Air quality

A proposed study aims to find out what Logan Airport is doing to public health. Plus, the House and Senate battle over budgets, and the search for a Saunders successor is on.

by Ben Geman

Tucked deep inside the Massachusetts Senate's budget proposal -- in line item 4510-0600, to be exact -- is what could be another piece of ammunition in the battle over Massport's proposed new Logan runway.

The budget, which heads into conference committee this week or next, contains language inserted by State Senator Stephen Lynch (D-South Boston) providing $150,000 for state health officials to study the health impact of Logan Airport on its surrounding communities.

Amid the heated debate over the runway, any study of Logan's health effects is a loaded one. Massport says the runway would ease delays and spread noise more evenly, while foes call it a Band-Aid solution that would worsen noise in low-
income and minority neighborhoods near the airport. And Lynch is no impartial observer here: the powerful pol opposes the expansion, fearing increased noise over parts of his district and negative effects on public health in South Boston.

For his part, Lynch says the study proposal stems not from his opposition to the runway, but from concern over elevated disease rates in South Boston. "We have an assortment of health problems in the communities [near the airport]," he says, "and our discussions with the Department of Public Health have led us to believe the airport may play a role. We have asthma right off the charts in South Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester, East Boston."

He concedes, however, that Massport's plan isn't far from his mind when he considers the need for a new study. The findings, he says, "could be critical to whether the expansion goes forward.

"It may be even more important to the regionalization of air traffic," adds Lynch, who argues, like other opponents, that Massport should use nearby airports more heavily instead of expanding Logan. "It stands to reason that by lessening the entire load on Logan, we will be helping these neighborhoods."

State environmental officials have given the Logan runway a conditional thumbs-up, but the Federal Aviation Administration is still reviewing Massport's proposal. Proponents of the runway will also have to fight to lift a court injunction against runway expansion.

For now, the Lynch study won't happen unless the budget language makes it through conference committee and then past Governor Paul Cellucci, who wants the runway bad. In vetoing it, the governor would risk an override attempt -- and perhaps accusations of not giving a shit about public health.

On the other hand, he would also be saving his beloved runway a lot of trouble. Any health study that pointed the finger at Logan would no doubt be seized upon by other runway opponents. "Absolutely, we would use it as soon as we possibly could," says East Boston resident Mary Ellen Welch of Communities Against Runway Expansion, "and if we have to go to court, we could use it in court as well."

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In theory, what's happening on Beacon Hill this week is fairly straightforward government stuff: legislators in the Massachusetts Senate and House of Representatives are about to begin their annual squabble over how to spend next year's budget.

There's much more afoot, though. The competition between the budget proposals of the Senate and the House mirrors the dust-up between two prospective gubernatorial candidates: Senate President Tom Birmingham and House Speaker Tom Finneran. With the near-constant jockeying for governor's office buoyed by Paul Cellucci's apparent beatability, these rival budgets provide valuable insight into the great divide between the state's two legislative chiefs.

For years now, Birmingham has played the populist progressive to Finneran's dictatorial centrist. Last year, for example, the more labor-friendly Birmingham backed an increase in the minimum wage, while Finneran stymied the hike. But this year, the gulf between them is even clearer. "I think it has escalated this year," says one insider. "The [budget process] is the broadest and starkest example yet."

How stark? Both budgets are roughly $21 billion, but there the similarities end. When it comes to actually burning that cash, the House plan focuses more on infrastructure and capital needs; the Senate's more on human services, education, and other traditionally Democratic concerns.

Both packages contain modest "targeted" tax breaks -- progressive tax relief aimed at helping low- and moderate-income families. The Senate proposal goes further in this regard, offering a break on property taxes for elderly homeowners , as well as deductions for renters and for students paying off loans. The House, by contrast, focuses more on across-the-board tax reduction: it proposes lowering the state's income-tax rate from 5.95 percent to 5.75 percent. Its targeted reductions are more modest, and the House's lefty dissident faction had to struggle even for those.

For progressives, this round goes to Birmingham. "The Senate [tax] package is affordable, and it goes to the people who need the tax breaks," says Jim St. George, executive director of the Tax Equity Alliance for Massachusetts (TEAM). "The bulk of the benefits go to low- and middle-income families by a significant margin." (Disclosure: I worked at TEAM in 1998.) Both houses plan to charge investors something for what's now a free lunch by installing a two percent minimum capital-gains tax; taking that into consideration, TEAM says, the Senate package's tax cuts would amount to about $87 million, whereas the House package, with its across-the-board reductions, would cut about $428 million.

The Senate budget also goes further than the House budget in several other areas: it allots more money to education funds and to pharmacy subsidies for seniors, and it attempts to make the state's draconian welfare-reform laws friendlier to recipients who need assistance beyond the current two-year time limit.

Of course, it's more fun to piece together budgets when the economy sucks only for some people than when it sucks for everyone. Right now, times are good, and big revenues have allowed for plump budgets. But some argue that when the economy slows, Finneran's vision will be the wiser one: he suggests holding over cash from future tobacco settlements for use down the road, for example, while Birmingham would put a portion of any settlement to use for health care sooner rather than later.

"The House budget is very wisely focused on shoring up our investments and capital needs, and therefore is somewhat more fiscally responsible from that point of view," comments State Representative Jay Kaufman (D-Lexington). But, Kaufman points out, the Senate budget contains a stronger tax policy and is better in terms of human services. "It's just a different fiscal approach, and by any standards, the House approach is more conservative."

But to people who think government should offer more than just tax cuts and good roads, Birmingham's proposal may be the more interesting one. It certainly indicates that a Birmingham candidacy for governor would be no pell-mell rush toward the political center.

Among a small band of House progressives, the appeal of Birmingham's budget nearly inspired a rebellion. Chafing under Finneran's dictatorial control of the chamber, a handful of left-leaning representatives saw the Birmingham budget as a chance to stick it to their leader. The normal procedure, when budgets are submitted, is for the House to reject the Senate budget out of hand, thus requiring a conference committee. This year, someone suggested, why not corral a gang to cast symbolic votes in favor of the Senate budget and force debate? It might sound like a modest gesture, but it would have been a shocking (if futile) move: the House's rejection of the budget is formulaic, just a parliamentary procedure to get the thing into committee where the real squabbling can begin.

"People liked what was in the Senate budget and thought that it was more supportive of what we support than the House budget," says one of the legislators. "We are looking for opportunities where we can fight for things we believe in and most Democrats believe in, and we think an opportunity came along."

But by early this week, talk of insurrection had died down. Oh, well -- it would have been fun. But with such disparate versions of the budget flying around, the conference committee will at least provide a battlefield where we can watch Finneran and Birmingham butt heads by proxy.

"Even in the absence of the prospect of either running for governor, the conference committee will be a very interesting ideological confrontation," says Kaufman. "Or this could well be the first skirmish in what could evolve into a full-blown campaign between the two for office."

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Boston City Council races will be coming into much sharper focus in the next few months, but one candidate in particular may reap the benefits of District Seven incumbent Gareth Saunders's recent decision not to seek re-election.

Julio Henriquez, the only candidate to have campaigned openly and actively against Saunders, will have quite a head start on the competition when he formally kicks off his campaign this week.

His likely foes for the seat, which represents Roxbury and parts of Dorchester, the South End, and the Fenway, include Dudley Square businessman Roger Garvin and former Seventh District candidate Roy Owens.

The 63-year-old Henriquez has strong ties to the district; he is the track coach at John D. O'Bryant School in Roxbury and has been heavily active in the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative.

Henriquez also boasts a solid link to the Menino administration: his wife, Sandra Henriquez, is director of the Boston Housing Authority, breeding speculation that Henriquez could enjoy some City Hall support as he chases the seat Saunders held for three terms.

"Given his ties to City Hall," says political consultant Kevin Peterson, "a reasonable political observer could assume the mayor would assist his campaign. But Boston politics is a very weird universe and you never know what will happen from day to day."

No kidding. In fact, Henriquez won't let his City Hall connection prevent him from coming down opposite Menino on a volatile issue. He said last week that he'll advocate for independent civilian review of the Boston Police Department, a hot topic amid apparent racial turbulence in the force.

"I will raise it and push to have public hearings about it," said Henriquez. "I'm in favor of any opportunity for residents to have review powers and to sit down with police and review issues that impact their lives."

Menino, despite renewed calls for a civilian review board, continues to resist the idea.

Ben Geman can be reached at bgeman[a]phx.com.