TCI Regional Policy Design Stakeholder Submissions

We are at an inflection point with respect to human being's impact on climate change and creating a world vastly different for our grandchildren, regardless of where we live or how long our current commute may be. This program offers a sustainable funding source that will help initiate change in Maine's urban and rural transportation systems, including better access to affordable, clean transportation. We know the status quo is already unsustainable and gas prices are inherently volatile, costing each of us an increasingly large percentage of our take home wages (unless you drive electric). That will only change if we invest in a future of better transit choices and cleaner modes of transportation. Change in this area is critical. We need to think beyond the status quo and create funding options that reduce our oil dependency, reduce emissions, and reduce, utlimately, the economic costs of transportation. Thanks for the courage to present a big idea when it is most needed. Maine's current path is actually the most expensive one we can go down, for everyone.

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.

I strongly believe the region's transportation system needs to be efficient but also less polluting to the environment. We need to protect the Earth that we have around us.