TCI Regional Policy Design Stakeholder Submissions

I do not support raising gas taxes. I cannot afford paying higher gas prices due to hidden taxes. It is bad for Maine - and all the other states involved. I cannot afford a new car that is battery powered. This is not something Maine's Governor should be doing to us taxpayers. Stop this nonsense now! And what about the fossil fuel used to make the batteries, to recycle the batteries, and the carbon fuel - electricity - to charge the batteries, and to build these cars???? Charge the extra taxes to the people buying these cars ....

We need clean transportation immediately. What we started in the 1970s should have been finished long before now. We need to build and sell electric vehicles to replace combustion engine buses, trucks and cars. I purchased an all-electric car, the Volkswagon eGolf and paid $20,000 for it after rebates. Not everyone can afford to buy a new car, however, even if it is only $20,000, so the government needs to give incentives to people so that they can afford them. Cities and towns across the country need to replace their old buses and city vehicles to electric vehicles. Companies that use trucks need to purchase electric trucks.

First we need to implement a carbon fee and dividend program that will tax any company that extracts fossil fuels based on the ton of greenhouse gases the extracted fuels will emit when burned. Once the tax is collected by the government, the government will rebate all of that money back to every American household in the form of a dividend check. To incentivize other countries to reduce their carbon footprint, a border tax should be imposed on imports again based on the ton of greenhouse gases that were emitted to produce that product. Once a carbon fee and dividend law is enacted, innovation will be unleashed and manufacturers of electric vehicles will flood the market with them and their prices will decrease.

There is no time to waste on this.

We can cut poverty and pollution at the same time! If the needs of low income people are not addressed, they will be forced into making choices which undermine the wonderful goals of this project. Choices such as driving highly polluting vehicles or being susceptible to believing the misinformation of carbon polluters.
I urge you to move forward with a regional program that prioritizes the needs of communities overburdened with pollution and underserved with transportation options.
Thank you.

Transportation is the number one source of climate pollution in the United States. I support the Transportation and Climate Initiative. This transportation plan must be bold enough to cut harmful transportation pollution at the scale needed to avert the climate crisis. We need a plan that holds large transportation polluters accountable for the pollution they create and invests in clean transportation solutions including:
More public transit and electric vehicle infrastructure in rural areas
Expansion of commuter rail, electric vehicles, and streets in the suburbs that are safe, walkable, and bikeable
Sustainable and equitable housing near transit and electric bus fleets in urban communities.

Please do NOT increase taxes on gas and disuse fuel!! Pa has highest taxes and killing transportation in this state!!!

We do not need the Transportation and Climate Initiative in MA. It amounts to a carbon tax at the wholesale level and ultimately another tax
on gas and diesel. Taxes are already too high, we do not need to add more. Such an initiative needs to be voted by the State legislature, it should not be implemented by the Executive branch or other means. CA is losing business and residents because of excessive regulation and taxes. We do not need gas prices exceeding $4 per gallon or higher car prices, etc.

1. It is unconstitutional to impose new taxes unless a bill is introduced in the House of Representatives. This is a tax imposed by fiat.
2. The voters of Massachusetts made it abundantly clear that they reject an increase in the gas tax by a referendum just a few years ago
3. Since the mass dpw spends 4 times as much per mile as New Hampshire and twice as much as New York it is unconscionable to ask for more money until the most basic of fiscal controls are placed on their expenditures