TCI Regional Policy Design Stakeholder Submissions

We already voted down a gas tax. This initiative is being disguised as a way to get more money. NO

I am against this illegal "gas tax". If this were legal & were verifiable to be 100% towards the MBTA I would not refute such a tax. The global warming cult in MA should be signed up to each pay their share of this gas tax if they are true believers. I am not one of them. The MA politicians who helped make Boston a sanctuary city are 100% proof that anything goes here even though MA independents & Republicans are not solicited for their input on stupid tax increase runarouns like this gas tax.

MASSACHUSETTS is not California !!! The working poor cannot afford another tax. We pay enough. If this state needs more money for hack jobs, get it from some else. Try cutting some of the overpaid government bureaucrats. Not everybody can drive a bike to work.

Alician Quinlan, Ph.D., P.E.
Falmouth MA
1 December 2019

I oppose implementation of the Transportation and Climate Initiative [TCI].

Claims of catastrophic warming of Massachusetts, New England, and the contiguous 48 States, now or soon, are not supported by temperature data collected by NOAA's United States Climate Reference Network [USCRN] and United States Regional Climate Reference Network [USRCRN], which are the sources of the most accurate and unbiased climate data available for the United States. Network description, data, and graphs are available for public scrutiny via:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/land-based-station-data/land-based-datasets/us-climate-reference-network-uscrn
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/ - national scale
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/usrcrn/ - regional scale
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/qcdatasets.html - access to datasets and graphs of datasets

According to these websites: USCRN and USRCRN programs aim to maintain sustainable high-quality climate observation networks that 50 years from now can with the highest degree of scientific confidence answer the question: How has USA climate changed over the past 50 years? USCRN is NOAA's premiere land-surface temperature observation network. It is managed by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center and operated in partnership with NOAA's Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division. It consists of a network completed in 2008 of 114 stations distributed across the 48 contiguous states, two stations in Hawaii, and a network of 29 stations in Alaska begun in 2009 and still being deployed. These stations were designed with climate science in mind. Three independent measurements of temperature and precipitation are made at each station, insuring continuity of a well-calibrated, highly accurate observation record. The stations are placed in pristine environments that are expected to be free of development for many decades. Stations are monitored and maintained to high standards and calibrated on an annual basis. In addition to temperature and precipitation, these stations also measure solar radiation, surface ‘skin’ temperature, and surface winds. They also include triplicate measurements of soil moisture and soil temperature at five depths, as well as atmospheric relative humidity for most of the 114 contiguous U.S. stations. Stations in Alaska and Hawaii provide network experience and observations in polar and tropical regions, respectively. Regional-scale USRCRN maintains the same high quality of climate science measurements as national-scale USCRN, but its stations are spaced more closely and focus solely on temperature and precipitation. Beginning with a pilot project in the Southwest that was completed in 2011, USRCRN stations will be deployed at an 80-mile [130 km] spatial resolution across the United States to provide for the detection of regional climate change signals.

So far, 15 years of USCRN data have been collected. These data do not support claims that temperature is rising inexorably and catastrophically, or even moderately, in the United States. For an example, see the plot in the attached PDF of USCRN temperature data for the contiguous 48 states from 2004-2019., one out of many data-plots available via http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/qcdatasets.html. This plot reveals, contrary to computer climate model predictions, that during the past fifteen years there has been, in fact, no inexorable, catastrophic rise in temperature across the 48 contiguous states. As a consequence, there is no factual scientific basis justifying the Transportation and Climate Initiative. For that reason, the it must be abandoned.

State and Federal government officials should be relying on USCRN and USRCRN observations such as those plotted in the attached PDF to formulate rational fact-based policies, regulations, and legislation rather than on computer model predictions that are known to conflict substantially with observed temperatures. A computer model is merely a hypothesis stated in the language of mathematics. The scientific method requires that the predictions of hypotheses be compared with observations. If predictions and observations conflict, the scientific method deems the hypothesis [e.g., the computer model] to have been falsified. The scientific method further requires that falsified hypotheses be discarded or re-formulated and re-tested, over and over again. The scientific method is an iterative process that can tell us with certainty only what is not true, never what is absolutely true, because the next observation might conflict with a prediction and thereby reveal the falsity of the hypothesis. As a consequence of the substantial discrepancies between temperature observations and climate computer model predictions, belief that climate models speak truth is an act of faith rather than of science, making the Transportation and Climate Initiative a faith-based initiative, not a science-based initiative. Faith should never be the basis for environmental regulations, legislation, and fees. They should be grounded in scientific fact [observation and measurement], not discrepancy-laden computer model predictions [make-believe].

If climate change is such a threat why did Obama just buy a 12 million dollar house on the water?
Call this what is, A SELF INDULGENT TAX ON THE MIDDLE CLASS.
Work with the money you already suck out of us already.
GREEDY PIGS.

No engineer could have ever agreed to this plan. Massachusetts currently creates only 1.3% of the nations greenhouse gasses. You can financially punish the citizens to the point we turn off our heat and stop driving our cars and you could never change the temperature of the earth from Massachusetts. Elected officials no longer represent we the people. This fee will disproportionately impact low income people that must commute off Cape Cod each day. And for what? So Charlie Baker earns a green award?

Any tax increase should be voted on by the full state legislature . People are already strapped paying the bloated taxes in this state while
State employees never adjust the age at which they retire with their defined benefit pensions , long ago made obsolete in the private sector
Where actual budgets have to be adhered to. The guise of “ climate “ is a complete lie . We should not emulate California lest we become the excrement rich he’ll hole California now has become. Act like a Republican Charlie .

I have lived in Mass all my life. Boston for 50 yrs , Dedham for the rest. This is nothing but a new tax. Massachusetts has become a haven for far left liberals , I was a Dem most of my life , I absolutely didn't vote for President bone spurs and never will. I am getting disgusted by this State with what is becoming of it! Mass was always a working class state , now we are becoming a far left conclave of out of state wealthy people. We are pushing out the working class and people , like me , who worked our whole life and planned on living here til I die. The State govt passes laws which should be left to people who can and must be allowed to make decisions on our own! BANNING AND TAXING ALMOST EVERYTHING WILL NOT HELP CLIMATE CHANGE ONLY INDIVIDUALS WILL ! PLASTIC BAGS AND STRAWS,OUTSIDE CLOTHES LINES , SERIOUSLY ! BANNING MENTHOL CIG. WAS DONE ONLY TOO ALLOW A 75 PERCENT EXCISE ON VAPING PRODUCTS ( LET PEOPLE DECIDE IF THEY WANT TO SMOKE OR VAPE EVERYONE KNOWS THE DANGERS PEOPLE ARE SMARTER THAN POLS THINK ) MARIJUANA IS LEGAL BUT MENTHOL CIG. ARE NOT ? I PAY TAXES FOR EVERYTHING ( COULD SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHY I STILL NEED TO PAY EXCISE TAXES ON MY OLD CAR? ) THE BIG DIG WAS SUPPOSE TO SOLVE EVERY TRAFFIC PROBLEM OUR TAXES PAID FOR IT HOW DID THAT WORK OUT ? BIKE LANES EVERYWHERE AND MORE PEOPLE BEING HIT BY CARS. BANNING OF WORDS LIKE BITCH. SOMETHING HAS GONE VERY WRONG WITH OUR STATE AND POLS. I COME FROM A LARGE VOTING UNION HARD WORKING FAMILY AND WE WILL STAR TO FIGHT ALL THESE RIDICULOUS TAXES AND MEASURES FROM NOW ON. AGAIN WHAT IN GOD'S NAME IS BECOMING OF MY BELOVED MASSACHUSETTS ?