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Life sciences memorandum could sub for bill 

By Jim O’Sullivan
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE

BOSTON, NOV. 19, 2007….If the Legislature does not approve timely pieces of Gov. Deval Patrick’s $1 billion life sciences plan before breaking this week until January, Beacon Hill leaders could enter into a unusual memorandum of understanding promising legislative benefits to a small number of companies.
 
That decision, reached Monday in a meeting among Patrick, Senate President Therese Murray, and House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, signals that lawmakers are unlikely to act on the bill on Tuesday, the last scheduled formal meeting of the Legislature until early next year.
 
With biopharmaceutical firms Shire, Organogenesis, and Genzyme looking to capitalize on the blend of tax incentives and capital assistance embedded in Patrick’s original bill, which lawmakers are hoping to broaden to include other industries, the state is trying to capture the investments by dangling the benefits package.
 
“We’re hearing from them that they need some decisions by the end of the year,” said David Guarino, a DiMasi spokesman.
 
Patrick, DiMasi, Senate President Therese Murray and aides to all three met Monday before the three principals met privately, their semi-regular sitdown stretching well past two hours. 
 
Asked about the prospect of no component of the Patrick plan earning passage this year, senior Patrick communications adviser Joseph Landolfi said the administration was “obviously disappointed.”
 
“Targeted incentives, while … a good first step, [don’t] reach the dozens of companies that the legislation we filed envisioned, legislation that would benefit not only companies in Massachusetts, but companies worldwide in the life sciences,” said Landolfi.
 
“We envisioned something far more reaching,” he said.
 
The focus on a “handful” of firms, Landolfi said, falls short of the industry-wide spur Patrick had hoped to give the industry, which policymakers agree is a vital piece of the Bay State economy. “It leaves out a much greater universe of companies that would stand to benefit from the life science initiative,” he said.
 
Lawmakers say they intend to address the broader package, which sets aside $500 million in capital funding, but have indicated for weeks that it was unlikely to win passage this year.
 
“It’s a billion-dollar bill,” Rep. Daniel Bosley, House chair of the Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies, told the News Service on Sunday. “We need to do our due diligence.”
 
“It just takes some time,” he added. “And we’ve been working hard on it.”
 
Reiterating criticism of the Legislature’s pace he has voiced widely in the last several weeks, Patrick on Monday told reporters he was disappointed lawmakers had not focused on the bill earlier. Announced in May with great fanfare, the proposal was filed in July.
 
“It’s an important piece of legislation,” Landolfi said. “We’re going to continue to push for it.”
 
After meeting with Murray and DiMasi, Patrick said the three had not reached an agreement about the bill and that he was “not sure” whether lawmakers would advance any portion of the bill Tuesday. He said, “What we spent some – a lot of time on is talking about the importance of moving on it, what some of the sticking points are, what some of the hard negotiation is going to have to be, and also how we address some current needs we know we have in companies that are trying to make decisions.”
 
Patrick said the three had discussed short-term possibilities, as well as other portions that could pop up in January.
 
“It’s important to me that we get it right. I want the whole package, because the pieces rely on each other. They are all tools in a toolbox. I don’t think that any of us believe [work on the entire bill can be completed] before the Legislature goes out of session, and I think there are a lot of reasons for that,” Patrick said.  “In my view, one of them is that they got a late start on it.”
 
According to Guarino, the three leaders also agreed Monday to a working group comprised of aides from their own offices, along with delegates from the legislative committees that will likely have input on the bill: Ways and Means, Economic Development and Emerging Technologies, Revenue, and Bonding, Capital Expenditures and State Assets.
 
The state entered into a similar agreement last year with Bristol-Myers Squibb that netted a $750 million investment in a Devens plant that the company said would create 350 jobs.