TCI Regional Policy Design Stakeholder Submissions

I own a working apple orchard in Easthampton, Massachusetts. From the orchard I can see the single driver automobiles creep back over Mt Tom every night by the hundreds. Each of the gas powered cars are creating greenhouse gases. Each car commuting to Hartford, CT and back creates more carbon emissions in a year than our entire orchard creates yearly. The TCI will do more for our future than I can working every day as a farmer to growing healthy food.

Car and truck emissions are a significant part of our greenhouse gas problem. I am very grateful that a group of states are choosing to work together to cap these emissions through the TCI. I support Massachusetts joining the TCI even if that means higher gas prices. I also support equitable clauses that address challenged communities that need help in the transition to cleaner energy. I suspect that many of these communities will also see help in terms of cleaner air and better transportation options as money is funneled back into creating a clean and efficient transportation system. We need strong caps on emissions and well-thought out reinvestment.

Please make the TCI the best it can be. It is legislation we needed a long time ago and we have a lot of catching up to do.

Thanks,
Alane Hartley
Park Hill Orchard

Please move to adopt the TCI as soon as possible. Past delays on addressing the causes of climate change have put us in a very difficult situation where we have no more time to lose.

Vermont needs to play its part in the Transportation and Climate Initiative. We are past the deadline to lower carbon release and pollution standards. We need to act now to reduce pollution on every level possible. It can be done with enough support and initiative from all of us. So many individuals are attempting and we need our representatives to back us up.

As detailed in the attached comments, the primary objective that TCI should strive to achieve is to reduce transportation emissions as much as possible (meaning a 25% reduction from the Reference Case, instead of a 20 or 22% reduction which are also under consideration). To accomplish this, TCI should aim for the adoption of as high a variable cost to driving and parking as feasible, enabled politically by converting fixed and hidden driving and parking costs to usage pricing, where total costs to most drivers will actually go down. Incentives applied at the level of the individual driver are critical to meeting TCI’s carbon reduction goal. A transportation re-pricing policy bundle is specified in the submission and then modeled. It was found to reduce year-2030 vehicle miles traveled and carbon emissions by 23.2%. Polling results on transportation re-pricing were also presented and it was found to be more acceptable to the public (including those in the Northeast) than hiking fuel taxes, even if fuel tax revenues are refunded through other tax rebates.

Transportation is now the largest source of climate disrupting carbon pollution in Maryland and across the country. Do something about this problem now. We need mass transit and not enlarging highways in charge and fees.

Please enter into the TCI. I support the cap and invest method that has been proposed. This policy could set a declining cap on the amount of carbon pollution released by the use of transportation fuels by requiring entities like wholesale fuel distributors that sell gasoline and other fuels to retail outlets (i.e., gas stations) to purchase emission permits available under the cap (2). The 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.

I support the TCI as an important and critically necessary measure to address greenhouse gas emissions from transportation.

As a 4th year medical student receiving a Public Health degree, I support TCI because climate change is real, it is occurring now, and it is having significant health and quality-of-life impacts on people both around the world and in my state. Fighting climate change is the right thing to do ethically and economically.

Please see the attached comments of Conservation Law Foundation ("CLF") in support of the December 17, 2019 draft memorandum of understanding (“MOU”) of the Transportation and Climate Initiative (“TCI”) and recommending several changes for incorporation into the final MOU.