Massachusetts – RI Future

October 12, 2016

New Hampshire joins Mass. in rejecting pipeline tariff

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National Grid’s proposed pipeline tariff, now under an indefinite stay per the Public Utilities Commission here in Rhode Island, was rejected in New Hampshire last week. The controversial and complicated plan, which would make electricity ratepayers in New England financially responsible for the creation and profitability of a new fracked gas pipeline, involves multiple companies working together across multiple states. Here’s a description from the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission:

“Eversource is a public utility headquartered in Manchester, operating under the laws of the State of New Hampshire as an electric distribution company (EDC). Algonquin is an owner-operator of an interstate gas pipeline located in New England. Algonquin is owned by a parent company, Spectra Energy Corp (Spectra), a publicly-traded corporation headquartered in Houston, Texas. Algonquin has partnered with Eversource’s corporate parent, Eversource Energy, headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, and Hartford, Connecticut, and with National Grid, the parent company of EDC subsidiaries in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, to develop the Access Northeast pipeline. In general terms, Eversource Energy’s EDC subsidiaries in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire and National Grid’s EDC subsidiaries in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, are each individually seeking regulatory approval of gas capacity on the Access Northeast pipeline.”

When the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled against National Grid’s pipeline tariff in Massachusetts, the Conservation Law Foundation brought a motion to dismiss the proposal here in Rhode Island. Instead, the PUC issued an indefinite stay in the proceedings, with the caveat that National Grid file a progress report on January 13, 2017.

Last week the New Hampshire PUC ruled against their state’s involvement in the plan, writing,

“The proposal before us would have Eversource purchase long-term gas pipeline capacity to be used by gas-fired electric generators, and include the net costs of its purchases and sales in its electric distribution rates. That proposal, however, goes against the overriding principle of restructuring, which is to harness the power of competitive markets to reduce costs to consumers by separating unregulated generation from fully regulated distribution. It would allow Eversource to reenter the generation market for an extended period, placing the risk of that decision on its customers. We cannot approve such an arrangement under existing laws. Accordingly, we dismiss Eversource’s petition.

“We acknowledge that the increased dependence on natural gas-fueled generation plants within the region and the constraints on gas capacity during peak periods of demand have resulted in electric price volatility. Eversource’s proposal is an interesting one, with the potential to reduce that volatility; but it is an approach that, in practice, would violate New Hampshire law following the restructuring of the electric industry. If the General Court believes EDCs should be allowed to make long-term commitments to purchase gas capacity and include the costs in distribution rates, the statutes can be amended to permit such activities.”

The Maine Public Utilities commission has voted in favor of the pipeline tariff.

August 22, 2016August 26, 2016

CLF moves to finish off pipeline tariff

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In response to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s decision against National Grid’s plan to charge consumers to underwrite and guarantee profits for its proposed ANE pipeline, the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) has moved to close the Docket on a similar proposal here in Rhode Island.

Closing the docket would essentially end National Grid’s plan. According to the motion, National Grid provided testimony in the Massachusetts case claiming that “the fate of the ANE Project is dependent on approvals of full cost-recovery in other New England states—especially Massachusetts, which National Grid assumed would provide a substantial portion of the financing for the proposed project.”

As National Grid further states, “If there is any possibility of less than full cost recovery over the entire term of the contracts, the Proposed Agreement has a negative expected value for the Company’s investors…” National Grid wants to place the risks of this investment on ratepayers, not its investors.

The motion to dismiss, filed by CLF attorneys Jerry Elmer, Megan Herzog and Max Greene, supplies several reasons supporting the contention that Docket 4627 needs to be closed in light of the Massachusetts decision.

The first reason is that the project cannot proceed without Massachusetts. “Massachusetts was to receive the lion’s share—more than 43 percent—of the Access Northeast project’s gas capacity,” says the motion to dismiss, “In effect, Massachusetts’ non-participation cripples the project.”

Even if National Grid decides to proceed with the motion, by deciding to actually assume the financial risks, says the CLF, that isn’t the plan as proposed in Docket 4627. The scheme, says the CLF, “is so substantially altered by [the Massachusetts opinion] that the Petition, as filed, fails to represent fairly the costs and benefits of the ANE Project.”

Without the State of Massachusetts buying in, “The resulting proposition is an entirely new, and raw, deal for Rhode Island. In effect, National Grid is now asking Rhode Island ratepayers to subsidize a project that it alleges will benefit all of New England; yet a substantial share of New England ratepayers—including millions of ratepayers in Massachusetts—will be insulated from bearing a proportional share of the risks of this experimental and uncertain scheme.”

Also, even though the Massachusetts decision was based on Massachusetts state law and has no direct legal bearing on Rhode Island, “the reasoning underlying the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s decision… applies with equal force here.”

Rhode Island has laws similar to those in Massachusetts regarding “the core principles of electricity market restructuring,” says the CLF, and approving National Grid’s plan “would undermine the main objectives of the [restructuring] act and re-expose ratepayers to the types of financial risks from which the Legislature sought to protect them.”

August 17, 2016August 26, 2016

Court kills pipeline tariff in Mass, RI still considering

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As the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission considers a request from National Grid to have ratepayers help subsidize a controversial pipeline project, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled against such pipeline tariffs in a decision released Wednesday.

“This is an incredibly important and timely decision,’ said David Ismay, the Conservation Law Foundation’s lead attorney on the case. ‘Today our highest court affirmed Massachusetts’ commitment to an open energy future by rejecting the Baker Administration’s attempt to subsidize to the dying fossil fuel industry. The course of our economy and our energy markets runs counter to the will of multi-billion dollar pipeline companies, and thanks to today’s decision, the government will no longer be able to unfairly and unlawfully tip the scales in their favor.”

The ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court may have an impact on National Grid‘s proposed “pipeline tariff” here in Rhode Island. The Massachusetts court deemed “it unlawful for Massachusetts to force residential electricity customers to subsidize the construction of private gas pipelines, requiring the companies themselves to shoulder the substantial risks of such projects rather than allowing that risk to be placed on hardworking families across the Commonwealth,” according the the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) who brought the case.

The CLF was the plaintiff in the Massachusetts case. The CLF maintained in their motion to intervene in the Rhode Island case that “an electricity distribution company” entering “into a contract for natural gas transportation capacity and storage services” and receiving “cost recovery for its gas contract from electricity ratepayers” is “something that has never occurred in the United States since the Federal Power Act was enacted in 1935, during President Roosevelt’s first term in office.”

Megan Herzog, one of the two lawyers representing the CLF before the RIPUC said in a phone call that the “pipeline is a bad deal for the whole region and that the Massachusetts court affirmed that.” Though the judge ruled on the case using Massachusetts law, there are statutes in Rhode Island that reflect similar principles.

According to Craig S. Altemose, a senior advisor forthe anti-LNG advocacy group 350 Mass for a Better Future, “It is unclear how much this will be a fatal blow to any of Spectra’s proposed projects, but we have absolutely undercut their financing (to the tune of $3 billion), called into question similar pipeline tax proposals in other states, [italics added] and have given Spectra’s investors greater reason for pause. Either way, we have unambiguously won a victory that the people’s money should be not used for private projects that further commit us to climate catastrophe.”

“Today’s decision reinforces what we already know: it’s not in the public interest to subsidize new fossil fuel infrastructure. It deals a serious blow to companies like Spectra who wanted to subsidize their risky projects with handouts from ratepayers. Communities facing an onslaught of fracked gas projects in their backyards like those in Burrillville have good reason to feel hopeful right now. We urge Governor [Gina] Raimondo and the Rhode Island PUC to follow the lead of Massachusetts and reject the pipeline tax,” Ben Weilerstein, Rhode Island community organizer with Toxics Action Center said.

Though the ruling in Massachusetts has no statutory value in Rhode Island, it may establish some lines of legal reasoning that will be helpful as the Rhode Island Public Utilities (RIPUC) Commission decides on Docket 4267, the Rhode Island part of National Grid’s ambitious plan to charge electrical ratepayers not only for pipeline infrastructure investments, but also to guarantee the company’s profits as they do so.

National Grid responded with the following statement: “This is a disappointing setback for the project, which is designed to help secure New England’s clean energy future, ensure the reliability of the electricity system, and most importantly, save customers more than $1 billion annually on their electricity bills. We will explore our options for a potential path forward with Access Northeast and pursue a balanced portfolio of solutions to provide the clean, reliable, and secure energy our customers deserve. While natural gas remains a key component in helping to secure New England’s long-term energy future, the recently passed clean energy bill also presents a welcomed opportunity to support the development of large-scale clean energy, such as hydro and wind.”

Yesterday The RIPUC held a hearing on Docket 4627, asking National Grid to explain why it used such a “broad brush” in redacting information in its application. In the meeting announcement it was said that RIPUC Chair Margaret Curran thought “it is not intuitively clear how the information redacted falls within the exception to the Access to Public Records Act.” Much of what National Grid argues that much of what it wants to keep secret falls into the category of trade secrets, and releasing the information would put it at an unfair disadvantage with competitors, such as NextEra Energy Resources, LLC (NextEra).

As pointed out previously, National Grid will not release how much money ratepayers will be on the hook for if this idea is approved by the RIPUC.

Here’s full video of the hearing:

NextEra brought a separate motion to allow its lawyers access to highly confidential parts of National Grid’s application.

Here’s the full video of that hearing:

The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) released the following statement today in response to the favorable decision from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in Conservation Law Foundation v. Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU):

‘This is an incredibly important and timely decision,’ said David Ismay, CLF’s lead attorney on the case. ‘Today our highest court affirmed Massachusetts’ commitment to an open energy future by rejecting the Baker Administration’s attempt to subsidize to the dying fossil fuel industry. The course of our economy and our energy markets runs counter to the will of multi-billion dollar pipeline companies, and thanks to today’s decision, the government will no longer be able to unfairly and unlawfully tip the scales in their favor.’

According to the opinion by Justice Cordy, DPU’s 2015 rule (“Order 15-37”) allowing Massachusetts electric customers to be charged for the construction of interstate gas pipelines is prohibited by the plain languages of statutes that have been the law of the land in Massachusetts for almost two decades.

In his opinion, Justice Cordy wrote, Order 15-37 is ‘invalid in light of the statutory language and purpose of G. L. c. 164, § 94A, as amended by the restructuring act, because, among other things, it would undermine the main objectives of the act and reexpose ratepayers to the types of financial risks from which the Legislature sought to protect them.’

July 14, 2016

Acushnet, not Burrillville, targeted for Spectra LNG storage facility says town council

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Spectra Energy is not planning to build a liquified natural gas (LNG) storage facility in Burrillville alongside the controversial compressor station and near the site of Invenergy‘s planned $700 million fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant. The Burrillville Town Council evealed at their Wednesday night meeting that when Spectra submits their official FERC pre-application for the project on July 22, it will be Acushnet, MA, not Burrillville, that will be forced to fight against yet another fracked gas infrastructure nightmare in New England.

The existence of Spectra’s plan came to light when the Burrillville Town Council released the agenda for the July 13 meeting, which included item 16-200 “Correspondence from Spectra Energy regarding Algonquin Gas Transmission LLC – Access Northeast Project (Pre-filing Docket No. PF16-1-000) relative to potential construction of a liquefied natural gas (“LNG”) storage facility in New England.”

This project is yet another addition to the expansion of fracked gas infrastructure in New England. Page 4 of the Supplemental Project Information Filing for Spectra’s Access Northeast Project (FERC Docket No. PF16-1-000) released in April 2016, reads “As part of this Project, Algonquin will upgrade and expand the existing Algonquin pipeline system and construct a liquefied natural gas storage facility in New England to deliver, on peak days, up to an additional 925,000 dekatherms per day (“Dth/d”) of natural gas.”

This same document, on page 11, lists Burrillville as an alternative site for the facility, noting that further expansion of pipeline capacity might be needed due to its location.

4.2.2.1 Burrillville Site Area

Algonquin began evaluating alternative sites as far west as its Burrillville Compressor Station, which offers a large site already owned in fee by Algonquin. The Burrillville, Rhode Island alternative site is located adjacent to Algonquin’s existing Burrillville Compressor Station. Due to its location, any LNG service that would be pulled into on the G-System and Algonquin’s mainline pipelines from the proposed LNG facility site would have to be pushed from the alternative site at Burrillville using Algonquin’s mainline pipelines that, to this point in the Project development, have been designed to carry 195,000 Dth/d. The location of the LNG site at Burrillville would require that Algonquin’s mainline pipelines carry an additional 225,000 Dth/d for a total of 420,000 Dth/d. To render the same service as that provided by the proposed Access Northeast LNG Facility site (Acushnet, Massachusetts), additional upgrades would be required including: the installation of a total of approximately 17.7 miles of new pipeline (8.1 miles of additional 36-inch diameter pipeline at the Burrillville Compressor Station Discharged 9.6 miles of 30-inch loop on the G-1 System); plus additional horsepower at the proposed Rehoboth Compressor Station.

At Wednesday’s Burrillville Town Council meeting, Town Manager Michael Wood said that there were two locations being considered in Burrillville, the one adjacent to the compressor station mentioned above and another location “off Barnes Rd.” Council president John Pacheco III cautioned those in attendance that the information looks good for Burrillville, but that no one will definitively know Spectra’s plans until July 22.

Repeated calls to Spectra’s media hotline on Tuesday and Wednesday went unanswered, save for an email that Thanked me for my interest, answered none of my questions and referred me to Spectra’s Algonquin Northeast Project website.

Of course, just because the project isn’t being built in Burrillville doesn’t make this a win. Acushnet already has an LNG storage facility, and this will be a second one, or possibly an upgrade.

“This project shouldn’t be built anywhere,” said a Burrillville resident to me after the meeting.

May 17, 2016May 17, 2016

Conservation Law Foundation sues ExxonMobil

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Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) announced at a press conference today that it has served formal notice of a lawsuit against ExxonMobil for its decades-long campaign to discredit climate change and knowingly endanger people and communities. An exposé last September by InsideClimate News revealed that ExxonMobil has engaged in a deliberate cover-up of sound climate science for more than thirty years, prompting CLF to launch its own investigation. CLF’s work revealed that the corporation’s deceit spilled onto New England soil and is subjecting local communities to undisclosed and potentially catastrophic risks in violation of both the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).

“ExxonMobil’s strategy of publicly denying the very risks its scientists have known for decades has direct impact on Greater Boston communities,” said CLF President Brad Campbell. “ExxonMobil knowingly and unlawfully misled regulators about whether its Everett facility can withstand rising seas, more intense precipitation, and other climate impacts without spewing oil and other toxic pollutants into adjoining neighborhoods, the Mystic River, and the Boston Harbor. Today’s lawsuit – the first of its kind – aims to hold ExxonMobil accountable for decades of dishonesty and require that the Everett facility meet the legal standards for climate-readiness.”

At today’s press conference on the shores of the Mystic River, Campbell stood with numerous local leaders and activists in declaring that ExxonMobil’s irresponsible and illegal actions would no longer be allowed to go unanswered.

Roseann Bongiovanni, Chelsea Green Space environmental justice advocate, commented, “I’ve lived in Chelsea my entire life, and for all that time there’s been imbalance between community members who desperately want waterfront access and the industries that dominate the water’s edge. A decade ago, ExxonMobil spilled thousands of gallons of oil into our river and denied its wrongdoing for months until confronted and forced to pay by the Department of Justice. Today, we have a greater understanding of the full extent of ExxonMobil’s climate denial and we have another opportunity to show the world that we won’t stand for it.”

In March of this year, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey joined a coalition of 17 attorneys general seeking to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for campaigns to deceive customers, shareholders, and the public about climate risk. While CLF is the first organization officially to begin a civil lawsuit against ExxonMobil for this deceit, many other legal actions are likely to follow.

EkOngKar Singh (EK) Khalsa, President of the Mystic River Watershed Association, added, “The Mystic is one of our state’s great treasures, where hundreds of thousands of fish spawn, wildlife seek refuge and eagles fly overhead. Unfortunately, we continuously battle against a history of industrial contamination. It is time for ExxonMobil to step up to the plate and take responsibility for the ongoing harm it is causing our river and our community.”

CLF’s trial team for the case will include nationally renowned attorney Allan Kanner of the Louisiana-based Kanner & Whitely, whose firm has represented states and other plaintiffs in landmark cases against major oil companies, including claims arising from BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill.

Campbell added, “A generation ago, the nation was appalled by the indifference to public safety and the environment that resulted in a drunk ship captain grounding the Exxon Valdez on Alaska’s Bligh Reef, spilling millions of gallons of crude oil into the Prince William Sound. Today in Everett, we must hold ExxonMobil accountable once again for its indifference to the public in the face of potential catastrophe.”

An interview with Roseann Bongiovanni, Chelsea Green Space environmental justice advocate, about a previous oil spill by ExxonMobil in the Mystic, the corporation’s denial of any wrongdoing, and the enormous cost to the Chelsea community and economy.

Another interview with Roseann Bongiovanni speaking about the respiratory problems and other serious health issues caused by air quality levels that far exceed the EPA’s standards for safety.

An interview with EkOngKar Singh (EK) Khalsa, President of the Mystic River Watershed Association, talking about the importance of the Mystic River to the local communities and the neighborhood impacts from continued pollution.

This video from 2007 shows polluted water flowing from a large pipe into the Island End River after a rain event. ExxonMobil discharges polluted water through this pipe every day of the year— up to 280 gallons per minute during dry weather and much more during rain events. The pollutants ExxonMobil is discharging are extremely hazardous, and ExxonMobil’s discharges often grossly exceed the waste limits set out in its discharge permit. The Island End River is water quality impaired, as is the Mystic River into which it flows, and ExxonMobil is contributing to those impairments by discharging toxic pollutants on a daily basis.

April 22, 2016April 22, 2016

FANG targets State Street Corp. in Boston over fossil fuel support

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A group of people associated with The FANG Collective carried out an action at the international headquarters of State Street Corporation in downtown Boston on Friday. Two members of the group locked-down to two doors at the main entrance of the building using bicycle locks while others swarmed inside urging the companies to end its investments in the fracked-gas industry.

Galen Shireman-Grabowski and Jay Gustaferro of Gloucester, MA were extracted from their lock down by security and police and placed under arrest.

State Street Corporation is Boston’s oldest financial institution and has $28 trillion in assets. State Street is one of the largest institutional shareholders of a multitude of companies involved in fracking, fracked-gas pipelines and liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. Among their top holdings is Spectra Energy, whose pipeline expansions projects have come under intense scrutiny across the Northeast.

“State Street Corporation with it’s holding in companies like Spectra Energy, Anadarko and Dominion, is fueling the climate crisis and impacting communities that are being inundated with fracked-gas infrastructure across the country,” Said Shireman-Grabowski who traveled from Vermont for the action.

State Street Corporation has faced protests over the past year from activists resisting Spectra’s “AIM” pipeline expansions project, Dominion’s Cove LNG facility in Maryland and Kinder Morgan’s “NED” project. On Wednesday Kinder Morgan declared that they were indefinitely delaying the NED pipeline project that would have cut across Massachusetts.

Activists held signs that listed a number of the fracked-gas companies that State Street has holdings in that read “State Street We See You.” Another banner deployed on the site read “State Street Divest: No More Pipelines.”

“State Street Corporation is locking our world into a climate crisis and they can no longer hide from public scrutiny. We are watching them, and we will hold them accountable,” said Gustaferro.

[from a press release]

March 30, 2016May 3, 2016

Advocates and landowners from four states file federal appeal to Spectra Energy pipeline project

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Yesterday, a coalition [1] of ten groups from four states, including Riverkeeper, Inc., Food & Water Watch, Reynolds Hill, Inc., Stop the Algonquin Pipeline Expansion (SAPE), Fossil Free Rhode Island and a dozen individuals filed a petition with the District of Columbia Court of Appeals asking the court to review the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) approval of Spectra Energy’s Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) gas pipeline expansion project. On January 28, 2016, after a nine-month delay, during which construction began, FERC denied eight separate rehearing requests from groups, individuals and municipalities, including the City of Boston and coalition members. Those who were denied a rehearing had sixty days to file a federal appeal, ending yesterday. The City of Boston and the Township of Dedham, Massachusetts have also filed Federal appeals in the case.

The AIM Project is particularly contentious because it includes construction of a 42-inch diameter high pressure interstate gas pipeline within 105 feet of critical infrastructure at the aging Indian Point nuclear facility, which is situated at the intersection of two earthquake fault lines. A 36-inch pipeline that is part of the AIM project also runs within 500 feet of a stone quarry in the West Roxbury section of Boston, where active blasting occurs. Following a tritium leak from Indian Point in February, New York’s Governor Cuomo asked FERC to stay construction on the project while an independent study of the health and safety impacts could be conducted. Last Friday, FERC denied his request too.

“Spectra Energy’s AIM expansion project has always been a spectacularly bad idea,” said Karina Wilkinson, Food & Water Watch Local Coordinator MA. “We have taken every step we could to oppose this project and now we have no other legal recourse than to go to Federal court. Time and again, we have seen fracked gas pipeline companies trample the rights of individuals and communities. We cannot rely on government agencies to protect us from the devastating consequences that will impact our country and the planet if the rush to profit is allowed to continue and if the U.S. continues to move forward with gaining access to the fossil fuel export market.”

Riverkeeper President Paul Gallay said “It’s disturbing that a federal regulator that’s duty- bound to protect the health and welfare of the public remains oblivious to the many potential dangers and pitfalls this project creates. It is even more disturbing that FERC continues to ignore the real risks involved with running a gas pipeline adjacent to the property of an aging, problematic nuclear plant, which poses a great risk to the region even without this project.”

Affected property owner and SAPE member Nancy Vann stated “We’ve been raising valid concerns about this project since 2013 – but when a captive agency like FERC is making the decisions and then reviewing its own conclusions it’s difficult to obtain a fair hearing. We are pleased to finally be able to take our issues to Federal court and are hopeful that they will get the consideration they deserve.”

In addition to concerns about Indian Point and the quarry, our groups are highly concerned about the issue of “segmentation” of the Algonquin pipeline expansion into three separate FERC proposals. By calling this pipeline’s expansion by three different names, Spectra Energy has so far managed to avoid review of the full project’s environmental impacts. Courts have found that type of manipulation to be unlawful in similar cases.

Segmentation is reaching a new level in Rhode Island with National Grid’s plan for a natural gas liquefaction facility at Fields Point and with Invenergy’s controversial proposal to construct a fossil-fuel, mostly fracked gas, 1-gigawatt power plant in Burrillville. Indeed, a study submitted by Invenergy to assess the effect of the facility on the Rhode Island environment fails mention that just across the border, in Uxbridge, MA, EMI NextGen is planning to build yet another 1-gigawatt power plant.

[1] The New York-based groups are: Food & Water Watch NY, Riverkeeper, Inc., Reynolds Hill, Inc., Sierra Club Lower Hudson Chapter, and Stop the Algonquin Pipeline Expansion. The Massachusetts-based groups are: Charles River Spring Valley Neighborhood Association, Food & Water Watch MA, West Roxbury Saves Energy and Better Future Project. Fossil Free Rhode Island and Capitalism vs. the Climate from Connecticut represent the other two states impacted by the project.

March 10, 2016

Increasing Rhode Island’s minimum wage and expanding the state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) boosts the economy, helps thousands of Ocean State families

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The Governor’s Budget Article 13 increases the minimum wage to $10.10 next year and expands the state earned income tax credit from 12.5 percent to 15 percent of the federal credit (the Governor indicated an interest in further expanding the EITC pending available resources following the mid-year revenue forecast). Senator Goldin and Representative Slater have each introduced bills ((S 2156 and H 7347, respectively) to further increase the EITC to 20 percent of the federal credit. Lawmakers have made real progress in these two areas over the past two years and we are pleased to see a commitment to raising the labor and living standards of our workers going forward.

These two measures are particularly important in light of the persistent decline in Rhode Island’s low wages since 2000, and the gap between low wages in Rhode Island and those in Connecticut and Massachusetts, evident in Figure 1.

Research shows that coupling an EITC increase with an increase in the minimum wage has a greater impact on reducing poverty than either does on its own. This finding contradicts those who point to one approach as superior to the other in helping low-wage workers make ends meet. Both, together, have maximum beneficial impact. Using these policies together also requires that businesses and our government both play key roles in boosting incomes for workers in low-wage sectors, which is both fair and practical.

Today, minimum wage workers do not earn enough to meet basic needs. The Rhode Island Standard of Need, a study that documents the cost of living in the Ocean State, shows that a single adult needed to earn $11.86 per hour in order to meet his or her most basic needs in 2014.

As seen in Table 1, Rhode Island currently significantly lags its neighbors, Massachusetts and Connecticut, in the size of state EITC, and will fall behind Connecticut (and even further behind Massachusetts) for the minimum wage, unless the Rhode Island minimum is increased to at least $10.10 in 2017. Both of our neighboring states have steadily increased their minimum wages in recent years.

EITC filers pay payroll taxes, sales and property taxes, the car tax, gas tax. Even with the increase in the state EITC to 12.5%, Rhode Island still has one of the highest effective tax rates on low-income households, when looking at the combined state and local taxes – 7th highest among all states. The EITC is the best way to provide some targeted tax relief to those who need it most.

Compared to our neighboring states, families in the bottom quintile (bottom 20 percent of family income) pay 12.4 percent of their income in state and local taxes, compared with 10.0 percent in Massachusetts, and 10.6 percent in Connecticut. Increasing the RI EITC helps close this gap modestly – a 15 percent EITC in Rhode Island would lower bottom quintile taxes to 12.2 percent, and a 20 percent EITC would lower it to 12.0 percent, according to recent analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, evident in Figure 2. (Higher sales and excise taxes in RI account for much of the current gap).

Putting more money in the pockets of workers will also put more money in the cash registers of local businesses. Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 would put nearly $27 million in the pockets of 78,000 Rhode Island workers in low-wage jobs, money that would flow quickly into the local economy.

Raising the minimum wage and the EITC are important steps that lawmakers can take to help ensure that workers are able to keep their heads above water in the Ocean State, and to keep the Rhode Island economy on a path to full economic recovery.

March 2, 2016March 2, 2016

Clinton campaign accused of blocking poll access

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Massachusetts should be the pillar of fairness and truth in elections. It is a state with a long history of protecting voter’s rights and has great voter services. What Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin let former President Bill Clinton, husband of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, get away with at the polls yesterday is inconceivable. Various accounts allege that Bill Clinton impeded people’s access to the polls and forced longer lines and unnecessary waiting times. The worst violations appear to have happened in New Bedford, an area where the RI contingent of the Sanders campaign had many volunteers canvassing.

The headlines say it all:

I was first alerted to this by a fellow RI Bernie Sanders campaign worker, Robert Malin. He shared a video by Angela Garcia (above) which clearly showed that people were irritated, annoyed and put out by Bill Clinton’s poll visit in New Bedford. I contacted Maria Tomassia, chairwoman of the Board of Canvassers of New Bedford, who confirmed that people had to walk longer to get to the polls and that lines were long because people might have wanted to meet Clinton but that there was no impact on voter access. She denied that people had to wait and denied that Bill Clinton was in violation of any election laws.

Afterward New Bedford Bill Clinton continued campaigning for his wife in three additional towns including Boston, Newton and West Roxbury, where he was inside Holy Name Parish School’s gymnasium, a polling location, with Boston Mayor Martin Walsh.

This is election 101, and illegal. In Massachusetts no campaigning is allowed within 150 feet of a polling location. Bill Clinton was caught campaigning within that margin and actually inside a polling place. When you think of all the campaigns that Bill and Hillary Clinton have been in, their decision to circumvent election laws was either ignorant or intentional. I think most people would agree that the Clintons are not ignorant.

Hillary won in Massachusetts by less than 1.5 percent, a very small margin. If Sanders had received .75 percent more the state would have been a virtual tie. Could Bill Clinton’s possibly illegal actions have skewed the vote in Hillary Clinton’s favor?

It would be hard for Bernie Sanders to actually dispute the vote count. There is no way of knowing how many votes he might have lost or how many people were swayed by Bill Clinton’s last minute and frankly desperate antics. But this is not how a campaign should be run. Dirty politics can never be accepted. The Clinton’s are once again showing their true colors.

[Lauren Niedel is the RI State Contact for Bernie 2016. To volunteer please contact her at 401-710-7600 or lniedel@gmail.com]