TCI Regional Policy Design Stakeholder Submissions

Our state needs an ambitious plan to reduce climate-changing transportation pollution,. Working together with neighboring states makes sense.
Maine should use TCI as an opportunity to invest in local transportation solutions that help Maine people get to where they need to go in an affordable way that’s good for our environment.
Mainers deserve creative new choices and new investments to meet our transportation needs; the one thing we know is that pouring pollution into the atmosphere and sending our hard-earned money out of state for the oil that causes that pollution are NOT the way forward.

Maine can see significant economic, health, and environmental benefits by transitioning to cleaner and more efficient transportation options through adoption of TCI.

March 6, 2020
Testimony to TCI by Edward Olmstead
Thank you for your work on TCI to reduce emissions from the transportation sector. I strongly urge you to build on what you have so far developed.
Our current status:
The efforts to head off the continued destabilization and disruption of the global climate is woefully inadequate. There are many forces actively opposing taking action to stabilize the global climate including our own President and his administration. You are in a position to make improvements to the TCI and urge other states to do the same. A multi-state effort like this could have a significant impact on carbon pollution.
The change is too little:
The current proposals to cut transportation emissions by between 20% and 25% includes an expected 19% drop that we on track for in the next ten years. I urge you to set emissions goals that would be 20% to 25% in addition to the expected 19% drop.
I urge a carbon fee and rebate to residents:
The Transportation Climate Initiative seems to assume a cap program instead of a fee program. I urge you to reconsider this. Fee programs are much less complicated than cap programs making them much less expensive to run, more predictable, much more flexible to design for effectiveness and transparency including fraud detection.
Residents of the Commonwealth need help to adjust to green transportation:
Policies must address equity regarding access to public transportation, cost-effectiveness of public transportation, traffic congestion and its effects, the reduction of transportation climate emissions and related health impacts, impacts on access to new jobs, access to greener transportation options, and access to greener automobile technologies. TCI must clearly articulate how equity will be created for those most burdened by the adaptation to green transportation. I urge direct investment in green infrastructure in low income and other disproportionately affected communities.
Clearly and specifically use funds for carbon pollution reduction:
I urge you to take a position that money from this initiative should be primarily used for projects that reduce CO2 pollution and only a small portion of it should be used for adaptation to
climate change. While adaptation is important, carbon dioxide reduction is what addresses the underlying cause of climate destabilization.
Please take this opportunity to strengthen TCI so that it creates a road forward where human activity is not the cause of continual climate and environmental disruption. We can be leaders in this state, but you hold the key to creating a response that is proportional to the problem and which solutions are proportional to the action needed.
Thank you,
Sincerely,
Edward Olmstead

If you have a plan that will reduce the impact of the human race on the earth's climate that will not increase our tax burden, go with it. In the meantime stay out of the state of Maine. We are a state of low median income, any raise in our tax burden will drive many to death by poverty or we will be forced to move to states that are citizen friendly, out side of your 9 collaborating states.

It is time to pay attention to the needs of people and transportation, and not only improve travel by train and electric bus, but to
pay attention to the Climate in realizing those considerations.

Massachusetts and other TCI participating states must adopt a more ambitious goal in keeping with the climate emergency, while finding ways to spend TCI funds to make this gas tax progressive and equitable for those who can least afford higher energy cost. Funds collected by TCI should also be allocated to measures that continue to drive down other emissions, and TCI should specify how it will spend its funds in each state, rather than leaving that open-ended.

* The large emissions from jet fuel should be included in TCI.

Without specific policies defined by TCI, it would create a regressive gasoline tax, taxing moderate and low-income residents at a higher rate in proportion to their income, along with rural residents, who have limited public transportation and longer driving distances. TCI policy regulations in Massachusetts should include the following:

1. Ensure that low and moderate income residents do not bear an inequitable financial burden that they can ill afford, by distributing TCI funds to cover added energy expenses in a manner that corresponds with the timing of higher costs.

* Provide TCI funding to rural residents to cover the added gasoline costs incurred from longer driving distances and from extremely limited public transportation options (e.g. Franklin County, MA, has no evening and weekend buses).

* Allocate TCI funds to public transportation, municipal energy efficiency and renewable energy projects, EV charging stations in rural areas and urban areas with rental properties, rebates for electric vehicles, including used EVs, and higher EV rebates for low-income residents, to make EVs more accessible to residents of all income levels.

* Target TCI funding for the development of community solar for moderate and low income residents.

Rather than being an economic burden, investing TCI funds in clean energy, energy efficiency, and more robust public transportation would expand career opportunities, and better public transportation would make jobs more accessible. Lastly, clean transportation will improve the health of our region and lower our related healthcare costs by reducing air pollution from fossil fuel vehicles.

I recently returned to the US after nearly three years living in Copenhagen. European cities have already solved the problem of bicycling, so let's not try to reinvent the wheel. How do you build a bicycle-based city? You make bicycles the easiest, fastest, and cheapest way to get around. How do you do that? Put a *separated* bicycle lane on the side of every road. It is simple, safe, and everyone gets it. Grandmas, kids, foreigners, everyone. That's it! Let's do it.

The Transportation and Climate Initiative
The Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI) is a 12- state regional effort to impose a stealthy and steadily increasing carbon tax on gasoline without requiring the politically perilous step of calling it either a carbon tax or a gas tax. The proceeds would be used to subsidize electric cars, increase public support for climate change policies favored by Governor Mills, the Natural Resources Council of Maine, the environmental left and other assorted climate alarmists. In Maine, in addition to protecting Democrats from risky electoral consequences, TCI is also constitutionally suspect. Article IX, Section 19 of the Maine Constitution restricts the use of fuel taxes to highway and bridge construction and associated costs:
Article IX, Section 19. Limitation on expenditure of motor vehicle and motor vehicle fuel revenues. All revenues derived from fees, excises and license taxes relating to registration, operation and use of vehicles on public highways, and to fuels used for propulsion of such vehicles shall be expended solely for cost of administration, statutory refunds and adjustments, payment of debts and liabilities incurred in construction and reconstruction of highways and bridges, the cost of construction,reconstruction, maintenance and repair of public highways and bridges under the direction and supervision of a state department having jurisdiction over such highways and bridges and expense for state enforcement of traffic laws and shall not be diverted for any purpose, provided that these limitations shall not apply to revenue from an excise tax on motor vehicles imposed in lieu of personal property tax.
The model for TCI is the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI or “Reggie”). RGGI places a carbon tax on electric power generation and uses the proceeds to fund energy efficiency and promote climate alarmism. In Maine, RGGI revenues are directed to Efficiency Maine, governed by an independent board established by the environmental left under Gov. Baldacci. In addition to subsiding solar power, LED light bulbs and heat pumps, Efficiency Maine has consistently underwritten (as in bought advertising on) Maine Public Broadcasting and the Maine Housing Authority, both strong promoters of climate alarmism.
RGGI and TCI are multistate “agreements” which never received congressional approval as required under Article 1, section 10 of the US Constitution (the Compact Clause):
“No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.” (My italics).
RGGI was never congressionally approved because Democrats did not ask and Republicans did not insist, and objectors like myself did not have standing to sue (although I did look into it). The environmental left insisted that RGGI was “voluntary” and did not require Congressional approval. Senators King and Collins, recognizing the potential problems with this approach, have introduced legislation approving regional climate change policy compacts like TCI, which at least opens the door to court challenges if Congressional approval does not pass.
In the meantime, bi-partisan objections to TCI and carbon/gas taxes are increasing, just as they did in France with the yellow vest protests. Governors from Connecticut (Ned Lamont-D), New Hampshire (Chris Sununu-R), Vermont (Phil Scott-R) and Rhode Island (Gina Raimundo-D) have expressed reservations/opposition (D). Governor Mills has been non-committal, although her climate alarmism would suggest support.
Interested Mainers can submit public comment on the design of the TCI by filling out the TCI Stakeholder Input Form, available at https://www.transportationandclimate.org/main-menu/tci-regional-policy-design-stakeholder-input-form. Public comments are due by February 28, 2020.

I am Professor of Psychology and I teach Psychology for Sustainability. I have been a member of Citizens Climate Lobby in Durham, NH. Last night I attended a 5-person panel on The Green New Deal. Hosts were 350NH.org and The Sunrise Movement. I was struck by the consensus with CCL in promoting social equity as well as carbon fee and dividend. Whatever plan you propose, it must be fair to the public. As such, I would hope for bipartisan appeal. The goal of reducing carbon in the atmosphere is an imperative. We have only a decade left to turn around the accelerating costs of doing nothing: loss of biodiversity, extreme weather events, sea level rise, etc. We are in a dangerous climate crisis produced by humans.

As a Pennsylvania resident, I write in strong support of the Transportation and Climate Initiative. The transportation sector has perhaps the greatest potential for transformation in the wake of climate change, in ways that can decrease emissions and increase connectivity. In Philadelphia, while I applaud the heterogeneous integration of bus, trolley, elevated train, and regional rail systems, much more investment is needed to increase reliability and service range. Moreover, given our placement at the nexus of the New Jersey-Pennsylvania-Delaware tri-state area, the city is ripe for increasing the means, convenience, and affordability of transportation. Finally, it is an embarrassment that it is easier for a Philadelphia resident without a vehicle to travel to New York City--two states away--than it is to travel within Pennsylvania. These forms of investment can work in concert to build a more sustainable and connected Pennsylvania and Northeast Corridor. Thank you for your consideration.