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Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Mass. legislators push for more forceful action on intoxicating hemp-derived products
A whole range of hemp products including flower and pre-rolls at Healing Hemp, a hemp store in Somerville. (Photo by Bhaamati Borkhetaria/CommonWealth Beacon) BOSTON — State lawmakers session are looking to take hemp-derived intoxicating products – which contain the same active ingredient as cannabis but are not regulated the same way – off shelves in gas stations, convenience stores, and vape shops across Massachusetts. The hemp products, which are generally edible and intoxicating like gummies or candies, have already been declared illegal in the state by several state agencies but continue to pop up in certain stores outside of dispensaries. Most of these products come from out of state. Some business owners who sell the intoxicating products argue that the state agencies haven't settled the matter because hemp is legal federally – through a loophole in the 2018 federal farm bill which legalized hemp. Hemp and cannabis are the same plant, but this law removed hemp from the classification of cannabis as long as it contains less than 0.3% THC – the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis – by volume. Four bills have been filed on Beacon Hill to bring any consumable hemp-derived products like edibles, concentrates, tinctures, oils, and capsules, under the purview of the Cannabis Control Commission or give local boards of health oversight to remove these products from stores other than dispensaries. Hemp products that are sold in dispensaries like CBD gummies are already regulated by the commission. These bills would specifically target intoxicating products being sold outside of dispensaries. '[Hemp products] face no additional tax impositions, no host community agreements, no recall process, no FDA testing requirements, no age limits,' said Rep. Dawne Shand, a Newburyport Democrat, at a Joint Committee on Cannabis Policy hearing on Wednesday. 'The intoxicating hemp industry makes a mockery of cannabis laws.' Shand, a member of the committee, is pushing a bill that would prohibit intoxicating hemp products from being sold without an endorsement from the Cannabis Control Commission. Rep. Michael Soter, a Republican from Bellingham, has two bills that would address hemp-derived products. The fourth bill, presented by James C. Arena-DeRosa, imposes an excise tax on the sale of hemp products in addition to the existing state tax and directs that money to be used to empower local health board to remove certain hemp products from stores. 'I think [hemp] should be up to the control of the Cannabis Control Commission,' said Soter, in an interview before the hearing. 'You've got people who are following the rules … and then you've got some things that are kind of being sold in convenience stores and gas stations. Some of this stuff is really geared towards kids, and that's not a good thing.' Soter emphasized that he wants to be very careful in creating legislation to deal with hemp products because he doesn't want to inadvertently harm businesses that sell non-intoxicating hemp products, like oils or creams that contain CBD and are meant to be applied topically. 'What scares me about regulating this is that sometimes we over-regulate and we put more problems on an industry,' said Soter. 'We've got to walk that fine line. I want to keep us on a straight path of going after what we need to go after and what we don't need to go after and make sure when we do this regulation, we do it correctly.' At the hearing, Jesse Alderman, a lawyer who specializes in cannabis, and Peter Gallagher, the CEO of the cannabis company INSA, brought a bag of intoxicating hemp products that they said they collected from over 20 different gas stations, convenience stores, and vape shops. Many of these products had high concentrations of THC. One of the packages contained 10,000 milligrams of THC. For cannabis, the state allows only 100 milligrams per package and 5 milligrams per serving. They passed the bag around to the legislators, who commented that the products smelled like cannabis. 'If it smells like it, looks like it, I think it is it,' said Adam Gomez, the Senate chair of the cannabis committee. Gallagher said that they tested these products and that over 90% of them would qualify as cannabis products because they contained well over 0.3% of THC. About a third of the products wouldn't have passed the regulatory testing required on cannabis products because of the presence of microbes, pesticides, heavy metals, and residual solvents. None of the establishments where he purchased the hemp products checked for identification to enforce age limits, he added. 'This really looks a lot like what we saw in 2019 with the vape crisis where illegal, unregulated, untested vape cartridges [were] being sold with cutting agents in them and [that] ultimately led to people harming themselves,' said Gallagher. 'A lot of consumers today don't understand that what's being purchased in these gas stations, convenience stores, vape shops or even online is different and potentially more damaging than what you're able to purchase in the regulated dispensaries.' In Massachusetts, several state agencies issued guidance in May 2024 that said that these types of products are illegal. The Alcohol Beverage Control Commission warned its licensees that their licenses could be suspended or revoked if they were caught selling hemp-derived products. Soon after, many of these products were taken out of liquor stores, smoke shops, restaurants, and many other places that were selling them. But the crackdown on these products has remained uneven because the enforcement on these products has largely remained in the hands of local boards of health, which are already overburdened and don't have the resources to go from store to store. Last session, legislators decided not to intervene on the issue of hemp-derived products, but representatives of local boards of health said that they are unable to get these products out of stores and out of the hands of children without more resources allocated to them for this issue. John Nathan, the CEO of a company called Bay State Extracts, which produces hemp-derived compounds like CBD, said that the legislation proposed at the hearing would be redundant because these products – as per the guidance from the state agencies – are already illegal. He also expressed concern about the Cannabis Control Commission's ability to actually regulate hemp products effectively. The commission has had internal conflict, allegations of misconduct, and a slow-moving regulatory process that has frustrated many within the cannabis industry. 'The CCC has barely enforced their existing hemp regulations and guidance is as it stands,' said Nathan. 'The cannabis industry is in turmoil. There's over saturation, struggles for bill payments, layoffs, competitive and low-paying job market, what seems like monthly closures. I feel effort should be directed towards supporting the existing market and coordinating to fix these issues, rather than disrupting the supply chain in an effort to make something already illegal illegal again.' This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Massachusetts donors, businesses sent millions to Trump's 2025 inauguration fund
Twenty-one donors and businesses from Massachusetts gave a total of $4.1 million to the Trump 2025 inauguration. (Courtesy of CommonWealth Beacon) President Donald Trump raked in nearly $4.1 million for his 2025 inauguration from donors and businesses with Massachusetts addresses, just under 2% of the total $239 million raised for the parties tied to his swearing-in for a second term in January. Trump's inaugural committee reported the names and figures earlier this month in a filing with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), which showed the president beating the previous record he set: $107 million for his first inauguration. Presidential inaugurations feature the oath of office as well as official and unofficial balls or galas in Washington, D.C., offering a way for companies and individuals to ingratiate themselves with a new administration. Large corporations made appearances on the list, including e-commerce giant Amazon and Facebook owner Meta, which each gave $1 million. The largest donation, coming in at $5 million, was from Pilgrim's Pride, a poultry producer based in Colorado. Cryptocurrency interests also donated, with Ripple Labs donating $4.9 million. The 21 Massachusetts donors and businesses, with donations totaling roughly $4.1 million, fell below their counterparts in other states, such as Pennsylvania ($8.6 million) and Michigan ($6.4 million). Both were swing states in 2024, while Massachusetts has remained a Democratic stronghold, with Ronald Reagan the last Republican to win the Bay State in 1984. CommonWealth Beacon reviewed the Trump inauguration fundraising committee's filing with the Federal Election Commission, which included donors and companies listing Massachusetts addresses. One of the largest donors in the state was a company tied to billionaire and car dealership magnate Ernie Boch Jr. The company, which is called Boston Port Service and shares an address with his nonprofit charity Music Drives Us, donated $1 million. Boch, who previously hosted a fundraiser for Trump in 2015, was unreachable for comment. DraftKings, the Boston-based gambling company with a focus on sports betting, gave $502,000, while FanDuel, its New York-based rival, gave $482,000. Another $500,000 came from GE Vernova, a Cambridge-based energy technology company working in the renewable power sector. The company, whose wind power division is grappling with a White House that has sought to put a stop to new wind turbine projects, spun off from the conglomerate General Electric in 2024. (CommonWealth Beacon reached out to DraftKings and GE Vernova for comment but did not hear back.) Jessica Beeson Tocco, the CEO of A10 Associates, which bills itself as the country's 'largest woman-owned bipartisan lobbying firm,' personally donated $101,652 to the Trump inauguration committee and then an additional $50,000 through her Malden-based company. (The company also hosted a cocktail reception at the Waldorf Astoria the weekend before the inauguration, according to Politico.) One of her clients, Quantum Computing Inc. CEO William McGann, also donated $101,652. He is retiring from the technology company in May and is listed as having an East Falmouth address on the FEC's records. Reached for comment, Tocco stressed that her firm's donations go to top elected officials in both parties, with contributions flowing to prominent Massachusetts Democrats like US Sen. Ed Markey, Gov. Maura Healey, and Congresswoman Lori Trahan. A potential Healey rival for the corner office in the State House, Michael Minogue, donated $250,000 to the Trump inauguration committee. Minogue, who now has his own consulting firm after serving as president and CEO of medical technology company Abiomed, has previously donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Republican National Committee and the state GOP. He also gave several thousand dollars to former Gov. Charlie Baker and Josh Kraft, who is looking to unseat Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, according to publicly available campaign finance records. Others gave smaller amounts. Sriprakash Kothari, an accounting professor at MIT and a Lexington resident who regularly donates to the state GOP, gave $2,500 to the Trump inauguration committee. Kothari, who worked as the chief economist for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission during the first Trump administration, declined to comment about the donation. Some of the donors, like the company tied to Boch, had to be tracked through corporate documents on file with the Massachusetts secretary of state's office. For example, Randolph-based GGBF Inc. donated $50,000 to the Trump inauguration committee, according to the FEC filing. Documents on file with the state show the company shares the same address and same president as NEI General Contracting, Josef Rettman. Rettman has mostly donated to Democrats at the state and local level, and a mix at the federal level, including U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Trump White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt's 2022 congressional campaign in New Hampshire. The list of donors to the inauguration committee did not include the names of some major donors who had previously contributed to the first Trump presidential campaign or the first inauguration in 2017. Jim Davis, the chairman of shoemaker New Balance, donated nearly $400,000 to support Trump's 2016 campaign. The Kraft Group, tied to New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, didn't donate to the 2025 inauguration after donating $1 million for the 2017 inauguration. Ahead of the 2024 election, Kraft distanced himself from Trump, saying he was 'very upset' by the insurrection attempt to keep Trump in office on January 6, 2021. Kraft has since reportedly helped a law firm, Paul Weiss, broker a peace deal with Trump, who has targeted lawyers through executive orders. 'I made a strong donation to his [2017] inauguration,' Kraft said during an appearance on a radio show last October. 'I couldn't believe it, it was like having someone who was a drunk fraternity brother become president of the United States.' Massachusetts businesses and individuals donated approximately $4.1 million to President Donald Trump's 2025 inauguration. See who contributed: NAME AMOUNT BOSTON PORT SERVICE $1,000,000.00 BROWN, GREGORY Q. $1,000,000.00 DRAFTKINGS INC. $502,000.00 GE VERNOVA INTERNATIONAL LLC $500,000.00 MINOGUE, MICHAEL R $250,000.00 NEWGLOBE EDUCATION INC $250,000.00 TOCCO, JESSICA $101,652.90 MCGANN, WILLIAM $101,652.89 A10 ASSOCIATES, LLC $50,000.00 CANN, JUSTIN F $50,000.00 GGBF INC. $50,000.00 NTT DATA FEDERAL SERVICES INC. $50,000.00 VALLEY PROPERTY MANAGEMENT LLC $50,000.00 BERKSHIRE DIRECT MARKETING GROUP LLC $25,000.00 DOLCE, ASHLEY TYRNER $25,000.00 DOLCE, JIM $25,000.00 LESAFFRE, MARY LOU $25,000.00 LESAFFRE, PETER $25,000.00 WALTON, NATHANIEL Y $5,000.00 KOTHARI, DAFNI $2,500.00 KOTHARI, SRIPRAKASH $2,500.00 Source: Federal Election Commission This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Massachusetts is losing 15 acres of farmland a day. This is how the state is trying to fix it.
Joanne DiNardo operates and manages the Sholan Farm along with 75 volunteers. For the farm to reach its long-term viability goals, DiNardo is hoping to build a pavilion and other infrastructure to attract more customers. (Rebeca Pereira for CommonWealth Beacon) Twice a year, Kathryn Szerlag, a professor of soil and water chemistry at Texas A&M, traverses the country to reunite with relatives on their family dairy farm in Northbridge, Massachusetts. This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. 'All of [my research] came from playing in the cow manure,' she reflected on a Friday in December, the day before boarding a flight home for the holidays. 'That was my day care: a pair of rubber boots.' The farm provided a singular education. Before academia, Szerlag was a country kid entrusted with testing the butterfat concentration of the milk of 300 cows. It was there, wading in dung, that she ultimately found her subject matter: the environmental degradation wreaked by high phosphorus levels in animal manures. The farm has remained in agricultural production for four generations, bulwarked by Szerlag's father, her late uncle, Frank, and his son, Stephen. But it hasn't persisted unscathed. More than a decade ago, the Szerlags sold a field and a wooded swath of land to a real estate developer. Public records show the development, Presidential Estates, carved into the erstwhile farmland a cul-de-sac of single-family homes. In compliance with the town of Northbridge's requirement that open space account for at least one-third of a development, the remainder of the land was deeded to the Metacomet Land Trust in 2019. The Szerlag's land sale isn't an uncommon choice. Census data indicate that, with their backs against the wall, many farmers sell fragments of their land to support the rest of their business. Since 1997, the number of Massachusetts farms smaller than 50 acres has swelled while the number of larger farms has plummeted. Some farmers sell their land because there is no one to take over the family business — in Massachusetts, there are three times as many farmers over the age of 65 as under the age of 35. Others do so because the price of agricultural production has become too burdensome. An acre of farmland now costs $14,300 in Massachusetts — third most expensive nationally after New Jersey and Rhode Island. Over the past three decades, the cost of farming itself has nearly doubled. The latest data from the US Agricultural Census show more than 100,000 acres of farmland in Massachusetts have been lost since 1997. Almost a quarter of those acres was lost between 2017 and 2022. That's an average of losing just under 15 acres of farmland a day, approximately 15 football fields end zone to end zone, roughly double the rate of farmland loss nationwide. The American Farmland Trust, a nonprofit working to conserve agricultural lands, estimates that, without stronger protections, the state stands to lose between 50,000 and 90,000 acres of farmland by 2040 — a possibility Massachusetts may manage to thwart as the levers of the state Legislature begin to arc toward more aggressive farmland preservation. More than a way of life, farmland loss across New England risks the region's food security and the environmental contributions of farmers applying regenerative, climate-conscious agricultural practices. These approaches restore soil health, sequester carbon, improve water retention, and reduce erosion, helping the region withstand extreme weather events as the effects of the climate crisis worsen. And it is in service of these stakes that, on Beacon Hill, a commission is poised to issue a series of recommendations for confronting the 21st-century challenges facing farmers in Massachusetts. At the Community Harvest Project, a nonprofit farm in Harvard, Tori Buerschaper trailed behind a cohort of volunteers weaving through rows of apple trees. She watched on as they sorted first grade apples from those that were blemished or bruised, bagging good ones by the dozen and setting gnarled ones aside to send to the cider mill. The nonprofit designed this workflow to not only bridge the disconnect between consumers and the food they eat but to illuminate the realities of hunger in Massachusetts. 'We luckily live in one of the most prosperous states in the US, where it's easy to think there isn't hunger,' Buerschaper said. 'When people have limited income, they're forced to pick and choose. The thing you kind of get to last, or that you can more easily cut out, is food.' So far, the model they built has been a success. In 2023 alone, CHP hosted more than six thousand volunteers at its orchard in Harvard and at its 15-acre farm in Grafton. Together, each year, the two locations yield 300,000 pounds of apples, cabbage, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash and other produce that's sold to 26 partner agencies committed to combating food insecurity. But the nonprofit's operation wasn't always this expansive. In 2014, CHP was farming on leased land when donors in Harvard gifted the nonprofit 75 acres of orchard and rolling hills after more than 50 years of private ownership. Land is in high demand in the central Massachusetts town, and Buerschaper explained that her nonprofit 'could have made the decision to sell it to the highest bidder.' 'It's very likely that would have been a developer over a farmer,' she said. We luckily live in one of the most prosperous states in the US, where it's easy to think there isn't hunger. When people have limited income, they're forced to pick and choose. The thing you kind of get to last, or that you can more easily cut out, is food. – Tori Buerschaper, Executive Director at Community Harvest Project, Inc. Years later, standing watch over the orchard's undulating hills, these considerations seem to Buerschaper a distant reality. Now, owing to the state's Agricultural Preservation Restriction program, or APR, the nonprofit's land is safeguarded against any future development. If a farmer is looking to buy land and conserve it — or protect land they already own from future development — the Massachusetts Department of Agriculture, or MDAR, will pay the farmer the difference between the land's market value and its developable value. From then on, the state owns an easement on the land, meaning it can dictate the terms of any future land sale and use, ensuring that land remains in agricultural production in perpetuity. Since it was established in 1977, the APR program has conserved more than 950 parcels — or 70,000 acres — of farmland across the state, and it has served as a template for farmland conservation programs across the nation. These deed-restricted acres will be farmland forever. In 2023, CHP closed on an APR totaling almost $3 million, money that CHP's board of trustees chose to invest. Buerschaper said the nonprofit plans to withdraw $80,000 from its investment portfolio per year. She said the funds have helped ease financial fears about 'the growing pains [that] never really stopped.' APR is one of the best tools the state has to preserve farmland. Other programs exist under the breadth of MDAR's purview: a land licensing program for state-owned farmland; a succession-planning workshop, Farm-Pass, to help aging farmers transfer their business to a new owner; and numerous grant opportunities designed to keep farms viable and farmers employed. But these programs are only a treatment, not a cure, for the seemingly insurmountable financial hurdles which push many farmers to sell. APR money can run out with time, and enrolling in the program to begin with may not even occur to farmers needing an immediate remedy for their financial troubles. The application process requires patience and foresight: Once a farmer applies to the program, staff at MDAR and a third-party appraiser assess the farm's resource value and work with the landowner to come up with a funding plan. The state's Agricultural Lands Preservation Committee then votes twice before giving the transaction final approval. In some cases, farmers can opt in to receive federal funding from the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service, extending the application process even further. While MDAR is bound to this existing procedure, which can take years, developers are not. With deeper pockets and greater agility, developers tend to have an advantage over the state's interest in preservation, especially as the business of farming becomes more and more untenable. In 2016, Sean Stanton purchased North Plain Farm in Great Barrington, land that had been protected by the APR program for decades and in agricultural production for centuries. Then, three years ago, he closed on another APR that allowed him to purchase a 75-acre property a quarter mile down the road. MDAR encourages farmers to look for local partners to help fund up to half of the value of their easement. In Stanton's relatively anomalous case, the town of Great Barrington contributed $92,000 to the purchase. Meanwhile, MDAR awarded him $828,000. The state's near-million-dollar investment in North Plain Farm wasn't the first or the only support it gave. Stanton has received grant funding from MDAR's Farm Viability Enhancement Program to purchase new farm equipment, and he's taken business classes through the agency's Tilling the Soil of Opportunity program. The funding he's received from the state has helped support his business, but it hasn't inoculated the farm against financial distress. Until he decided to go back to school, enrolling in a social work master's program at Westfield State, Stanton said he was 'for years, digging a bigger financial hole.' Now, he hopes to practice as a clinical social worker as soon as 2026. He'll become one of more than half of the state's farmers who do not list farming as their primary occupation, and he wonders what will happen when his well of APR funds runs dry. On the farm, he teased a joke about how farmers make money. 'This is so depressing,' he warned. 'How do you make a million dollars farming? Start with two.' For farmers who have held their APRs for longer than Stanton, concerns about their businesses' longevity are even more acute. In July 2001, Dean Mazzarella stood on Pleasant Street, where the road bends and slices across Sholan Farm in Leominster, and accepted a check from the Commonwealth to purchase the farm and to conserve it as farmland in perpetuity. Mazzarella has been mayor of Leominster for more than 30 years, and by 2001 he had already seen numerous farms in and around the city succumb to a fate that Sholan Farm only narrowly escaped. Over time, Sholan's owners aged and stopped farming the land. When the land entered the real estate market in 1999, developers drafted a plan to convert the farm's 167 acres into houses. That's when the possibility arose for the city to buy the land instead. With support from the state, the city closed on an APR that totaled $4.75 million. MDAR contributed $2.6 million toward the purchase, and the Department of Conservation and Recreation funded another $1.6 million to support the farm in conserving reservoirs on the land. The city pitched in $500,000 to purchase the land and fundraised the remaining value of the easement through Friends of Sholan Farm. In the process, Mazzarella found an ally in Joanne DiNardo, who now operates and manages the farm alongside 75 volunteers. DiNardo said the lump sum infusion from the state and other partners 'helped us save the farm.' But for Sholan to meet its long-term viability goals — to expand its offerings, to stay open 12 months out of the year, to build a pavilion and other infrastructure that could attract more customers — DiNardo said a 'one and done' investment won't be enough. Unlike privately-owned farms enrolled in the APR program, city-owned farms like Sholan aren't eligible for APR improvement grants that could help keep the business afloat for years to come. If Sholan's APR money runs out and the business isn't otherwise profitable, the city could feasibly sell or lease the land to other farmers, maintaining compliance with the terms of the easement. The land would stay in agricultural production, but the city, like all farmers who sell in the face of financial hurdles, would pay the cost. 'Maybe more cities would buy orchards, you know, farms, and maybe get schools to run them or volunteers, like we do. But after you buy the land, you're on your own,' Mazzarella said. 'So, what's the incentive?' Beyond these pastoral terrains and panoramic fields, over the course of the last two years, a coalition of legislators and state agricultural leaders heard testimony on the future of the Commonwealth's agricultural sector. Led by state Sen. Jo Comerford and state Rep. Kate Hogan, the 21st Century Agriculture Commission is expected to recommend a slate of reforms aimed at tackling climate change's impact on farms and the demand for educational and technical assistance for farmers. Their recommendations, previewed at a public hearing in July, also address the state's farmland freefall and the financial obstacles facing farmers. Initially scheduled to be released in December, the commission's report received a year-long extension and will be released to the public before the end of 2025. Crucially, the commission is poised to recommend including farms smaller than five acres in the state's existing agricultural lands tax exemption, a change that could only be accomplished by amending Chapter 61A of the state constitution. This measure, a reflection of how 'farming has changed in Massachusetts,' is also a matter of equity for Winton Pitcoff, deputy commissioner of MDAR. 'It's important that farmers who have been excluded for a variety of reasons — particularly farmers of color through systemic racism that can't afford large tracts of land — it's important that we make sure that they can farm if they want to. That means making sure they can access land.' Farmland preservation has already secured an important step forward with a measure enshrined in the multibillion-dollar economic development bond bill. For months, the must-pass bill idled unresolved following the end of the formal session, but lawmakers returned for a vote and sent the bill to Gov. Maura Healey's desk in November. The measure authorizes MDAR to buy, protect and sell farmland, giving the agency enough purchasing power and agility to beat out developers vying for flat, open land unlike the APR program, which is a safety net that requires foresight and patience. 'It's pretty appealing when someone is able to give you a check right on the spot to buy your land. That's usually a developer. That's what leads to conversion,' explained Pitcoff. 'It's not like the department wants to become a landlord and buy lots of land. What this does is give us the flexibility to purchase land more quickly.' The agency will need to build its buy, protect and sell program from the ground up, writing new regulations and advocating for funds from the state budget each year. Also included in the economic development bond bill is an initiative to cut some of the red tape around non-agriculture activities on APR farms – a change that will help forge alternative revenue streams for these businesses. As long as the land in question remains in full-time commercial agriculture, MDAR may grant farmers special permits for hosting weddings, classes, charity runs, and other agritourism events adjacent to actual agricultural production. Previously, farmers like Tori Buerschaper, who hosts a 5k fundraiser at CHP, would need to apply for a discreet permit with each occasion they plan to host an activity. The new permits will be valid for at least one year, and MDAR will have the option to renew these grants, which ultimately aim to promote what the text of the bill refers to as the 'long-term productivity of the agricultural resource and the sustainability of the farm enterprise.' In the eyes of Jared Freedman, Comerford's chief of staff, the next step for Massachusetts is to recruit support for farmland preservation beyond the marbled halls of the State House, creating financial incentives for municipalities to prioritize preserving farmland. This model already exists through the PILOT, or payment in lieu of taxes, program, which helps cities and towns recover some of the revenue they lose from state- or nonprofit-owned lands, institutions, renewable energy installations, and more. Land owned by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, for example, is property tax-exempt, and therefore returns no tax revenue for local communities. In return for hosting state-owned lands, 297 communities receive aid through the PILOT program. Freedman suggested it could be expanded to aid the state's efforts to work with cities and towns to prevent farmland loss. 'These municipalities are struggling to pay for their schools, to pay for their fire, to pay for their EMS, to repave their roads,' Freedman said. 'If you're gonna try to protect forests and farmlands, the municipalities can't suffer.' In the state with one of the highest rates of farmland conversion, the stakes have never been higher. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
FEMA quietly removes access to New England coastal erosion hazard tool
Part of the Nantucket coastline, shored up with 'geotubes' to slow erosion. (Photo by Jennifer Smith/CommonWealth Beacon) At some point between February and early March, as seasonal wind and rain hammered New England coasts, a relatively new but enthusiastically embraced tool for predicting erosion slipped off the Federal Emergency Management Agency website. This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Pioneered on Nantucket in 2020, the Coastal Erosion Hazard viewer that covered all of New England is now unavailable. It predicted erosion risk across the coast for the years 2030, 2050, and 2100, and until recently was publicly accessible on an online map used by planners and individuals alike. 'The tool was really helpful,' said Leah Hill, Nantucket's coastal resilience coordinator, 'because erosion is episodic. So, an area can be stable for five, 10, 15 years, maybe lose like a foot [of beach] or so, or nothing, and then a storm could come and it could lose a bunch.' Historical erosion data and flood maps kept by the state are useful, she said, but the FEMA maps incorporated sea level rise to project potential future erosion over time. The Biden administration promoted the tool for homeowners, business owners, and community officials making resiliency decisions based on erosion concerns. Hill is acutely aware of climate risks to the small island, which has one of the highest erosion rates in the state. These erosion maps, which resulted in a detailed Nantucket erosion assessment, have become baked into her work to inform residents about their property risks. 'Prospective homeowners or homeowners will call me and say, 'You know, I'm thinking about purchasing this property. What are the risks associated with it?'' Hill said. 'I'll create, using the best available data, a risk assessment for that property. I don't give real estate advice, but I can tell them about certain risk criteria. … And in order to do so, I use the FEMA erosion projection maps.' When Hill went to the site in early March, the page that used to open up the ArcGIS erosion maps instead took her to a login screen with no way to access the maps. When the maps remained inaccessible for weeks, she reached out to the Woods Hole Sea Grant for help connecting with the FEMA Region 1 team, which covers New England, receiving a brief email response on March 24. 'FEMA is currently taking swift action to ensure the alignment with President Trump and Secretary [Kristi] Noem's direction,' wrote Kerry Bogdan, the risk analysis branch chief at FEMA Region 1. 'To that end, FEMA Region 1's Coastal Erosion Hazard viewer will be unavailable at this time.' FEMA did not respond to request for comment on the timing or rationale of removing the maps. Business magazine Fast Company reported that two software engineers were able to save and recreate data from FEMA's Future Risk Index tool when it, too, quietly vanished in February. The index mapped the projected economic losses from climate change down to the county level, based on hazards like flooding, drought, heat waves, and wildfires under different emissions scenarios. The FEMA future erosion maps are what's known as 'non-regulatory products,' essentially tools that are designed to be accessible and user-friendly, geared toward communicating information to the public, while regulatory products like FEMA floodplain maps are required by law and determine floodplain management, mitigation, and insurance policy. For instance, if a building is in a FEMA regulatory floodplain, there may be rules for resiliency improvements. But if a parcel is a long-term future erosion risk, the way to protect it or develop it is often up to the owner's discretion and informed by the available public information. 'I'm scrambling a little bit,' Hill said. She saved some of the GIS maps, but not all of them, and it isn't yet clear if the data sets have been saved elsewhere. The map scrubbing is an abrupt about-face on federal data sets, just six months after the federal government touted them as a way to help people plan for a future in the face of climate change. Bogdan told The Connecticut Mirror in September 2024 that an assortment of FEMA tools like erosion maps and forward-looking flood risk maps offered critical and helpful insights for municipalities and individuals alike. 'They're not going to tell you where you can develop, how to develop, what your insurance rate should be, but they are going to convey that hazard risk,' Bogdan said. 'What the risk is so people can plan for it.' Communities have incorporated the erosion map viewer with enthusiasm, she said. 'Some of our severely impacted communities from coastal erosion have really embraced this tool, and they're incorporating it into their long-term planning for things like grid retreat, placement of utilities, water lines, gas lines, that kind of stuff,' Bogdan told The Mirror. The Trump administration has, in its first three months, taken steps to roll back policies around climate resiliency planning. On March 25, FEMA announced that it stopped implementing certain floodplain management requirements for federally funded projects. This Obama-era standard, which was a mechanism for federal agencies to manage risk by requiring federally funded projects to be located out of flood risk areas or constructed to reduce the effects of current and future flood hazards, was halted under the first Trump administration, reinstated by Biden, and is now off again. 'Stopping implementation will reduce the total timeline to rebuild in disaster-impacted communities and eliminate additional costs previously required to adhere to these strict requirements,' the FEMA announcement said in late March. Last week, FEMA announced that it is ending the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, which has given states and communities billions of dollars to protect against natural disasters. The agency is also canceling all BRIC applications from fiscal years 2020-2023. FEMA said the BRIC program is 'more concerned with climate change than helping Americans affected by natural disasters' in a statement announcing the cuts. There has been no official statement on removing public mapping software that anticipates future flood or erosion risk. Other pages removed include the agency's 2022 'Guide to Expanding Mitigation: Making the Connection to the Coast,' which supplied emergency managers, community planners, coastal and floodplain managers, and other community stakeholders with resources and ideas to mitigate risk. A banner atop FEMA's website reads: ' is being updated to comply with President Trump's Executive Orders. Thank you for your patience and understanding.' Shannon Hulst, a floodplain and community rating system specialist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute Sea Grant and Cape Cod Cooperative Extension, who was able to connect Hill with FEMA Region 1, said ad-hoc data removal is cause for concern. 'It's disconcerting,' said Hulst, who works on projects like developing flood insurance programs for towns along Cape Cod. 'And it certainly can make our jobs more challenging. I know, on our end, we're working on downloading some of that data to make sure we continue to have access to it.' In her capacity, Hulst mostly relies on regulatory products like the floodplain maps, which are 'a whole different ball game.' There is no word that the flood maps will be taken down, Hulst said, and Massachusetts keeps state-level flood maps as back-up. 'We'll still be OK with that data,' she said of the flood maps, but the disappearance of solid predictive data is an issue for consistent long-term planning. 'When we know that there is a risk, and that is what we were using as the best available data to inform us about that risk, and we're trying to manage our communities to the best of our ability to protect ourselves from that risk,' she said, 'it makes it difficult.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
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08-04-2025
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Tariffs on Canada threaten our energy future and economic growth
Tariffs on clean Canadian electricity imports threaten to burden U.S. consumers with an estimated $400 million in additional costs annually. (Getty image) The imposition of tariffs on energy imports from Canada jeopardizes both our climate targets and the economic security of millions of residents and businesses across New England and New York. This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. President Trump has imposed broad 25% tariffs on Canadian imports. It remains unclear whether these tariffs apply to electricity (the Trump administration issued no clarification), an intangible good that has never before been subject to import duties. The Northeast has long been a leader in clean energy innovation, setting ambitious goals to transition to a more sustainable, affordable, and reliable power grid. Tariffs of this magnitude on clean Canadian electricity imports are a direct attack on affordability, burdening U.S. consumers with an estimated $400 million in additional costs annually. These tariffs will be felt particularly during peak-demand periods, when the Northeast's reliance on Canadian electricity is most acute. During these hours, tariffs could increase wholesale electricity prices by up to 30%. These costs disproportionately affect working families and small businesses that are already struggling with high energy costs. At a time when states like Massachusetts and New York are working to expand clean energy infrastructure and reduce reliance on fossil fuels, the artificial price increases from tariffs will drive clean and affordable hydroelectricity from Canada out of energy markets. The result is the opposite effect of what our state policies seek and instead will drive up costs and push the region further into dependence on natural gas and oil. Massachusetts alone is expected to see a $200 million increase in electricity if 25% tariffs are imposed on Canadian electricity imports. Beyond the financial impact, tariffs will undermine the reliability of the Northeast's power grid. Just this year, during the coldest periods of January and February, Canadian energy exports accounted for 10% of New York's demand and 15% in New England, rising to 20% during peak-demand hours. With the added tariff costs on imports, our region will inevitably rely more heavily on fossil fuel plants that are vulnerable to fuel supply shortages and price spikes during extreme weather events. The energy market works by selecting the least expensive form of energy available to provide the required amount of energy demanded by the market. If tariffs make otherwise affordable Canadian hydroelectricity more expensive than oil and gas, the market will choose those less costly sources. Some parts of our region are especially vulnerable. Certain rural areas in Vermont and Northern Maine, which are directly linked to electric grids in Canada and have no viable alternative supply, could be hardest hit. Tariffs could lead to millions of dollars in increased costs annually, exacerbating energy insecurity for residents who already face higher-than-average electricity prices. Imposing tariffs on Canadian hydroelectricity is not just bad economics—it's bad climate policy. With the withdrawal of this affordable, clean energy source, the region will be forced to burn more natural gas and oil, leading to an estimated 10 million additional tons of carbon emissions annually — annual emissions equivalent to those emitted by every car registered in New York City. This is a step backward at a time when we should be accelerating our clean energy transition. The Northeast has set aggressive goals to cut emissions and transition to 100% clean power, yet these tariffs will make clean energy less competitive, slowing progress toward a carbon-free grid. Supporters of these tariffs argue that they will level the playing field for domestic energy producers but, in reality, they will undermine the market forces that are driving innovation and competition in the clean energy sector. They completely ignore the interconnected nature of the U.S.-Canadian electricity system, which has historically provided economic, reliability, and environmental benefits to both countries. Just last week, New York State released a report assessing tariff impacts. State agencies conclude that 'losing access to Canadian imports during the peak summer cooling months could create significant reliability challenges.' New York and New England cannot afford to let anything but the public interest and cost dictate energy policy. These tariffs will raise prices, reduce reliability, and set back the clean energy transition at a time when we need to accelerate progress, not stall it. Governors, legislators, and regulators in the Northeast must visibly stand together against these tariffs, advocating for continued access to affordable, clean electricity. Businesses, labor groups, and community organizations must also speak out, making it clear that these policies will harm local economies, cost jobs, and increase energy burdens for working families. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
