TCI Regional Policy Design Stakeholder Submissions

You can't squeeze blood from a stone, but that never stops the legislature from trying to figure out a way!!! Mass government is overpaid, over bloated, over nepotized and GREEDY!!! If you would stop overpaying these nepotized jobs and WASTING tax payer money, there would be plenty to get things done. You legislators should be ASHAMED for the NON-STOP ways you try to squeeze us unfortunate residents of this WASTEFULL and CORRUPT state!

The intent of your initiative is most laudable, but as the old saying goes "the devil is in the details". And in that initiative I see numerous details that provide opportunities for the devil to do what the devil does.

A cursory examination of your website reveals that you intend to reduce carbon emissions from the combustion of transportation fuels through "a cap-and-invest program or other pricing mechanism".

Please define "other pricing mechanism". Is there more than one? And just who will pay for the monetary needs of the "other pricing mechanism"? I think I can make a pretty good guess.

Your Draft Regional Policy Proposal decrees that:

Spring – Fall 2020 – Participating jurisdictions develop a “model rule” and take any legislative steps that could be needed to implement the regional program.

2021 – Jurisdictions conduct rulemaking process to adopt regulation

So how do you define “jurisdiction” what “legislative steps” will the “jurisdiction” take? Do you mean a mandated increase of the excise tax that Massachusetts taxpayers are already paying for gasoline? We Taxpayers will have something to say about that, and it won’t be “Yassa, Boss.

I recommend that you review the history from which you have obviously not learned. In 2013 the Mass legislature tried to tie future increases in the state gasoline to the CPI – in other words an Automatic Gas Tax Increase. The very next year the people of Massachusetts successfully put on the ballot a referendum question on that fuel tax increase and threw it right back in the legislators' faces. And the minute you try to shove your “other pricing mechanism” down our throats you had better brace yourselves for the very same reaction.

Having reviewed the many implications and the expected results of your planned "initiatives" I have just two words for you -- and those two words are not "Happy Birthday". Those words also apply to the horse you rode in on.

Sincerely yours,
Cornelius Horan

I believe there are many aspects to this proposal that are not equitable or fair. The burden will be borne by people who are forced to find affordable housing away from cities where the jobs are located. I am concerned about climate change, but once again the wealthy that live in the cities or expensive homes that are not fuel efficient or use more fuel with a single private jet flight than the low and middle class consume.

I appreciate the need to act, but I am concerned about the long term impact of electric car batteries, particularly in third world nations where they are dumped. Car MPG has improved tremendously and emissions have been reduced as well. Great progress has been made. In my opinion, this is attempt to circumvent the constitution to tax the people with the least influence without proportionally affecting all.

The state has spent billions on public transportation without increasing capacity or convenience. The lack of seating and frequent delays force people into their cars.

There are many ways the environment could be improved without causing inequitable impact on the citizens of the state

Dear Governor and Mass Legislators,
I am writing to oppose the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI) gasoline tax, which is being considered outside the normal legislative process. The TCI claims to address a crisis that does not exist. The earth, and its climate, is sustaining more people, living longer and in better health than ever before in human history. Before passing new taxes, be mindful that climate science is in its infancy and the doomsday environmental predictions of the last half century have always been wrong, whether acid rain, the zero population movement, ozone depletion, nuclear power, the earth is running out of fossil fuels. Until more is known and the theories have been tested and retested, don't pass the TCI, if for no other reason than it will disproportionately hurt the less affluent in our state.

I strongly oppose the TCI. We repealed the automatic gas tax increase at the ballot box in 2014 by a margin of 53-47. All new taxes are supposed to originate in the House of Representatives not with the Governor. We need to see which of our elected office holders are in favor of this disastrous initiative and hold them responsible at the ballot box. Enough of these crazy schemes! Just look to California to see what it has done to the price of a gallon of gas over now over $4.00.

Please do not raise taxes. Massachusetts residents are overburdened with high taxes and a generally high cost of living. Additional tax burdens will harm individuals financially. I ask you, in the name of decency, please do not burden us with additional taxes.

Let's get something straight at the outset. The TCI is a TAX and it's a tax on all of us who use gasoline (which is just about everyone). TCI is also a corrupt scam that bypasses the legislative process and the will of the people and puts it in the hands of unaccountable bureaucrats all for the sake of stealing money to line their pockets and pay for their "Pet Projects" such as transportation agencies that couldn't run a childs train set, never mind a public transit system. Let's get something else straight . There have been at least 5 ice ages in Earths history and they all happened before mans existence here. In between these ice age periods there were global warm ups that happened without carbon emitting humans or industry on the planet. Man caused "climate change"; global warming; global cooling; climate catastrophe, WHATEVER these climate "kooks" are calling it this week is a total fraud, perpetrated to steal taxpayer money. We need to wake up as a people and stop falling for it. Our gas taxes should be funding the building and repair of our highways, roads, bridges and tunnels ONLY. Nothing else.

Climate change has been going on since the existence of earth. Sometimes climate change is in the cooling direction to generate an Ice Age. Sometimes it heats up to boil everything off the planet. Either of these events is a restart for fauna and flora on the planet. We have been in the warming phase since the last ice age. Unless you know how to stop this process, humans have been around for an almost immeasurably small part, you are on an exercise in futility and I don't want spend resources that will not help.