may never be able to get out of debt once they start a family;
Who could be forced to meet their deductible twice if the nine months of their pregnancy falls across two insurance plan years;
Who may be forced to forgo prenatal or postpartum care because of costs;
Who may delay family planning because they are too concerned about making ends meet; or most cruelly,
Who would be sent a hefty bill days after suffering the devastating loss of miscarriage.

The futures of people seeking pregnancy care should not be dictated by deductibles.

This is an issue of gender and racial equity. Massachusetts is already combatting an epidemic of racial inequities in maternal health. Black women in our state are twice as likely as white women to die from pregnancy-related complications, and financial barriers to care are compounding these poor health outcomes. Forty percent of mothers have reported delaying prenatal care because they lack the money or insurance to cover the visits. Newborns of mothers who do not receive prenatal care are three times more likely to have a low birth weight and five times more likely to die than children born to mothers who receive prenatal care. We must reimagine our health care system and health care spending to center and support the needs of birthing people, families, and Black and Brown communities by making all pregnancy care more accessible.

Based on CHIA’s Mandated Benefit Review of this legislation, we can make high-quality pregnancy-related care accessible to all Bay Staters for only an extra $2.09 per month on our monthly health insurance premiums—less than a cup of coffee. We don’t have to imagine a Massachusetts where everyone has access to the pregnancy care they need to safely give birth and raise a family; where fewer of our loved ones die from pregnancy-related care; and where no one has to go into debt to start a family. All we have to do to make this our reality is pay an extra $25 a year on our health insurance premiums.

Every Bay Stater must have access to the full spectrum of pregnancy-related care so we all can decide if, when, and how to have a family or raise children. We can ensure that our friends, families, loved ones, children, and children’s children would be safer, happier, and healthier, because pregnancy-related care would be so much more accessible to them.

Thank you for the opportunity to submit our testimony, and we again urge you to give H.1137 and S.646 a favorable report.

Respectfully,

Rebecca Hart Holder, President, Reproductive Equity Now

Carol Rose, Executive Director, ACLU of Massachusetts

Nate Horwitz-Willis, Executive Director, Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts

Luu Ireland, MD, MPH, Chair, Massachusetts Section of the American College of Obstetricians and

Gynecologists

Jonathan Cohn, Policy Director, Progressive Massachusetts

Jeremy Burton, Chief Executive Officer, Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston

reproductive rights

“Our commonwealth…took away the right to vote from a category of people who were formerly enfranchised.”

April 6, 2023

Chair Keenan, Chair Ryan, and Members of the Joint Committee on Election Laws:

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.

We urge you to give a favorable report to H.26 and S.8: Proposal for a legislative amendment to the Constitution relative to voting rights.

I would like to begin with a bit of history. Felony disenfranchisement in Massachusetts is a recent phenomenon. Indeed, although we often think of the history of voting rights in the US as one of ever-forward motion, Massachusetts stands as an outlier. In the late 1990s, after incarcerated individuals in MCI-Norfolk started organizing for better conditions, Republican Governor Bill Cellucci and the MA Legislature responded with retaliation: a multi-step process of disenfranchisement. In 2000, Massachusetts voters approved a constitutional amendment to prohibit people incarcerated for felonies in state prison from voting in state elections; the subsequent year, Cellucci signed a law to extend this prohibition to federal and municipal elections. Our commonwealth did something rare in recent history: it took away the right to vote from a category of people who were formerly enfranchised.

In 2022, the Massachusetts Legislature took an important step forward when passing the VOTES Act by including language creating protections for jail-based voting for those who still maintain the right to vote, but we must build on that momentum by ending remaining disenfranchisement, as these bills would.

Felony disenfranchisement compounds the systemic racism of the criminal legal system. Approximately 8,000 residents of the Commonwealth are disenfranchised due to a felony conviction, more than 50% of them are Black or Latinx.

Felony disenfranchisement laws disenfranchise more voters than those directly affected. Whenever someone loses the right to vote even temporarily, they are likely to mistakenly think that they have lost it permanently. We must eliminate archaic laws that create voter suppression and voter confusion.

Felony disenfranchisement exacerbates the humanitarian crisis in our prisons and jails. Even Trump’s DOJ pointed out that Massachusetts correctional facilities are engaging in torture, and a lack of political voice puts individuals at risk for abuse.

Moreover, studies have often shown that fostering ties to the outside world is central to reducing recidivism. Civic engagement provides just that, and we should welcome it.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

decarceration elections

“We voted to have those who have a little more to pay their fair share.”

Testimony from Keith Bernard before the Joint Committee on Revenue on Tuesday, March 28

Honorable chairs and members of the committee,

My name is Keith Bernard from Malden and for transparency, while I am an elected member of the Malden School Committee, I am not representing them and I am testifying on behalf of Mystic Valley Progressives, a chapter of Progressive Mass. I am also testifying because I am father and as of a month ago a grandfather. Our group supports favorable reporting of S.1784 and H.2960, a fairer and less costly proposal to reform the estate tax threshold without giving an enormous tax break to multi-million-dollar estates.

In November, I voted for the Fair Share Amendment because I believe that our public school systems as well as our transportation network had been underfunded for a long time. I saw my neighbors, and the children in my neighborhood not getting the services they needed to thrive. Educational professionals could not afford to work at a job that many of them loved. I saw my city having to make difficult choices to make our budgets work and I know that Malden is not the only municipality that faces these hard decisions.

You may know Malden, because of our recent teacher strike. I was happy to vote to approve raises for our teachers and especially our educational professionals. I have neighbors that work for the Malden Public School but were not being paid a living wage, and we fixed that. I do not want to look them in the face when we lose other programs that the working families of Malden because we now have a revenue gap.

We voted to have those who have a little more to pay their fair share. We asked for revenue to be generated in a fair manner so we could invest in our children and our workers. We need well-funded schools, and we need trains and buses that run on time and and regularly. However, I and our members do not support giving multimillion dollar estates a six-figure tax cut. As you consider reforms to the estate tax, please respect the will of the many who voted Yes on 1, and do not give the largest estates a tax break. Thank you for your time and we look forward to seeing S.1784 and H.2960 be reported out favorably.

Fair Share revenue

Fair Share was a Transformative Win. Let’s Protect It.

Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Chair Moran, Chair Cusack, and Members of the Joint Committee on Revenue,

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the policy director of Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide, multi-issue grassroots advocacy organization with chapters across the commonwealth committed to fighting for a more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic Massachusetts.

Because of our commitment to a vision of shared prosperity, we have been involved with the Fair Share Amendment campaign from the start, and last year, we knocked over 100,000 doors for Question 1 — not to mention the work of phone banking, text-banking, tabling at community events, and talking with friends and neighbors. Everyday people around the commonwealth got involved with the campaign because they realized the need for a fairer code and the transformative potential of the investments we could make with new revenue.

They understood that more revenue could mean greater reinvestment in schools to ensure that buildings are safe, green, and healthy; to address the social and emotional needs of students coming out of a pandemic; to ensure that underpaid professionals get the compensation they deserve; and to deliver on the promise of the Student Opportunity Act. They understood that more revenue could mean changing course from our decades-long disinvestment from public higher education and instead guaranteeing better pay for faculty and staff and ensuring that students can graduate without debt. They understood that more revenue could mean finally fixing the MBTA so that the buses and trains run frequently, reliably, and safely — as well as to more places and at lower cost. They understood that more revenue could mean fixing our roads so that they are no longer ridden with potholes and upgrading structurally deficient bridges that plague so many communities.

The voters understood too, delivering a win for Question 1 in November. Massachusetts voters were clear: make sure the rich pay their fair share so that we can invest in our education and infrastructure.

Elected officials said that the barrier to doing important things was money, so we went out and made sure to organize and mobilize to get that revenue. And the Governor’s proposal would give it right back.

Regressive tax cuts account for almost $400 million of Gov. Healey’s tax proposal. The proposed cut to the short-term capital gains tax would be bad for the economy, by encouraging more speculative activities such as rapid stock trading and “flipping” real estate, and it would be deeply regressive, as the highest-income 1 percent of households would receive almost eighty percent of the tax cut at an average of over $7,000 apiece.

The proposed cut to the estate tax is also deeply regressive. We can acknowledge that “cliffs,” as exists in the estate tax, are not good policy designs, but that should not lead to excluding estates up to $3 million and providing a $182,000 tax cut to estates even larger than that. There is no world in which a $10 million estate needs an extra $182,000. If the Legislature would like to update the estate tax, it should heed proposals like H.2960/S.1784: An Act relative to estate tax reform, which would only lift the exemption threshold to $2 million and would provide no tax breaks to larger estates. Such a proposal, in contrast to the Governor’s, would preserve most of the revenue-generation, inequality-reduction, and fairness benefits of the estate tax, while eliminating the current cliff effect.

Other parts of the Governor’s tax proposal are, fortunately, not so regressive, but they still do little to address the cost of living in Massachusetts. A child tax credit providing $600 per child under 13 would not even cover two weeks of child care. An expanded renters deduction would lead to merely $50 more for renters, if they even qualify. Tax credits are an inefficient way to meet the very real needs of caregivers and renters, and the Legislature must act swiftly to pass legislation to address the high cost of child care and the impact of escalating rents. If the Legislature would like to advance the Governor’s tax credits, they should be paid for with progressive, revenue-raising changes to the tax code, so that they do not drain down payments on transformative policy that actually addresses the high cost of living.

Massachusetts needs robust state revenue if we want to take action to address the child care affordability crisis, the housing affordability crisis, growing student and medical debt, the climate crisis, and an often-malfunctioning transit system. Moreover, as the federal government seems headed for debt-ceiling brinkmanship, Republican-led austerity, and the sunset of COVID-era aid, Massachusetts will likely see greater need for state revenue to fill in the gaps. Now is not the time for permanent, regressive tax-cutting.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Fair Share revenue

Strengthening Reproductive Rights Here at Home

July 21, 2022

Chair Michlewitz and Vice Chair Friedman,

Thank you for taking swift action in support of reproductive justice after the Supreme Court’s recent shameful and misguided ruling in Dobbs. When rights are under attack on the national level, it is important for Massachusetts to send a clear message that we will not only protect but also strengthen rights here at home—as well as serve as a model to other states.

Progressive Massachusetts would like to emphasize the importance of several provisions in S.3003 and H.4954.

Provider Protections: S.3003 and H.4954 will both establish critical protections for those in Massachusetts who provide or help someone access reproductive health care and gender-affirming care. These provisions state unequivocally that access to reproductive health care and gender-affirming care are rights secured by the constitution and laws of the Commonwealth. This language takes steps to protect defendants from abusive litigation based on such care, ensures that officials in the Commonwealth will not voluntarily facilitate investigations or lawsuits into such care, and offers protections to providers who may face impacts on their professional license or medical malpractice insurance premiums as repercussions of abusive litigation.

Medication Abortion: Thousands of college students in Massachusetts currently live in “access deserts” where the nearest abortion provider is hours away via public transit, if accessible at all. Language adopted by an amendment from Sen. Lewis to S.3003 will ensure that public college students can access medication abortion in the early stage of pregnancy at the locations where they already receive other reproductive health care services—at their campus health center. We wouldn’t accept having to travel over four hours for a dentist appointment. Abortion care shouldn’t be any different.

Delivering on the Promise of the ROE Act: We must do everything we can to ensure pregnant patients can access compassionate care in our Commonwealth. In a post-Roe reality, it is simply not safe for a patient at any stage of pregnancy to have to travel out of state to access an abortion provider. To this end, we urge you to realize the full intent of the ROE Act by clarifying the statutory framework for abortion care after 24 weeks to ensure no one is forced to travel out of state for care.

Thank you for your work on this important issue.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts

reproductive rights