Editor’s Note – AIM President and CEO Brooke Thomson testified last week about Governor Maura Healey’s proposed Mass Leads Act before the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies.

Good morning, Chair Parisella, Chair Finegold and members of the committee.

My name is Brooke Thomson, and I am President and CEO of the Associated Industries of Massachusetts. AIM is the largest statewide business organization representing more than 3400 member businesses across 150 different sectors.

I am here to share our members’ thoughts on the Healey-Driscoll Administration’s proposal, House bill H.4459 the Mass Leads Act and the various policies and bond authorizations within.

AIM unequivocally supports the overarching objectives of the governor’s bill, which seeks to make strategic investments in the state’s economy. This bill doubles down on some of the state’s most important employees and simultaneously courts new and dynamic industries that will propel Massachusetts into the future.

The Commonwealth’s economy is at a crossroad and uncertainty is the most common refrain we hear from members: uncertainty about interest rates, uncertainty about their ability to hire enough skilled workers and uncertainty about the cost of running a business here.

However, we at AIM are certain that this bill represents a strong investment in the state’s employer community and a commitment to growth. The bill pairs nicely with housing initiatives and AIM believes that housing is workforce and workforce is housing.

I would like to highlight a few key initiatives in the bill that AIM strongly supports:

• We support the 10-year reauthorization for the Life Sciences Center and more than $1billion in funding to retain and grow this crucial sector.
• We also support the new, historic investment in Climate Tech, which uses life sciences as a model and will allow us to create new products and deploy them here, helping us meet our climate goals and create new jobs at the same time.
• Finally, we believe the historic investment MassWorks will supercharge a program that has proven to facilitate development in cities and towns.

As this committee crafts its own version of the legislation, we strongly encourage you to support new sectors while remembering that traditional manufacturing and other industries remain key employers throughout the state. We also encourage you all to take a regional approach to ensure that these opportunities are equitably distributed to underserved regions across the Commonwealth.

We offer the following additional priorities on behalf of our members:

• Massachusetts should join every other state in New England and exempt rolling stock – tractors, trailers and rail cars – from the sales tax. We want companies to buy new and cleaner vehicles and do it here.
• Let’s allow deductions for business interest so that companies will not be penalized for borrowing and investing in growth. Let’s finally decouple from the federal tax code of section 163(j). As Congress proves incapable of passing significant reforms, we need to encourage borrowing at the local level.
• Enact common-sense employment law reforms to stem the avalanche of litigation that has followed the Reuter decision.
• Implement apprenticeship reforms to ensure that we have enough workers to transition us to a green economy.

Thank you and I am happy to answer any questions.