TRANSPORTATION: Climate bill may hint at
future of highway and transit
authorization (Wednesday, April 1, 2009)
Josh Voorhees,
E&E reporter
Comprehensive
climate and energy legislation unveiled
yesterday by a prominent pair of House
Democrats would push city and state
planners to link transportation and
land-use decisions, a major first step
in efforts to recast the nation's
transportation strategy to curb
emissions and fuel consumption.
The bill from House
Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry
Waxman (D-Calif.) and Rep. Ed Markey
(D-Mass.) would give each state three
years to craft plans to curb
transportation-related greenhouse gas
emissions, both across states and for
any metro area with more than 200,000
people.
States would work
with U.S. EPA to set emissions targets
for 10- and 20-year periods; would be
encouraged to expand environmentally
friendly modes of transportation, such
as bus and light rail systems; and
re-evaluate their land-use planning to
create cities that require less driving
and achieve increased mobility.
Officials from
state transportation, environmental and
economic agencies would set the targets
under EPA's supervision in order to
reduce transportation emissions each
year below "levels projected under a
business-as-usual scenario." They would
be designed to ensure that emissions
levels stabilize and ultimately decrease
by a set year, possibly as soon as 2010.
The legislation
suggests a host of greenhouse gas
reducing measures for the states to
consider, including rezoning to allow
for mixed retail and residential
buildings, the addition of sidewalks and
bike paths, pricing measures such as
congestion and high-occupancy tolling,
and even parking policies.
EPA, working with
the Transportation Department, would
create a competitive grant program to
help finance state and local projects
aimed at meeting the emission-reduction
goals.
Funding levels were
not set in the draft legislation, but a
group of bipartisan lawmakers have
previously called for 10 percent of any
future cap-and-trade revenues to be
devoted to low-carbon transportation
projects (E&ENews
PM, Feb. 27).
Roughly one-third
of the nation's total greenhouse gas
emissions are a caused by
transportation, according to government
estimates, and lawmakers who are
drafting the upcoming surface
transportation authorization bill --
which will provide the bulk of federal
cash for roads, rail and transit for the
next six years -- have indicated they
are looking to overhaul the nation's
transportation strategy to address the
high emissions level.
James Corless, a
director for Transportation For America,
said that "smart growth" policies have
been gaining momentum over the past two
decades. "These provision have been
creeping in, slowly at first, and in the
last five years at a more rapid pace,"
he said. "A lot of our problems are not
between metro regions, but in metro
regions. It is in that spirit that this
provision comes."
Transportation
Secretary Ray LaHood has said the Obama
administration will push for the
transportation reauthorization to
include sustainable growth language that
links transportation and land use.
LaHood and Housing, Urban and
Development Secretary Shaun Donovan have
also teamed up to create an interagency
task force to identify incentives and
other actions that would support
transit-oriented development, such as
mixed-income housing (E&E
Daily, March 19).
"That signal has
been sent," Colin Peppard, climate and
infrastructure director at the
Environmental Defense Fund, said of the
policy shift. "What we're seeing is that
the transportation policy and energy
policy people are really starting to
talk. Hopefully that will lead to some
real core changes."
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