Massachusetts just had another shot heard round the world. It’s in all the “papers,” but this time it is not in pursuit of liberty but its opposite. The Bay State just advanced a piece of legislation that would “limit” the number of miles you can drive your car, truck, SUV, etc., each year.
An Act Aligning the Commonwealth’s Transportation Plan with its Mandates and Goals for Reducing Emissions and Vehicle Miles Traveled (S. 2246) was filed by state Sen. Cynthia Stone-Creem (D-Norfolk & Middlesex) and is based on existing laws and regulations in Colorado and Minnesota and is meant to bring Massachusetts in line with its climate mandates.
“The bill would also require MassDOT to set goals for reducing the number of statewide driving miles, which would be considered when EEA sets greenhouse gas emissions limits and sublimits,” a summary of the legislation says.
Limit has to mean, fine you for driving too much.
No one has a clue what the number is, how it will be implemented, enforced, or how fines will be levied and collected for scofflaws, but they’ll have a plan to work it out. The state will establish a travel reduction goal. A target of estimated total miles travelled, if I had to guess. A five-year plan. I’m not kidding. It is set for every five years.
Two important points you should not miss are the new 15-member panel, which will meet regularly to brainstorm ways to make public transportation more accessible. The second is that the State of Massachusetts will create papal-like dispensations for itself, including the (to be) newly formed above-mentioned panel, which can travel and emit at will because they are doing the people’s business.
I can’t begin to list all the questions I have, but here are a few. Does travel outside Massachusetts count? It would have to. They will likely use year-over-year reported odometer readings at inspection time, provided to the Department of Transportation, whose added emissions to run this scheme will not count.
What about out-of-state travelers in Massachusetts? There’s no legal or Constitutional way to use this scheme to punish tourists (yet!), but since this is about increasing revenue, and not reducing emissions (and they have had a non-resident income tax for years), they’ll have to figure it out eventually. Dems can’t stop spending, so new streams of revenue must be identified and tapped.
The fine structure will be the most critical portion with graduated levels of pain, special exceptions for favored interests (commercial, political, etc), and regular escalations, so the funds estimated can help offset the waste, fraud, and abuse that follows every expansion of government, and this is Massachusetts. It has a history of both.
If you can’t afford it, don’t worry, that’s the point. They don’t want you travelling freely, nor are they interested in making any part of your life affordable.
One final note. If you decide that this will be the last straw and escape to New Hampshire before this shoe drops, you have to stop voting for democrats. We’re the last bastion of sanity in the northeast. If you poison our waterhole, there’s no place left north of Virginia.
