By Frank Bonet
The Transportation Climate Initiative (TCI) is designing a mechanism to put a price on vehicle carbon emissions in Massachusetts and for many in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states. There are many politicians, including Governor Baker, who are considering placing a tax on you driving your vehicle in Massachusetts. I am writing not to complain about this wave of being pre-occupied with saving our earth, but to states that this is just another policy and tax to restrict the people of the Commonwealth.
Massachusetts again is taxing its residents when in fact they should demand better mileage from vehicle producing companies. Massachusetts should do better to restrict vehicle driving in Boston with less than one person. The Commonwealth should do more by making their state and local government vehicles electric. The Governor should approve funds (grants not loans) for every homeowner in Massachusetts so they can get solar panels and reduce the carbon monoxide produced by heating systems and water heaters in the Commonwealth.
Let’s ask ourselves, what exactly will the estimated $500 million dollars of new revenue that will be collected by the Commonwealth be for and who are the stakeholders that are engaged in these discussions. They still have not recommended how to invest the proceeds. That’s even if the legislature wants to reinvest the potential proceeds or just use it to subsidize sums of money for their cities projects.
Let’s face it, the TCI is just another body who wants to tax you then use those funds to buy state and local government greener and more efficient vehicle. They will possible loan you money from the proceeds (at supposedly a low interest rate, unless you qualify for a grant,) so that you can get an electric car or other non-gas propelled vehicles. It’s like solar panels where the Commonwealth collects a fee from your utility bill and uses it to loan out money for low income properties and business to install solar panels while you (a homeowner) have to pay full price on your solar panels or get fleeced by some company wanting to lease you a few solar panels at your rooftops (thank you Massachusetts legislature).
Think about this for a moment. The more you are taxed for driving, or taxed per vehicle, or taxed per vehicle and per miles that is less than you will be able to afford a vehicle in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Soon only the wealthy or the rich will be able to own more than one vehicle or drive more than the required miles because they will be able to afford the taxes levied on them.
In a city (Lawrence or other poorer communities) that does not have much of a transportation strategy, that places the poor or lower middle class in a disadvantage again). Will Massachusetts not only tax its residents on this, but also its livery vehicles (which Lawrence rely much on getting around), or the Ubers of Lyft drivers who make their money on driving people around to places. Will they tax the buses that they themselves own such as Transportation Authorities throughout the Commonwealth? Lawrence has no T!
People, you have no idea how beneficial this policy could be but also how restrictive and damaging it will be for the people of Lawrence. What is required first is for government to have a better system of transportation for cities such as Lawrence in order to reduce the need for driving cars.
How about we ask the TCI to advocate and lobby Congress to tax the companies making the vehicles with low emissions and demanding that only electric cars be made? How about TCI lobby Congress to stop making fossil fuels for vehicles? How about ending subsidies to coal, oil and gas companies? How about increase the subsidies and lower the cost to solar, wind and hydropower? How about giving incentives to employees to use other forms of transportations to go into work?
On another note, we don’t even know if anything put in place by TCI will work.
