Question 6 Explained: The Nature for All Fund and Subsection (g)

Question 6 would create a Nature for All Fund and direct half, then all, of the state sales tax collected on sporting goods, recreational vehicles, and golf courses into land conservation and parks. The campaign says that could be as much as $100 million a year. It polls at 67 percent yes.

The last subsection of the measure, seven words into a sentence that runs eleven, says this:

“(g) All of the provisions of this section shall be subject to appropriation by the legislature.”

That sentence means the Legislature can decline to fund it. Proponents confirmed at a public hearing that this was their intent. It is the single most important fact about Question 6, and it is missing from the campaign’s own materials and from at least one major reference site.

The Attorney General’s summary, verbatim

“This proposed law would establish a Nature for All Fund that, subject to appropriation by the Legislature, would receive 50% of state taxes collected from the sale and use of sporting goods, recreational vehicles, and golf courses for the first year of its operation. After July 1, 2028, the Nature for All Fund would begin receiving, subject to appropriation by the Legislature, 100% of state taxes collected on the sale and use of sporting goods, recreational vehicles, and golf courses. The sales tax revenue received by the Nature for All Fund would exclude sales tax revenue transferred to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority State and Local Contribution Fund and the School Modernization and Reconstruction Trust Fund. The proposed law would allow the state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs to spend the money in the Nature for All Fund for natural resource conservation.

The proposed law would allow public and private donations to the Nature for All Fund. The proposed law would prevent the state comptroller from transferring surplus funds in the Nature for All Fund at the end of the fiscal year. It would also allow state agencies, municipalities, public charities involved in natural resource conservation, tribal governments, and other regional public entities to receive money from the Nature for All Fund.

Natural resource conservation would include the conservation or restoration of land to protect drinking water, streams, rivers, lakes, coasts, farms, forests, connectivity between open spaces, and lands and natural resources of indigenous cultural significance. Natural resource conservation would also include the creation, improvement, and management of parks, trails, greenspaces or outdoor recreation access.

The proposed law would establish a 15-member Nature for All Board that consists of five state officials and ten members of the public appointed by the Governor. […] The proposed law would take effect on July 1, 2027.”

Note that the Attorney General’s summary uses the phrase “subject to appropriation by the Legislature” twice, in the first two sentences. The official summary is more candid about this than the campaign is.

What your vote does

A YES vote creates the fund, dedicates a share of an existing sales tax to it, and sets up a 15-member board to write spending rules.

A NO vote leaves conservation funding to the ordinary annual budget process.

This is not a new tax, and it is not a lockbox

Two things get confused about Question 6, and they cut in opposite directions.

It raises no taxes. Governor Healey made the point plainly: “It’s no new taxes, OK? But what it does, is it takes the use of an existing sales tax on your recreational vehicles, golf equipment, other sporting goods.” Nobody pays a cent more. The money is already being collected.

It also does not guarantee the money arrives. Subsection (g) subjects the entire section to appropriation. At the legislative hearing, Representative Alice Peisch asked directly whether the clause means the Legislature could choose “not to appropriate any of this money,” and supporters indicated that was their intent.

The clause is there for a constitutional reason. Article 48 bars an initiative petition from making a “specific appropriation,” so a measure that mandated the transfer outright would risk being struck from the ballot. A memo submitted by proponents put it this way: “While not ‘magic words,’ the inclusion of the phrase ‘subject to appropriations by the General Court’ has in some cases been viewed as adequate to avoid violation of the ‘specific appropriations’ bar.”

So the drafting is defensible. But the practical effect is that Question 6 creates a strong expectation and an annual advocacy hook, not a dedicated revenue stream.

Two sources currently in circulation omit this. The campaign’s own materials describe the revenue as going to the fund without the caveat, and at least one widely used reference site says the measure “would require” that 50 percent be placed in the fund. The petition text and the Attorney General’s summary both say otherwise.

How much money

Estimates diverge, and Massachusetts produces no official fiscal note for initiative petitions:

• “As much as $100 million each year” is the campaign’s figure.
• Roughly $65 million fully phased in is the estimate from the Tufts Center for State Policy Analysis, which is non-partisan. The difference is that part of the sales tax base is already earmarked for schools and transit and comes off the top.

For scale, the state currently spends roughly $400 million a year on conservation and recreation.

The mechanism

The measure inserts a new section, G.L. c. 29, § 2EEEEEE. Subsection (a) creates the fund and credits it with “an amount equivalent to 50% of all monies received by the commonwealth from the receipts from taxes on sales and use of sporting goods, recreational vehicles, and golf courses” as classified under the 2022 North American Industry Classification System codes.

The MBTA and School Modernization transfers come off first. The fund may accept gifts and donations. And it is expressly exempted from the year-end sweep provision, so an unspent balance carries forward rather than reverting.

Subsection (b) lists what the money may be spent on: conservation and restoration of land protecting drinking water and water quality; farms and forests advancing biodiversity, climate, and environmental justice goals; parks, greenspaces, trails, and outdoor recreation access “especially in neighborhoods with limited access to such resources”; parcels providing connectivity between open spaces; lands of indigenous cultural significance; and ongoing stewardship.

Subsection (d) creates the 15-member Nature for All Board: the Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs, the Commissioners of Fish and Game and of Conservation and Recreation, the Secretary of Housing and Livable Communities, the climate chief, and ten members appointed by the Governor who must include representatives of underserved communities and indigenous peoples. The board writes the spending regulations.

Subsection (e) sets eligible recipients: state agencies, municipalities, regional entities, operating public charities, and tribal governments.

Two dates, not one

The Attorney General’s summary gives one effective date. The petition has two.

• July 1, 2027: the fund is created and the 50 percent credit begins.
• July 1, 2028: the credit steps up to 100 percent.

A citation warning

Two versions of this petition were certified, and they use different subsection letters. In the version that did not qualify for the ballot, the appropriation clause is subsection (f). On the version voters will actually see, it is subsection (g). Anyone citing (f) is citing the wrong document.

Who is paying for it

The supporting committee, Vote Yes for Water and Nature, reported $1,380,278.51 in cash plus $219,848.04 in in-kind through December 31, 2025, having spent $947,812 and holding $432,467. These are gross receipts.

Three individuals gave 100 percent of the cash.

• Kirsten Waerstad of Belmont, a director of the Humani Foundation, $800,000
• Natasha Grigg of Boxford, retired, $420,278.51 across three contributions
• Jessie B. Panek of Harvard, retired, $160,000

The in-kind support is where the conservation establishment appears. Mass Audubon contributed $148,924 in staff time, supplies, postage, and legal support, 68 percent of all in-kind. The Trust for Public Land gave $29,369, the Appalachian Mountain Club $18,354, and a dozen watershed associations, land trusts, and conservation groups contributed smaller amounts.

Mass Audubon’s president and CEO, David O’Neill, is the lead signer of the petition.

Of the money spent, $774,248 went to signature collection.

No committee has registered to oppose Question 6.

Figures stop at December 31, 2025. The next filing is due September 4, 2026.

The case for

Massachusetts has committed to protecting 30 percent of its land and waters by 2030, and is not on pace. David O’Neill of Mass Audubon: “Current funding trajectories fall well short of what is needed to achieve that goal. Our report did the math and after accounting for current levels of public funding, the commonwealth may require at least an additional $300 million per year or more to reach the state’s 30 by 30 conservation goal.”

The urgency argument is about land availability rather than money. Katie Theoharides of The Trustees, formerly the state’s Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary: “These last large tracts of land, these last places of open space in our urban communities are turning over and are not going to be here in five, ten years. We have a very limited window to protect these lands.”

The measure also carries equity provisions with teeth: the board must include representatives of underserved communities and indigenous peoples, the spending rules must address environmental justice and access to lands of indigenous cultural significance, and an annual report to the Legislature must account for money spent in communities with environmental justice populations.

Supporters include Governor Healey, Mass Audubon, The Trustees, The Nature Conservancy, the Trust for Public Land, the Conservation Law Foundation, the Appalachian Mountain Club, the Environmental League of Massachusetts, and REI, with more than 90 organizations claimed.

The case against

There is no opposition committee and no “vote no” campaign. There are named critics, and their objection is structural rather than environmental.

Doug Howgate, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation:

“From a public finance standpoint, carving up existing revenue sources into dedicated streams for specific things is a dangerous road. These are proposals made in a vacuum. The reality is, by definition, spending $1 in one place and not another place has a tradeoff. As folks are assessing this proposal, they’re not going to see those tradeoffs.”

Representative Alice Peisch, co-chair of the committee that reviewed the petition, made the sharper point, which is that subsection (g) may make the whole exercise redundant:

“Seems like a lot of effort to do something that, at the end of the day, is no different from the process we have right now, which is that you would all, and many others, advocate with the Legislature during the budget process to get the appropriate amounts of funding for these various initiatives.”

Senator Cindy Friedman, her co-chair, framed the tradeoff in budget terms:

“I think we should be really serious about our natural resources. I also think that we should be serious about the fact that we have a $3 billion deficit in MassHealth, that we are losing funding from the federal government in all of our programs. It’s always this horrible choice that we have about, you know, who do we serve first?”

None of the three said to vote no. They are critics rather than opponents, and readers deserve that distinction.

Two organizations that often oppose measures like this, the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance and the Pioneer Institute, have taken no position we could locate, which is not the same as confirmed neutrality.

Where it stands

The UMass Amherst and WCVB poll, fielded August 5 to 12, 2026, 800 registered voters, margin of error 4.4 percent:

• Yes 67 percent (29 definitely, 38 probably)
• No 22 percent
• Undecided 8 percent, do not understand 2 percent

The poll wording did not mention the appropriation contingency.

No one challenged the petition at the Supreme Judicial Court. Of the three article 48 challenges the Court decided in 2026, none involved this measure. One of the three, on rent control, resulted in a petition being struck from the ballot entirely.

One structural note applying to all nine questions: an initiative passes only if it wins a majority and draws yes votes equal to at least 30 percent of all ballots cast. Question 6 sits in the middle of a nine-question ballot where drop-off is real.

Common questions

Does Question 6 raise taxes?

No. It redirects a share of sales and use tax already collected on sporting goods, recreational vehicles, and golf courses. No rate changes and no new tax.

Is the money guaranteed to go to conservation?

No. Subsection (g) provides that all provisions of the section are “subject to appropriation by the legislature.” Supporters confirmed at a public hearing that the Legislature could choose not to appropriate the money. The clause exists because article 48 bars initiative petitions from making specific appropriations.

How much money is involved?

The campaign says as much as $100 million a year. The non-partisan Tufts Center for State Policy Analysis estimates roughly $65 million fully phased in, because part of the revenue is already earmarked for schools and transit. Massachusetts issues no official fiscal note for ballot questions.

What would the money pay for?

Land conservation protecting drinking water and water quality, farms and forests, parks and trails with emphasis on neighborhoods lacking access, parcels connecting open spaces, lands of indigenous cultural significance, and ongoing stewardship.

When would it take effect?

Two dates. The fund and the 50 percent credit begin July 1, 2027. The credit rises to 100 percent on July 1, 2028.

Who is funding the campaign?

Three individuals gave all of the $1.38 million in cash: Kirsten Waerstad $800,000, Natasha Grigg $420,278.51, and Jessie Panek $160,000. Mass Audubon contributed $148,924 in in-kind support and its CEO is the petition’s lead signer. No committee has registered in opposition.

Petition text and the Attorney General’s summary from House No. 5005 and certified Initiative Petition 25-15, Version A, which is the version on the ballot. Campaign finance from OCPF filings through December 31, 2025; 2026 reports are due September 4, 2026. Polling from UMass Amherst and WCVB, fielded August 5 to 12, 2026, 800 registered voters, margin of error 4.4 percent. Legislative hearing quotations as reported by the State House News Service. The official ballot title is “Natural Resource Conservation Fund”; “Nature for All Fund” is the name the statute gives the fund itself. The signed arguments for and against appear in the Secretary’s voter information guide, which had not been published as of this writing. General information, not legal advice.