TCI Regional Policy Design Stakeholder Submissions

I support this initiative and its intent very much. It must be coupled with additional funding to public transit and paratransit so everyone can get around. We all need stronger public options.

We first need to repair current infrastructure ASAP while pondering the issue of what transportation should be like in view of climate change issues.

My name is Shelby Grantham. I’d like to reduce my personal carbon footprint and help reduce climate change. But I am a senior resident of Norwich, VT, living alone seven miles outside the business center of Norwich. There is no public transportation out here except the school buses, which I am not allowed to ride. I wish I didn’t have to take my car into town to get groceries and do errands.
Transportation is Vermont’s highest source of carbon emissions. As an otherwise proud citizen of Vermont, I hope the state government sees fit to join the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI) that aims to develop within one year a regional policy to cap and reduce carbon emissions from transportation fuels through a cap-and-invest program that would also earn funds to help us tackle our high emissions and implement transportation solutions statewide.
Cap-and-invest programs are not new. Our Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) instituted in 2008 has reduced carbon pollution and raised funds to invest in improved weatherization that makes Vermont homes warmer and more energy efficient. With TCI, we can do the same in the transportation sector.
Across the country, cap reduction scenarios have led to environmental, health, and economic benefits. Some Vermonters may see TCI as merely a gas tax, but frankly I’m willing to pay a little more at the pumps when the outcomes are so critical and the long-term benefits so far-reaching.
Being at the table with the other TCI states will allow us to craft a VT policy that is equitable and could help us create a climate in which we can all thrive.

Please see attached letter as comments from NGVAmerica on the TCI Framework.

Sincerely,

Sherrie Merrow
Director, State Government Affairs
NGVAmerica
400 North Capitol Street N.W.
Suite 450
Washington, D.C. 20001
smerrow@ngvamerica.org | 303.883.5121

We are facing a climate crisis and need to take bold steps to prevent further damage. The transportation plan should be a big part of this. The plan needs to hold large transportation polluters accountable for the pollution they create and needs to invest in clean transportation solutions. This should include transit and electric vehicle infrastructure in rural areas, expansion of commuter rail, electric vehicles, and streets in the suburbs that are safe, walkable, and bikeable and sustainable and equitable housing near transit and electric bus fleets in urban communities.

WE as a Nation & as people of the WORLD - MUST take any & all steps that are HUMANLY available to reduce & ELIMINATE our CARBON footprint from this NATION & the WORLD - IMMEDIATELY ! GLOBAL WARMING is EVIDENT every where in ALL Of its manifestations !
MAN MUST stop - completely the use of fossil fuels- for all purposes - if we do not- our grandchildren will reap the consequences!
Sherwin Start Ph.D.

I support a transportation system that does not need natural gas or oil. Electric rail using renewable energy sources would be the way to go.We have to reduce our carbon footprint now and transition to cleaner more sustainable alternatives because if we fail to act now, we will destroy our economy and our planet. Natural gas is not a clean alternative. It leaks methane in every phase and is significantly accelerating green house gas emissions. Thanks for listening. Please work with scientists and engineers to reduce our carbon emissions in our transportation sector.

There used to be healthy subway and rural trains all across America, but the auto industry made a concerted effort to wipe them out. They still rail about the trains that have been defunded by legislators committed to the private auto by lobbyists. Train railways have been sold to private citizens who, of course, do not want to lose their homes to railroads. Buses have replaced railroads in rural America where I live, but I have also lived in Hungary and Thailand where I took trains frequently and enjoyed it very much. We have been hobbled by capitalism that favors the corporations who are able to buy what they want from legislators. It has increased our carbon dioxide, methane and dangerous emissions that kill people and now damage our planet. And as long as they can win profit, the fossil fuel companies will not stop until we, and the other animals who are more important and benign than us, are all dying or dead. Why are damaging corporations more powerful than the saving of the planet? Because they are rich and use their wealth and power in a malignant manner to control the governments of the U.S. and the world.