New cannabis equity law sparks hope for would-be business owners

WGBH: Massachusetts’ new cannabis equity law is drawing praise from advocates who say it will help ease barriers to entry for aspiring cannabis businesses owners from marginalized communities and foster more equity within the state’s multi-billion dollar industry.

The law, signed by Governor Charlie Baker this week, has a few key components. It will set up an equity trust fund to be financed with a 15% slice of recreational marijuana tax revenues, limit cities, and towns from charging exorbitant fees to marijuana businesses within their borders and make a path for social consumption sites by authorizing cities and towns to ask voters whether they want them via ballot questions.

The new law will also incentivize cities and towns to approve marijuana businesses run by people from disenfranchised communities, make it easier for people to expunge their records for possession and distribution charges that once carried criminal penalties, and as Axios reports, alter the state tax code to allow marijuana business owners to enjoy some of the same tax write off benefits as other businesses.

Business owners pointed to financing as one of the greatest hurdles in the burgeoning industry. It’s expensive and virtually shuts out those without the capital or investors with a high tolerance for risk. That’s where the trust fund could help.

“Without banking, there’s no way for a small business like ours to get their doors open without going to investors,” said Armani White, a Roxbury activist and marijuana business owner looking to break ground on a Hyde Park retail establishment soon. “This will allow us to not rely on that as much and allows us to be in a better financial position.”

Dorchester Reporter: T leadership has ‘earned the right’ to stay and follow through on fixes, Gov. Baker says

Responding to a call from US Sen. Elizabeth Warren for “new leadership” at the MBTA, Gov. Charlie Baker defended the public transit agency’s officials and said they should stay.

Asked whether she was calling for the removal of the T’s general manager, Warren reiterated to reporters that she was frustrated amid the coming Orange Line shutdown and interested in “new leadership” due to “year after year after year of failure” at the agency.

The MBTA is under scrutiny from federal transportation safety officials and Beacon Hill lawmakers. The T plans to shut down the Orange Line for a month starting at 9 p.m. on Aug. 19, citing a faster timetable for repairs, rather than spending several years of intermittent closures. A Green Line closure overlaps with the Orange Line shutdown, as well.

Baker, on his way out of a Thursday evening event at the Quincy YMCA, defended Steve Poftak, the T’s general manager of the T since 2019. Poftak is the fifth general manager in the last decade, and served a stint as interim GM in 2017. He also served as vice chair of the MBTA’s oversight board.

“Steve and the team have balanced keeping the system operating and doing literally night and weekend and summer work over and over and over again for the past few years, until recently with very little disruption to the rider experience,” Baker told the Reporter. “There’s no excuse for a lot of the stuff that’s happened lately, and I’ve said that before. But I think they’ve earned the right to follow through and finish some of this stuff.”

Baker, who took the reins of the T in 2015 after a series of winter storms battered the system, said the T is “eight years older” than when he took office.

Taxation & Budget

Commonwealth Magazine: Baker changing rules on tax cap giveback

Plans ‘refunds’ this fall instead of credits next year

THE BAKER ADMINISTRATION  is preparing to change the rules for returning roughly $3 billion in excess tax collections so the governor can send out checks to Massachusetts taxpayers before he leaves office in January.

But a legal expert, citing a 1987 Supreme Judicial Court decision, says the changes being proposed by Gov. Charlie Baker appear to violate the voter-approved law governing excess tax collections as well as the constitutional prohibition on appropriations in ballot questions.

The governor’s move to change the rules suggests he is eager to return the money to taxpayers as quickly as possible, perhaps to claim credit for returning the money or to return it before the Legislature can take any action to tinker with the law or prevent all of the funds from going out.

The tax cap was approved in 1986 via a ballot question sponsored by Citizens for Limited Taxation and the Massachusetts High Technology Council. The question set a limit on how much tax revenue the state could take in during a given year and required returning any excess collections to taxpayers via credits on their taxes.

The law has been triggered only once, in 1987, and over time largely faded from public view. That situation changed on July 27 when CommonWealth reported that the law would be triggered again this year for the first time in 35 years.

The news caught most of Beacon Hill by surprise, but the Baker administration was well aware of the situation. The governor announced the day after CommonWealth’s report that the tax cap giveback would be “north of $2.5 billion,” a number his administration raised to $2.9 billion later in the day.

The precise amount of the tax cap giveback won’t be determined until the state auditor calculates the number in mid-September. But the governor and his administration have been busy laying plans to return the money to taxpayers.

HEALTHCARE

 State House News Service: Health Care Priorities Fall Short Of Finish Line

Top Lawmakers Say Complexity, Consequences Complicate Work On Major Policies

AUG. 11, 2022-August in even-numbered years features plenty of self-congratulatory messaging from lawmakers about the bills they passed after months of deliberation – and perhaps some procrastination and brinksmanship – as well as a fair share of frustration about what they failed to complete.

But when it comes to health care, the disappointment seems to be a bit more muted.

Several prominent voices outside the halls of the State House were hesitant to take full swings at the Legislature after measures to reform step therapy, prescription drug pricing and hospital expansion oversight all stalled out without reaching the governor’s desk before the end of formal sessions. The Legislature’s plans to expand insurance subsidies to more working people came crashing down with a veto Wednesday, and the collapse of a $4 billion economic development bill dashed hopes for major assistance to the health care sector.

The issues at play are especially dense, they said, with tendrils weaving through major pillars of the state’s economy that they say could get tilted with any misstep.

Lora Pellegrini, president and CEO of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, pointed to a list of other health care legislation approved in the past three years including a new abortion access bill as evidence, she alleged, that “all they do is health care.”

“While they didn’t get to these bills, they’ve actually done quite a bit,” Pellegrini said.

Calling the topic “very complicated,” Health Care for All Executive Director Amy Rosenthal said it “takes time” for lawmakers to find a viable approach on health care reforms.

“Are we disappointed that more doesn’t happen? Of course, we’re a consumer advocacy organization, we want to see movement as fast as we can so that we can make sure that people can afford their health care,” Rosenthal said. “But I think this is an iterative process right now, and I think there’s a lot of things that we’ve talked about in this legislative session that we’re really hopeful that they’re going to cross the finish line next session.”

Top Democrats also deflected criticism over the group of legislation they did not complete, citing complexity surrounding the topics and pointing to other health care accomplishments.

Mixed Views on Action During Informals

Each of the three incomplete bills faces a different outlook now that the branches have downshifted into summer vacation and campaign mode. Informal sessions, where a single lawmaker’s objection can stall legislation, are on tap into January.

The House and Senate each approved a version of the bill seeking to limit step therapy, an insurance practice requiring patients to try and fail on preferred treatments before approving a more expensive option prescribed by a physician. Supporters of the bill have slammed the industry practice as bad for patients.

So far, the House has neither agreed to the Senate’s changes nor insisted upon its original draft. Legislative leaders told the News Service that a compromise is possible.

“Step therapy is something that we’re very close on, so we could see that moving forward,” said Sen. Cindy Friedman, who co-chairs the Health Care Financing Committee. “Both houses are very much in favor of it. There were some, what I would consider, minor differences.”

Mariano, who argued in an interview in his office that failures on health care bills are more of an exception than a rule, referenced the House and Senate’s behind-the-scene work to agree on a bill banning discrimination based on natural hairstyles without appointing a conference committee for negotiations as a possible precedent.

The major sticking point between the two versions of the step therapy bill (H 4929 / S 3056) is over how to count the amount of time an insurer gets to respond to a patient’s request to be exempt from a required sequence of treatments that will be covered.

Under the House bill, insurers would get up to three business days to weigh such a request and must respond by the “next business day” in emergency situations. The Senate bill would instead set those thresholds at 72 hours and 24 hours. Marc Hymovitz, one of the most prominent advocates for step therapy reforms, said that distinction represents “an extremely important difference for patients.”

“If you picture a person having an epileptic seizure who goes into the hospital on a Friday night of a long weekend, the next business day isn’t until Tuesday. Even on a normal weekend, the next business day isn’t until Monday,” Hymovitz, who works as government relations director in Massachusetts for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, said. “A patient suffering a seizure or an asthma attack shouldn’t have to wait until Tuesday to get an answer from their insurer whether or not they can take the medication that their doctor feels is best for their condition.”

While the language difference has major implications, Hymovitz said he remains hopeful that lawmakers “could get this done before the end of this year given the unanimous votes in both chambers.”

Like several other advocates interview, Hymovitz said he does not view health care bills stalling out as a regular trend atop Beacon Hill.

“Massachusetts has had a great track record on health care bills, and it’s a really complicated issue, so I can understand that it’s probably really difficult to get to yes on a lot of these larger issues,” he said.

The Senate gaveled out of formal sessions without taking up a House-approved bill (H 4253) that would overhaul the regulatory hurdles that large health care providers face when they try to expand into markets covered by smaller, financially vulnerable community hospitals who could lose footing as a result.

Senate Ways and Means Committee Chair Michael Rodrigues, a top deputy to Senate President Karen Spilka, said on July 28 the measure was “on the list to be considered.”

The July 31-into-Aug. 1 end of formal sessions came and went without a Senate vote on the bill, and Friedman told the News Service this week that while she likes some sections of the bill, lawmakers “ran out of time.”

“I think we need to expand it a little bit because it’s not just about hospitals and expansions and mergers, but it’s also about, for instance, the introduction of massive amounts of private equity money that are coming into the state and how is that going to affect health care in terms of access and cost,” she said. “But I do think it’s a good bill and an important issue to look at.”

The bill is a top goal for Mariano, who last year pitched it as a way to close a “loophole” and ensure the state has more control when major providers such as Massachusetts General Brigham seek to expand their footprint into areas with smaller community hospitals.

It would update the “determination of need” process and allow the Health Policy Commission to investigate the cost and market impacts of hospital expansions, building on the panel’s existing ability to examine merger and acquisition costs and impacts.

If a provider is seeking a license to expand into a primary service area that overlaps with the service area of a pre-existing independent community hospital, they would need to win a letter of support from the community hospital’s CEO or board chair under the bill. That would give significant power to smaller hospitals to have a say in the growth of their larger competitors.

The legislation drew sharp opposition from Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and other major medical institutions, who argue that the state must expand its health care capacity to meet growing needs.

Representatives approved the bill 158-1 while Mass General Brigham was seeking to open new ambulatory centers in Woburn and Westborough and expand its Westwood Center, prompting MGB President of Integrated Care John Fernandez to call it a “misguided 11th-hour intervention.”

The House rode out the end of formals while sitting on a prescription drug pricing reform bill that the Senate approved 39-1 in February, which would subject drug manufacturers and pharmacy benefit managers to the Health Policy Commission’s annual cost trend hearings and subject them to examination by the Center for Health Information and Analysis.

Other sections of the bill (S 2695) would cap out-of-pocket insulin spending at $25 per month and require pharmaceutical companies to notify the state before hiking prices significantly or bringing new drugs to market.

Without explicitly endorsing or opposing the Senate’s bill, Mariano said addressing prescription drug prices in Massachusetts is a tricky affair, encumbered by impacts on employers and national implications.

“These are very complicated, real-life issues that aren’t going to be fixed in a bill that monkeys around the edges,” Mariano told the News Service. “Until you get some buy-in on the national level, you’re not going to have a real impact on drug pricing. You can nibble around the edges here in Massachusetts, but to get significant change on these big areas, you need national help because of the interstate commerce clauses.”

Lawmakers might still return in the next few months to pieces of their shelved economic development bill, legislation that Friedman said in the closing hours of the final formal session contains tranches of spending crucial to the health care sector.

“It’s going to fund our hospitals who are just crashing right now. It’s going to fund nursing homes who don’t have staff,” she told reporters shortly after 11 p.m. on July 31. “It’s going to fund home health aides to take care of all of our vulnerable elderly and children. It’s got incredible workforce development in it. It’s got priorities for municipalities and regional priorities.”

“Like Trying to Patch a Balloon”

The Quincy Democrat said he wants to bulk up the HPC with more analysts who can analyze prescription drug trends and the impact that pharmacy benefit managers have.

Asked what is preventing the Legislature from pursuing that suggestion in the next few months and relying on the added expertise for broader action next session, Mariano at first replied, “Who’s to say that’s not going to happen?” and later said he plans to “take a look at the HPC” next year.

Mariano declined to outline specifically what changes he wants to see made to the commission, saying they need to be “discussed with other stakeholders in this.”

“People seem to think you just sit up here and write legislation, but you can’t do it without talking to a lot of the stakeholders,” he said. “This stuff is like trying to patch a balloon. You press one side of the balloon and something else bubbles up. You can’t push without knowing what the outcome is going to be from your push.”

The Senate has approved some version of a prescription drug pricing reform bill in two straight sessions, covering four years of lawmaking, without the topic emerging for a vote in the House. Baker has also floated some price controls in broader legislation, too.

Rosenthal said she is hopeful to see the idea gain “some traction next session,” calling for the pharmaceutical industry including manufacturers and pharmacy benefit managers to be subject to the HPC’s review process.

“We have great coverage rates, but now we need to really focus on: is it affordable and is everybody getting the same access?” she said.

In Congress, where intense partisan fighting stymies many bills, there’s new momentum this week toward health care reforms.

The Inflation Reduction Act that the U.S. Senate approved Sunday and due for a vote in the House on Friday would allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices for its members, cap out-of-pocket costs at $2,000 and lower Affordable Care Act premiums for millions of Americans, Democrats say.

“I think the pharmaceutical industry threatens that innovation will go out the window if there’s any type of regulation,” Pellegrini, whose organization represents health plans, said. “Clearly, the U.S. Senate ignored that.”

While the action in Washington, D.C. may stand in contrast with work on prescription drug prices atop Beacon Hill, Massachusetts Democrats bristle at the suggestion that health care is an issue area where they struggle.

Mariano cited the state’s 2006 law aimed at expanding health insurance coverage that later served as a framework for the ACA and a 2012 law creating the HPC and Center for Health Information and Analysis.

“We’ve got two or three national models that come out of Massachusetts,” he said.

The failed 2018 health care conference committee — which Mariano led on behalf of the House alongside then-Sen. James Welch — was an “aberration of a new chairman and me not seeing eye to eye,” he said.

“I don’t know if it was because we failed to get to an agreement, but all I know is he was gone in the next year, and then we had two years of pandemic,” Mariano said. “Our whole focus was totally different after 2018. We just didn’t have time to do anything with health care. I don’t think that’s valid criticism. We had one bill that didn’t work, and that’s it, and then we had the pandemic.”

Friedman said she remains “frustrated” that the Legislature has not gotten any closer to some version of the Senate’s prescription drug pricing reforms since her chamber first rolled out the proposal several years ago, but she added that she is “frustrated most days.”

“I move a lot faster than perhaps my colleagues, but look, I also understand that this is a complicated issue, that there are a lot of stakeholders, that there’s not just an easy fix. What I believe should be done may differ from what other, thoughtful people might see as answers,” she said. “And you know, listen, how long did it take Congress to just allow a subset of drugs to be negotiated by Medicare? How long did that take? Years and years and years. So it is a strong wind that blows against change.”

SUSTAINABILITY, CLIMATE & ENERGY
  
Boston Globe: Ten cities and towns are poised to ban fossil fuels from new buildings

The small housing development just off Main Street in Concord is almost complete. Many of the neat one-, two- and three-bedroom homes are already occupied, and the rest have just a few plumbing and electrical jobs that need wrapping.

From the outside, this 14-unit development looks relatively unremarkable — except for one key difference: there are no gas hookups, no oil or propane tanks. All the homes are completely fossil-fuel free.

In recent years, small developments such as Concord Millrun have cropped up in recognition that the climate crisis calls for radical changes in our use of fossil fuels. And now, a new climate bill signed last week by Governor Charlie Baker contains a provision that could change the landscape significantly: 10 communities in the state can participate in a pilot program that bans the use of fossil fuels in new buildings and major renovations. Where once they were the exception, in these 10 communities, fossil-fuel-free developments will become the rule.

And if the effort succeeds in those communities, advocates say, the rest of the state could eventually follow.

“Ultimately, we need to stop building with fossil fuels, and the easiest way to decarbonize our buildings is for them not to be carbon-full from the beginning,” said Amy Boyd, policy director of the clean energy advocacy group Acadia Center. “The more we keep building with fossil fuels, the harder it’s going to be.”

 Commonwealth Magazine: Baker signs climate bill, despite ‘deep misgivings’

Backs new offshore wind procurement in the first half of 2023
DESPITE “DEEP MISGIVINGS’ about some of its elements, Gov. Charlie Baker signed into law on Thursday a climate change/energy bill that he said would help Massachusetts retain its standing as a national leader in securing renewable energy.

It’s the fourth climate bill Baker has signed since taking office in 2015, and his signing letter suggested it is the one he is least enthusiastic about.

He said he welcomed the elimination of the price cap on future offshore wind procurements. The cap required each successive procurement to come in at a price lower than the last one, which Baker believed was hindering companies from pursuing onshore supply chain development here in Massachusetts.

He also welcomed increases in subsidies for electric vehicles, but he said funding for the subsidies will need to be identified because the new law doesn’t include it.

Funding overall was a major point of contention with the Legislature. Baker sought to set aside $750 million for clean energy development, but lawmakers chose to stash funding for the climate change initiatives in other pieces of legislation, largely because they didn’t want to turn the climate change bill into a spending bill over which Baker could exercise his line-item veto.

 Wall Street Journal: France Risks Winter Blackouts as Nuclear-Power Generation Stalls

Soaring electricity prices beset a country that was until recently a major power exporter

Aug. 12, 2022

An unlikely victim is emerging in Europe’s energy crisis: France.

For years, the French state has been a cornerstone of the European energy market, thanks to its huge fleet of nuclear reactors. They enabled the country to export cheap power to nearby countries, helping keep electricity prices in check across the region.

But France is contending with its worst nuclear outages in decades, putting it at greater risk of blackouts this winter than big neighbors experiencing their own energy headaches. The danger is even higher than in Germany, which is bracing for economic pain as Russia throttles gas supplies to punish European allies of Ukraine.

The shortfalls, which traders expect to last well into 2023, mean France has switched from power exporter to importer. That has exacerbated a continentwide squeeze on energy supplies that has already helped push inflation to record rates, threatened the region’s industrial base and hit consumers’ pocketbooks.

Scorching summer weather has worsened Europe’s problems. Water levels have plunged in reservoirs and rivers, making it hard to generate hydropower, transport coal and cool nuclear plants, while reducing the efficiency of gas power plants. Keeping homes, offices and factories cool is creating extra demand for electricity.

“You’ve got the general impact of every country being affected by gas prices going through the roof, and that is the main thing driving power prices up,” said Matthew Jones, lead analyst for European power markets at commodities data firm ICIS. “And then at the same time you’ve got this situation with French nuclear, which is the worst it has been in 30 years.”

Corrosion at a clutch of reactors and extreme weather have knocked a large proportion of Électricité de France SA’s nuclear plants offline. The industry is generating power at less than half its potential rate, according to Argus Media analyst Justin Colley—a blow for a country that, until recently, got about 70% of its electricity from nuclear energy.

EDUCATION

 State House News: State Eases Recommended COVID Precautions in K-12 Schools

Massachusetts school districts were told Monday they should focus their COVID-19 mitigation strategies towards vulnerable and symptomatic individuals this coming school year instead of deploying universal masking requirements or surveillance testing of asymptomatic students and staff. Education Commissioner Jeff Riley and Public Health Commissioner Margret Cooke distributed a memo Monday telling districts that the state “is not recommending universal mask requirements, surveillance testing of asymptomatic individuals, contact tracing, or test-to-stay testing in schools” and reminding them that there are no statewide testing or masking requirements, although masks will still be required in school nurses’ offices. “With COVID-19 vaccines now readily available, treatments accessible to those at higher risk for severe disease, and widespread availability of self-tests, DESE and DPH have continued to evolve our support for schools in collaboration with the medical community and in line with the most recent CDC guidance issued August 11, 2022,” the commissioners wrote. They also detailed plans for free vaccine clinics in August and September aimed specifically at students, teachers, staffers, and family members. Riley said Monday that he is “looking forward to the school year getting back to as close as pre-pandemic norms as possible.” “We are hoping that our students can continue to be fully engaged in school extracurricular activities and interactions amongst their peers and teachers. I’m sure we’re all hoping for an easier year than last year,” he said at Monday’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meeting.

 State House News: Mass. High Schoolers Will Need Higher MCAS Scores to Graduate
Board Approves New Competency Standards Over Lawmaker, Union Objections

AUG. 15, 2022

The state board of education voted Monday to raise the minimum score that this year’s incoming freshman class and at least the four classes that follow will have to attain on the MCAS test in order to graduate high school, a controversial decision that was blasted by teachers union officials and a handful of lawmakers.

The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education accepted Commissioner Jeff Riley’s recommendation to update MCAS regulations and the competency determination that would establish a new passing standard for English language arts, mathematics, and science and technology/engineering for the classes of 2026 through 2029. The board also adopted an amendment to Riley’s plan proposed by member Martin West extending the new requirements to the class of 2030 and providing a starting point for the thresholds for classes beyond that.

Students will now be required to earn a scaled score of 486 on the English and math exams (or 470 with the completion of an educational proficiency plan) and meet a threshold set at 470 for science and technology/engineering tests. The score thresholds are currently 472 for English, or 455 with an educational proficiency plan, 486 for math, or 469 with an educational proficiency plan, and 220 for science/technology for students who took a test by February 2020.

Riley previously told the board that research shows “MCAS scores predict later outcomes in education and earnings” and that “only 11% [of] students in the class of 2011 who scored at the current passing standard in mathematics went on to enroll in a four-year college in Massachusetts, and only 5% graduated from a four-year college within seven years.”

“This evidence underscores the importance of raising the [competency determination] standard and also highlights the need to articulate clearly to students, parents, educators, and other stakeholders how the different levels of achievement on the MCAS tests — and in particular the CD level — signal whether a student is on track for success beyond high school, whether in postsecondary education, the military, the workplace, or independent and productive community life,” Riley wrote in a memo to the board. “Raising the CD standard is critical, as is the message that we believe students are capable of meeting the higher standard and the Commonwealth and its educators will support them to do that.”