TCI Regional Policy Design Stakeholder Submissions

Local, state, and regional governments have been tacking a major source of greenhouse gas pollution: power plants. Now it's time to do the same for transportation. To protect God's creation, we must take bold steps to rapidly reduce carbon dioxide release from the burning of oil for transportation by instituting a cap and trade program. Proceeds from sale by states of those permits could then be invested in clean alternatives like electric vehicles and charging infrastructure, public transportation, walking and biking projects, and other smart growth initiatives, speeding up the must needed transition to a clean, equitable, 21st century transportation system.

A recent analysis by the Georgetown Climate Center found that investing $3 billion annually in the Northeast states to reduce vehicle GHG emissions would
+ Save thousands of lives in the region in 2030
+ Create more than 113,000 jobs in D.C. and Maryland through 2030
+ Put $11.81 billion in D.C. and Marylanders pockets through 2030

My primary forms of transportation are mass-transit, bike, and a battery electric car. We need to encourage others to make similar transitions and a cap and trade program is one of the best mechanisms.

I encourage you to make a firm commitment to adopt a regional transportation policy that achieves a minimum 40 percent reduction in transportation sector climate pollution by 2030, to keep us on track to meet the climate goals updated by the General Assembly in 2016.

BP America is happy to provide the attached letter as our input to the TCI draft memorandum of understanding.

I want to see a move away from the big oil companies. I want our transportation and other energies to be as clean as possible. We must protect our environment in a preemptive way. In my opinion doing this by 2030 isn't soon enough.

We all should be doing everything possible to mitigate activities that contribute to climate change and the escalating climate crisis. The Transportation and Climate Initiative is a common sense, proven effective approach to this monumental problem that can make a real difference to the future health of our environment. There's no reason not to take this action unless all we care about is the profits of a handful of people.

Please, please forge ahead with this initiative! This country is LONG overdue for an overhaul of transportation. Getting between cities in many places in the Northeast is far slower by public transit than by car. This shouldn't be the case. Public transit should be an appealing alternative, not a last resort. If any attempt is going to be made to prevent a climate crisis, it must include a new system of transportation - one that includes enhancing old transit systems and building new ones.

As a concerned citizen and coordinator of the Conference “Responding to the Climate Crisis with 2020 Vision,” and its Follow Up Meeting, held on January 11th and Feb. 9th, I have become increasingly aware of the devastation Climate Change is already causing to our planet and the scientific basis that grounds analyses of its impending destruction of the world as we know it, unless we take dramatic action, at least by 2030. We now know that the transportation sector is one of the highest contributors of carbon emissions in the atmosphere, almost 50% in Vermont, the major cause of this crisis.

Thus, I urge Vermont to participate in the Transportation and Climate Initiative so that all Vermonters, and residents in the other states involved can “get where they need to go,” and not pollute the planet irreparably. 

Vermont, like other states, desperately needs additional funding to create innovative, equitable transportation options for all, including seniors/people with disabilities/people with low incomes, for whom transportation costs and accessibility are an added burden. TCI can provide this support.

As you know, Vermont’s participation in a cap and invest program is not new. Under Governor Jim Douglas, Vermont joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in 2008. This cap and invest program covers the electric sector in the Northeast, and it has proven very successful, reducing consumer costs and carbon pollution from the power sector by 40%. 
Vermont has strategically invested the revenues raised from RGGI, directing the $2 million annually into weatherization programs that help Vermonters stop wasting energy and save money. We know this type of project works — there is no excuse not to adopt TCI as well.
TCI provides the opportunity to tackle the biggest problem of our day — climate change — by reducing emissions in our state’s most carbon-intensive sector, while diverting funds into much-needed transportation infrastructure that will benefit all.

Let’s seize this opportunity to make monumental progress in confronting this crisis, before it’s really too late.
Thank you for reading this comments. May your decision be one that benefits us all and our home, our planet .

I support this initiative as an important means to stopping the CO2 gasses causing climate change. Leadership by the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states is heartening to those of us who are keenly concerned by the lack of national effort to address climate change. I would urge the states to consider coordination and consultation with the two U.S. congressional Climate Solutions Caucuses and the Citizens' Climate Lobby. Reconciling the existing bill for an Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act with the TCI seems an important discussion to have at an appropriate point in the process. Even if the two initiatives cannot be reconciled, I want to express my support of the TCI. I also want to applaud our governor, assembly, and state government for its action for climate solutions. Thanks particularly to Gov. Murphy.

Stop with the additional taxes and oh by the way electric cars only put more money in CMPs pocket.