Schedule

Tuesday March 29 

• Joint Committee on The Judiciary-Late Files-2:00pm-Virtual Hearing-https://malegislature.gov/Events/Hearings/Detail/4247

Wednesday March 30 

• Joint Committee on Financial Services-App-Based Drivers-1:00pm-Virtual Hearing-https://malegislature.gov/Events/Hearings/Detail/4231
• Joint Committee on Transportation-Late Filed Bills-4pm Deadline-Written Testimony Only-https://malegislature.gov/Events/Hearings/Detail/4245

Monday April 4 

• Joint Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change-The Future of Gas-10:00am-https://malegislature.gov/Events/Hearings/Detail/4249

Low-Income Workers Will Soon Receive $500 Checks – Here’s Who Qualifies

Boston Herald – Half a million eligible low-income workers should see a $500 check in the mail by the end of March through the Baker administration’s COVID-19 Essential Employee Premium Pay Program.

These payments comprise $250 million of a $460 million program passed by the state Legislature to spend the state’s American Rescue Plan Act funds.

Massachusetts residents will be eligible for these payments if their 2020 tax returns show an income of at least $12,750, or the equivalent of a 20-hour workweek for 50 weeks at minimum wage in 2020. Eligible workers’ total income must have been below 300% of the federal poverty level.

In 2020, that income had to be below $38,280 for a single person household, $51,720 for two people, $65,160 for three people and $78,600 for four people. A full chart can be found on Mass.gov. Workers from any industry are eligible for the payments. Married couples have to qualify independently to each receive a payment.

With Gas Tax Cut off the Table, Beacon Hill Mulls Other Options

WBUR – Gov. Charlie Baker last week joined top Democrats in throwing cold water on the idea of pausing the state’s gas tax, while Beacon Hill appears no closer to agreement on how to deliver tax relief to residents feeling the twin pinch of soaring gas prices and historic inflation.

After the House last week rejected a Republican-led push to suspend the 24-cents-per-gallon gas tax, House Speaker Ronald Mariano doubled down on that decision, cautioning that it would cost the state “a lot more money” while questioning the benefits it would offer to motorists.

“If you look at what it will do to our bond rating and what it will do to the price of us borrowing money to finance the road and bridge projects that this money is committed to, we find ourselves in a very, very precarious situation,” Mariano said, noting state leaders don’t control gas prices. “In some cases, I saw in California, it was $7 a gallon. Twenty cents off $7 a gallon of gas is really not going to make anyone happy.”

Instead, Mariano said, legislative leaders plan to “look at other ways to ease the inflation burden without taking money away from our potential bond rating.”

Budget Writers: Put It in Writing

State House News – Lawmakers have heard hours of live testimony about Gov. Charlie Baker’s $48.5 billion annual budget proposal from dozens of state and executive branch officials, but with House and Senate spending debates approaching, the public will get no such chance.

The Joint Ways and Means Committee does not plan to convene another hearing, either in-person or virtually, to allow advocacy groups and members of the public to speak face-to-face, or screen-to-screen, with their elected representatives about state budget priorities. Instead, lawmakers will open a five-day public comment period next week and solicit written testimony only.

Committee leaders do not appear to have plans to make submitted testimony widely available but say they will make written comments available upon request to members of the press.

At the start of the 2021-2022 lawmaking session, senators proposed requiring joint committees to make available upon request any electronically submitted public testimony, but the House never agreed to that push and the packages of joint rules that went to a private conference committee have remained there, with no word on an outcome.

Baker’s Behavioral Health Commitment Merits Support

MassLive – (Opinon) Gov. Charlie Baker’s plan to create better access to behavioral health care is not being presented as his legacy, but if it bears fruit, as it should, his final year in office will have long-lasting positive impact.

The governor’s proposal would require providers and insurers to increase spending on primary and behavioral health by 30% by 2025. That would put $1.4 billion into the system and address the critical problem of access to such care, which health experts call a crisis in Massachusetts.

Four months remain on the legislative schedule in this, the governor’s final year in office. But that should be time enough, because this is not the first time Baker has broached it.

A similar 2019 proposal was sidetracked by the COVID-19 pandemic, which did have the effect of expanding telehealth services and other improvements. But, the pandemic also dramatically highlighted the need for better behavioral health services.

Unanimous Vote Lifts Wage Theft Bill Supporters

State House News – Organized labor groups are optimistic that the unanimous support in a committee for legislation to ratchet up enforcement against wage theft could signal that the issue, addressed twice by the Senate in recent years but not by the House, could get the attention of lawmakers before this session ends.

All 17 members of the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development, chaired by Rep. Josh Cutler and Sen. Patricia Jehlen, voted Friday to give a favorable report to the committee’s redrafted version of wage theft bills (H 1959 / S 1179) initially filed by Rep. Dan Donahue and Sen. Sal DiDomenico.

The redrafted version of legislation to provide the attorney general’s office with the ability to file directly in court to pursue wage-and-hour violations on behalf of workers – and to collect damages and attorney’s fees when those workers prevail in court – was sent to the House for additional consideration.

Eight More Schools Help Expand Early College Reach

State House News – With eight high schools newly designated to offer early college, the Baker administration said Monday that it expects around 8,700 students to be enrolled in the programs by the 2024-2025 school year. This year, the Executive Office of Education said, about 5,400 students are enrolled in early college programs across 50 Massachusetts high schools.

Launched in 2017, the partnerships between high schools and colleges allow high school students to earn college credits for free before they graduate.

The programs that earned official early college designations this month from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Department of Higher Education are: Fenway High School in partnership with Wentworth Institute of Technology; Mt. Everett Regional High School in partnership with Bard College at Simon’s Rock; Narragansett Regional High School in partnership with Mt. Wachusett Community College and Fitchburg State University; New Mission High School in partnership with Wentworth Institute of Technology; Argosy Collegiate Charter School in Fall River in partnership with Bristol Community College; Cambridge Rindge & Latin School in partnership with Lesley University; Essex North Shore Agricultural & Technical School in partnership with North Shore Community College and New Bedford High School in partnership with Bristol Community College.

The Baker administration also announced $1.3 million in grants to schools launching or expanding early college programs. On Wednesday, a committee of the University of Massachusetts Board of Trustees is slated to discuss plans to apply for a state grant supporting a pilot UMass early college program, the Commonwealth Collegiate Academy, which would launch this fall. In his fiscal 2023 budget that will soon be rewritten by House lawmakers, Gov. Charlie Baker recommended growing the total annual investment in early college to more than $18 million, from its current $11 million.

Surging Costs of both Fuel and Food Weigh on Food Pantries

Boston Globe – Every Wednesday without fail, the staff at Lazarus House Ministries in Lawrence feeds a long line of hungry people: kids wearing Crocs, seniors in wheelchairs, and Esther Pineda, a chatty 71-year-old with thick-rimmed sunglasses.

She arrived last week with a lavender rolling backpack, dotted with daisies, and stuffed it with tuna and trail mix from the food pantry. The haul can “feed the streets,” Pineda said in Spanish through an interpreter. She intended to give some to her bus driver, her car mechanic, her neighbor. Anything left after that would grace her family dinner table.

“I always share the food,” she added. “It’s a small thing I can do.”

The people Pineda hopes to help are much like herself, struggling with spiraling costs of essentials, which have gone into overdrive since Russia’s war in Ukraine caused a spike in gas and food prices. Workers at pantries like Lazarus House say they’re busier now than most of the pandemic, even as they, too, struggle to pay for and transport the goods they give to those in need.

Six Greater Boston food pantries who spoke to the Globe are seeing the impact firsthand. Maynard-based Open Table feeds 225 families each week, an increase from 175 in November, said executive director Jeanine Calabria. The number of weekly guests at the Watertown Food Pantry has tripled to over 200. And Lazarus House in Lawrence served around 1,100 people at its pantry and 400 at the soup kitchen weekly through the winter. (Two Wednesdays in March, it saw over 1,800 people total, close to a record high.)

 Moderna Should Share its Vaccine

Commonwealth Magazine – Through most of 2020, most of us had never heard of Moderna, a small start-up pharmaceutical company based in Cambridge. The company had brought no product to market and had lost $241 million during the first half of the year.

But, in January 2020, scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) were already at work designing the “spike” protein molecule that Moderna’s vaccine would eventually use to trigger a human immune response against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

To be clear, until early January, these designs were focused on several other coronaviruses and used a new vaccine platform called messenger RNA, or mRNA. Recognized as an innovative vaccine technology, this is the foundational research and antigen design that allowed the NIH and its collaborators to, in less than 48 hours, design the “spike” protein that their candidate COVID-19 vaccine would use to teach the immune system to fend off the virus.

Since then, Moderna has become a household name thanks to its vaccine, which was developed with $6 billion worth of American taxpayer assistance and whose profits catapulted three company executives onto Forbes’ list of the 400 wealthiest people. Without the NIH research and development support, it is unlikely that Moderna would have become so profitable, a fact that its CEO Stéphane Bancel readily admits.

To-Go Cocktails, Expanded Outdoor Dining Likely Here to Stay

MassLive – Expanded outdoor dining and to-go cocktails are likely here to stay in Massachusetts for at least another year after state lawmakers handed a “major victory” to restaurants and voted to further extend the pandemic-era rules.

State senators on Thursday voted to extend the policies through April 1, 2023 as part of a $1.6 billion spending bill that would also funnel hundreds of millions of more dollars into COVID-19 treatments, testing and vaccine efforts.

Gov. Charlie Baker still needs to sign off on the House- and Senate-approved extension.

“This is great news to get it extended,” said Bob Luz of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association. “It gives us the time to put some process to a very complicated situation.”

Restaurateurs, many of whom Luz said are still “hanging on,” would like to see the popular policies made permanent. To help eateries boost capacity while still maintaining safe distances, outdoor patios or European-style street-side cafes popped up on city streets and sidewalks

Mayor Wu Sticks by North-End Outdoor Dining Fee; Restauranteurs Threaten Suit

Boston Herald – Mayor Michelle Wu doubled down on her plans to charge North End restaurateurs a $7,500 fee for outdoor dining as the furor around the decision continues and restaurant owners say she should get ready to be served — in a lawsuit in the coming weeks.

“If a critical mass of restaurant owners also believe this program is unworkable as proposed, then I am prepared to rescind North End outdoor dining before the start of this season,” Wu told restaurateurs in a Friday evening letter that cited higher 311 calls and a high density of restaurants in the neighborhood.

“Based on the experience of the past two years,” she added, “this year’s pilot program for the North End is different from that of other neighborhoods because of the unique impacts of outdoor dining on the quality of residential life.”

In the letter, she said other residents have expressed “deep opposition” and wanted to end North End outdoor dining altogether, but, “As believers in the benefits of outdoor dining, we crafted the North End program in an effort to try one last time to strike the right balance with thoughtful spacing, time limitations, increased safety protections, and other resources necessary to mitigate the impacts on parking, trash, rodents, and public safety.”

Court Says says Franchises Must Comply with Independent Contractor Law 

Commonwealth Magazine – The Supreme Judicial Court ruled Thursday that companies operating as franchises need to comply with the state’s independent contractor law, a ruling that could lead companies to scrutinize the terms of their arrangements with franchisees.

Many large chains operating in Massachusetts, like Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s, are franchises, which means individual franchisees own the stores, but they pay franchise fees to the parent company and are required to use its business model.

In the SJC case, Dhananjay Patel vs. 7-Eleven, five 7-Eleven franchise owners sued 7-Eleven, arguing that they were being treated like employees, not independent business owners, because of the amount of control the corporate 7-Eleven had over their operations and finances. If they were considered employees, 7-Eleven would be responsible for paying costs like overtime pay and unemployment insurance, and the company might not be able to demand franchise fees out of the franchisees’ wages.

“I do think this is a warning call to corporate franchisors about what their relationship is with their franchisees,” said Shannon Liss-Riordan, an attorney representing the franchisees in this case. “In order for franchisees to be independent contractors, they really need to be free to run their own business and need to be independently running their own business and calling the shots.”

Massachusetts COVID Cases Climb Again

Boston Herald – State health officials on Thursday reported a continuing climb in new coronavirus cases, as the K-12 schools infection count also increased amid a new variant.

The 1,086 new virus cases in the state was a 21% jump from 899 reported cases last Thursday. A total of 2,594 staff and students tested positive in Bay State schools in the past week, up from the previous week’s report as infections rise across the state.

The omicron BA.2 “stealth” variant is circulating around the region after mask mandates were lifted throughout the area.

The state’s daily average positive test rate had been plunging, but is now ticking back up. The average positive test rate is now 1.99%, up from 1.6% last week. The rate for Thursday’s report was 1.96%.

State health officials reported five new COVID deaths, bringing the state’s total recorded death toll to 20,063. The daily average of deaths was much higher following the omicron hospitalization surge. The daily death rate is now five.

MBTA Ridership Rebounding, Particularly on Commuter Rail

Commonwealth Magazine – MBTA passenger levels, which took a hit earlier this year when COVID levels shot up, have recovered their lost ground and appear to be picking up steam, particularly on the commuter rail system.

Commuter rail ridership a year ago was just 11.6 percent of pre-COVID levels. Passenger levels rose a bit in the last half of 2021, but they really began to pick up during the first three months of this year. Ridership on commuter rail hit 31 percent of pre-COVID levels in January, rose to 39 percent in February, and reached 49 percent in March.

Three County Continuum of Care Receives $3 Million to Support Housing Services

Daily Hampshire Gazette – The Three County Continuum of Care, a program of Community Action Pioneer Valley, has been awarded $3.05 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to support existing regional housing programs and the development of new ones.

According to Community Action, of Greenfield, the grant is part of the $2.65 billion in fiscal year 2021 Continuum of Care Competition Awards that HUD has distributed to approximately 7,000 homeless, housing and service programs across the country.

Locally, the money will help to fund a new housing program in Northampton, which includes the addition of 16 beds with housing and medical support services on site, said Keleigh Pereira, program director of the Three County Continuum of Care. The program brings the number of beds across all three counties to 190.

“It’s still a small number of beds if you think about three counties, but it also provides us with planning funds and coordinated entry, as well as funds our housing information management system, which is the data management system that all of our providers collect so we can report it to the federal government,” she said.

The funding will also support new programs for housing access support geared specifically toward people experiencing domestic violence and survivors of other types of violence.

Wastewater Data Sends Mixed Signals amid Dip in Boston-Area COVID-19 Cases

WGBH – Anyone closely watching the wastewater data noticed a change last week: an uptick in the Northeast’s COVID-19 prevalence for the first time since late December 2021. It was up 24% over the prior week. Then, new data as of Wednesday showed the region’s numbers falling again, slightly.

It’s a mixed signal at yet another uncertain moment in the pandemic. Cases are low, but the CDC estimates the more infectious BA.2 subvariant of omicron is now dominant in the Northeast. Many experts attributed the wastewater increase to BA.2.

And — for the first time in two years — Tufts Medical Center in Boston has no COVID patients in its ICU.

“Today is the first day since the beginning of the pandemic, specifically March 23, 2020, when we admitted our first COVID ICU patient, that we started the day with zero COVID ICU patients,” hospital epidemiologist Shira Doron said Thursday.

Doron said the recent spike in wastewater levels bears watching, but experts are not overly concerned.

“We are always going to be cautiously optimistic,” Doron said. “We are always going to be reluctant to declare the pandemic over and the worst behind us, I think forever more.”

Boston May Restrict Picketing as Officials Face Protests at Homes

MassLive – City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo’s phone rang around 7:30 a.m. last Monday with an unusual call from a constituent: his 70-year-old mother.

Protesters the councilor said oppose Covid-19 vaccinations were yelling outside his mother’s house because they thought Mr. Arroyo lived there and wanted him to come out. “That crossed the line,” he said in an interview.

Demonstrations against public vaccination efforts and pandemic-related rules have become a regular occurrence in communities nationwide. Now, public officials in states including Maine, Maryland, Michigan and California have proposed or passed measures to curb what they say is a related rise in harassment.

In Boston, the council is weighing an ordinance that would halt “targeted residential picketing” between 9 p.m. and 9 a.m. It wouldn’t affect marches through neighborhoods but would limit hours for protests aimed at a particular home. It was filed by Mayor Michelle Wu, whose duplex on a residential street has been a regular target for noisy early-morning protests over Covid mandates since early January.

“My next-door neighbor is a 96-year-old veteran who deserves to have his sleep in the morning,” the mayor, a Democrat, said at a public event that month.

Some members of the council have voiced concern that the ordinance as written could be overreaching. Demonstrators say it will hurt their ability to directly engage elected officials.

“People have legitimate gripes and grievances that they would like to air,” said Shana Cottone, an organizer of the morning protests. “We’re law-abiding.”

The Council could vote on it this week. “The mayor has now gone through 10 weeks of this, straight,” Mr. Arroyo said at a Friday hearing on the ordinance, adding that other elected officials and their families were also being targeted at home by protesters.

Since early January, soon after the mayor announced a vaccine mandate for city employees, protesters have been showing up at her home many mornings. The mayor regularly tweets about the demonstrations, citing heavy-metal music at 7 a.m., a “Happy Birthday, Hitler” chant on her birthday, and protesters who have “shouted on megaphones that my kids will grow up without a mom because I’ll be in prison.”

Nina Lev, who lives across the street from Ms. Wu, told the Boston City Council at a recent hearing that she and her neighbors have “been woken up, often daily, for weeks on end” with “drumming, whistling, and loud shouting.” Boston Police Sgt. John Boyle said there haven’t been arrests, but the department does send personnel to the scene and asked the protesters to stop using bullhorns and drums.

The mayor lifted a proof-of-vaccination requirement that had been in place for certain indoor businesses, such as restaurants, entertainment venues and gyms, in February. Ms. Cottone, who is on leave from her job as a Boston police sergeant, has kept up the fight, saying she and other demonstrators want the city to drop a school mask mandate and stop pursuing a public employee vaccine mandate currently tied up in court. She denied that protesters are harassing Ms. Wu or her neighbors.

Some new rules in other states have sparked First Amendment concerns. A law adopted in California last fall curtails protests at Covid-19 vaccination sites. A federal judge put part of it on hold, saying the 30-foot buffer zone was too restrictive.

After the killing of George Floyd in police custody, activists calling for cuts to law-enforcement budgets and other changes marched on residences of some elected officials around the country, in some cases committing vandalism. In Chicago, where demonstrators went to the mayor’s home, the city began enforcing a statute banning protests in residential neighborhoods.

In Boston, supporters say the proposed picketing restrictions won’t stop protests, just limit hours when they can occur.

“It’s hard to see it as chilling when it gives you half the day to do it,” Mr. Arroyo said.

Still, some officials on the council, whose members are all Democrats, said limits could crimp rights to speech. Councilor Kendra Lara said Boston has a “vibrant youth organizing” movement whose members could risk fines by protesting before school hours. And some Boston demonstrators against vaccine mandates have said they protest early to catch the mayor before she goes to work.

Maryland state legislators are considering a bill that could fine or jail those who threaten public health officials, similar to legal protections afforded elected officials.

“The level of harassment and intimidation from…some members of the public during this pandemic has really been unprecedented,” Washington County Health Officer Earl Stoner testified at a Maryland House Judiciary Committee hearing in late January. Mr. Stoner said his child was harassed at school and he has needed security patrols at his home over public health decisions.

Protesters at a school board meeting in suburban Atlanta in May refused directions to put on masks or leave, delaying the event, according to news videos. Recent protests at school boards nationwide have also centered on curriculum and reading lists.

“We’ve seen parents treated unfairly by boards of education because of their political views or disagreements, and they have been arrested or barred from attending future meetings simply by voicing their concerns,” the bill’s key sponsor, Senate President Pro Tem Butch Miller, said at a hearing this month.

In Boston, the proposed ordinance is bolstered by a past U.S. Supreme Court decision that allows bans on targeted residential picketing as long as they are content neutral and leave open alternative channels such as marching through a neighborhood, said Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Most people’s view is that you can express your views…but you shouldn’t bring it to that person’s home,” he said.

US, EU announce new partnership to undercut Russian energy

Boston Globe – The United States and European Union on Friday announced a new partnership to reduce the continent’s reliance on Russian energy, a step top officials characterized as the start of a years-long initiative to further isolate Moscow after its invasion of Ukraine.

U.S. President Joe Biden asserted that Russian President Vladimir Putin uses energy to “coerce and manipulate his neighbors” and uses the profits from its sale to “drive his war machine.”

Biden said the partnership he announced jointly with a top European Union official will turn that dynamic on its head by reducing Europe’s dependence on Russian energy sources, as well reducing the continent’s demand for gas overall.

The president said such a step is not “only the right thing to do from a moral standpoint” but “it’s going to put us on a stronger strategic footing.”

Under the plan, the U.S. and other nations will increase liquified natural gas exports to Europe by 15 billion cubic meters this year, though U.S. officials were unable to say exactly which countries will provide the extra energy this year. Even larger shipments would be delivered in the future. .

At the same time, they will try to keep their climate goals on track by powering gas infrastructure with clean energy and reducing methane leaks that can worsen global warming.

Although the initiative will likely require new facilities for importing liquified natural gas, the partnership is also geared toward reducing reliance on fossil fuels in the long run through energy efficiency and alternative sources of energy, according to the White House.

Ursula von der Leyen, head of the EU’s executive arm, said it is important for Europe to shift away from Russia and toward energy suppliers that are trustworthy, friendly and reliable.

“We aim to reduce this dependence on Russian fossil fuels and get rid of it,” she said.

Russian energy is a key source of income and political leverage for Moscow. Almost 40% of the European Union’s natural gas comes from Russia to heat homes, generate electricity and power industry.

Biden was leaving Brussels after the announcement and heading to Rzeszów in Poland, where U.S. troops are based roughly an hour’s drive from the Ukrainian border.

He will be briefed on the humanitarian response to the refugees streaming out of Ukraine and those still suffering inside the country. He also will meet with U.S. service members from the 82nd Airborne Division, who serve alongside Polish troops.

Biden is then expected to fly to Warsaw for talks Saturday with Polish President Andrzej Duda and an address to the Polish people before he departs for Washington.

While in Brussels, Biden participated in a trio of summits hosted by NATO, the Group of Seven industrialized nations and the European Union, all on Thursday. The extraordinary series of meetings reflects heightened concerns about the war in Ukraine, which has entered its second month.

Although Ukraine has resisted the Russian invasion much more successfully than initially expected, the conflict has become a grueling and bloody affair, with thousands of casualties on each side and millions of refugees fleeing the country.

Western leaders are also concerned that Russian President Vladimir Putin could use chemical or even nuclear weapons to regain momentum in the war.

Getting more liquefied natural gas to Europe could be difficult, even though the U.S. has been dramatically increasing its exports in recent years. Many export facilities are already operating at capacity, and most new terminals are still only in the planning stages.

Most U.S. shipments already go to Europe, according to the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, an industry lobbying group. Although much of the supply is already contracted out to buyers, there are still opportunities to shift its destination.

“The U.S. is in a unique position because it has flexible LNG that can be rerouted to Europe or to Asia, depending on who’s willing to pay that price,” said Emily McClain, gas markets analyst at Rystad.

Even if the U.S. can ship more gas to Europe, the continent may struggle to receive it. Import terminals are located in coastal areas, where there are fewer pipeline connections for distributing it.

And if all Europe’s facilities were operating at capacity, the amount of gas would likely be only about two-thirds of what Russia delivers through pipelines.