A invoice pending on Beacon Hill that appears to set a statewide automobile miles traveled discount aim as a part of the decarbonization push has ignited nationwide backlash, with critics calling it governmental overreach.
Below the so-called Freedom to Transfer Act, an interagency coordinating council could be tasked with crafting a “whole-of-government plan” to cut back reliance on private autos and enhance entry to public transportation within the Bay State.
“The legislation would ensure that Massachusetts stays on track to reduce emissions from transportation – the sector that accounts for the greatest share of emissions in the Commonwealth,” in accordance with a invoice abstract.
Senate Majority Chief Cindy Creem, a Newton Democrat, is main the push to shift the Bay State away from relying “too heavily” on electrical autos as a “decarbonizing strategy.”
“With the Trump administration rolling back vehicle emission standards and withholding funds from EV charging programs,” Creem mentioned throughout a legislative listening to in mid-Might, “and with congressional Republicans looking to repeal EV tax credits and derail state-level EV rules, now is the time to pursue new strategies, additional strategies.”
“Setting specific goals for reducing vehicle miles traveled would help guide decisions made across state government,” she added, “and sharpen the focus of efforts to promote alternative modes of transportation like public transit, biking, walking.”
A clip of Creem’s tesimony has gone viral within the weeks following the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Power’s listening to on Might 14.
Final week, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones posted concerning the invoice on X, which was subsequently faraway from the social media platform. Fox Information’ ‘The Faulkner Focus’ additionally featured it in a section titled “Democrats divided over how to move forward,” final Tuesday.
Within the section, anchor Harris Faulkner interviewed conservative political commentator Michael Knowles, who famous a survey that MassInc performed final yr displaying that 70% of respondents “felt unsafe on public transit in the Greater Boston area.”
“People want to be safe,” Knowles mentioned. “You need to give people some kind of option to vote for you. As Democrats are struggling with being viewed as so out of touch, I don’t think this lady in Massachusetts is going to help.”
State Rep. Mike Connolly, a Cambridge Democrat, is among the invoice’s eight co-sponsors. He instructed the Herald on Saturday that he believes the way in which the invoice is being portrayed is “completely overblown and ignorant.”
“This legislation doesn’t attempt to set some specific limit or establish any kind of prescriptive formula to punish individual drivers, as the right-wing reporting on this seemed to imply,” Connolly mentioned. “All it really does is say that we should put the structures in place to consider and refine our policies around vehicle miles traveled.”
The invoice’s abstract states that MassDOT’s transportation plans should “provide a reasonable pathway to compliance with our emissions limits for the transportation sector.” If these reductions aren’t met, the company must make a “greater investment in public transit, bike and pedestrian infrastructure, or other clean transportation options.”
Regional planning organizations and MassDOT would even be required to approve solely initiatives with “a reasonable pathway to compliance with the greenhouse gas emissions sublimits … and the statewide vehicle miles traveled reduction goals.”
Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, a watchdog group, thrust the invoice into the nationwide highlight, with a Might 23 publish garnering practically 350,000 views on X and being multiplied additional by outstanding conservative accounts.
Group spokesman Paul Diego Craney says the laws could be “incredibly damaging to the state economy and restrict transportation for countless residents.”
“Massachusetts lawmakers need to reverse course on the state’s mandate to hit net-zero by 2050,” Craney instructed the Herald on Saturday, “which is driving these lawmakers to propose some extreme pieces of legislation … Net-zero is nothing more than a fantasy.”
The interagency coordinating council could be created by means of the laws, consisting of 15 state officers.
The group would assess and report on methods “necessary to reduce statewide vehicles miles traveled through the establishment of an equitable, interconnected, accessible and reliable network of non-personal vehicle transportation options and through land use policies that reduce the need for personal vehicles,” in accordance with the invoice.
Sen. Michael Barrett, a Lexington Democrat who chairs the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Power, has raised issues that the invoice might not be sensible in all elements of the Commonwealth.
“I do worry about an unintended and subtle bias against rural Massachusetts,” Barrett mentioned on the listening to on the invoice. He added it raises the “question of what someone is to do in a place where one has to travel a long distance” to work.
A statewide coalition of environmental organizations reported final December that transportation represents “37% of total emissions statewide, and it is one of the sectors where we have made the least progress toward our statutory Clean Energy and Climate Plan goals.”
One of many targets in that plan is for there to be “200,000 zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2025,” however the Bay State was “below half that total” at finish of final yr, in accordance with the coalition.
State information reveals that “light-duty vehicles” traveled 57,191 million miles in 2023, a determine projected to develop to “about 59,100 million in 2030.”
Seth Gadbois, a clear transportation workers legal professional on the Conservation Legislation Basis, highlighted that the invoice relies on legal guidelines in Minnesota and Colorado, which redirected funding away from freeway initiatives in direction of bus corridors.
Massachusetts’ clear power and local weather plan lacks “clear, measurable guidelines or targets” to cut back miles pushed, Gadbois mentioned on the legislative listening to.
“This absence leads to disparate and uncoordinated efforts to give people more options for how to get around,” he mentioned, “all while miles driven by car and emissions continue to increase year over year.”
New Bedford resident Elijah DeSousa, founding father of the power advocacy group Residents In opposition to Eversource, instructed the Herald on Saturday that he believes the invoice isn’t “just another climate proposal,” however a “blueprint for behavioral control disguised as environmental policy.”
“I refuse to quietly surrender the most fundamental right we have as citizens: the right to move freely, without needing permission from unelected councils or state-issued metrics,” he mentioned.
