TCI Regional Policy Design Stakeholder Submissions

We must shift our transportation policy and dollars to support Complete Streets that allow for all road users to have access. It should not be harder to walk, bike, or use transit, than it is to drive. Building only for cars insures congestion that we can never build our way out of, and destroys local downtowns with land dedicated to surface parking.
Driving creates ground-level pollution and results in significant health problems and increased early death. It is our largest single contributor to greenhouse warming gases and so is rapidly escalating the climate crisis. We need policy that favors road diets, safe sidewalks, protected bike lanes, and bus rapid transit lanes. Not only are such policies good for our health and the health of our planet, they are also good for our communities and our local businesses.

I am against this tax as the government has demonstrated that they cannot manage a budget. Taxpayer are already paying for Federal Flood Insurance and Beach replenishment. Instead of always increases taxes find budgets cuts. IE. why do tax payers fund federal flood insurance for millionaire's second homes. Why is the federal government in the business of ensuring second beach homes. Obama Care, Medicare pricing is based on income,same policy should be implemented for Flood Insurance. And if no bath houses, parking or public assess( ie the north end of LBI) stop having tax payers pay. Use that saving for Climate Change.

Adding more gasoline and climate taxes to already struggling families and those on fixed incomes will drive more people from the region. It’s not enough that MA, CT, NJ, NY are all in the top ten of states people are fleeing the fastest. These I’ll conceived taxes and fees and ever increasing property taxes are the reasons why. I’ll conceived idea.

We do not need more taxes! Most of the money will apparently go to the inept and corrupt MBTA, which I ride every day. This will be pouring more money down a rat hole. As a scientist, I have serious questions about the whole global warming theory. We all agree that the earth is warming. The question is man responsible? There is plenty of scientific dissent to the theory, but the dissenting voices are suppressed by the media, who no longer feel the need to give light to ideas that contradict their political orthodoxy. Science is not science when it is politicized. The promoters of this theory would have everyone believe that all scientists agree that CO2 is the cause of global warming. In science, there is almost never complete consensus on anything.

I am submitting comments for you to consider as a taxpayer in Connecticut to express my concern about the potential that a cap and trade program will have on our customers, employees, business and the environment.

The plan seems to be geared toward converting millions of gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles to electric vehicles (EVs).
While EVs may be an apparently attractive way to lower emissions, we urge that greater consideration needs to be given to a number of factors that will have an impact on jobs, the economy, property values, electric reliability, emissions and family-owned businesses:

Connecticut motorists are already paying the highest gasoline taxes in New England and the 11th highest tax in America. Connecticut also has the highest diesel tax in New England and the 9th highest tax in America. Any proposal that increases the cost of fuel in our state will disproportionally harm low-income motorists and businesses when compared to states that do not participate in TCI. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council "Low-income, households of color, multifamily and renting households spend a much larger percentage of their income on energy bills than the average family." An across-the-board energy tax is therefore "regressive," i.e. "African-American and Latino households and renters in multifamily buildings who pay a disproportionate amount of their income for energy" will be greater impacted by such a tax than average- or high-income earners. Moreover, low-income families will have less means to change their energy use to lower-taxed fuels, which are prohibitively expensive to convert to. TCI needs to consider the impact of their program on low- and fixed-income families who will not be able convert to EV’s.

Presumably, the purpose of TCI is to change consumption behavior in Connecticut and the region. But we’ve seen huge variations in energy commodity prices that haven’t affected consumption. EIA, for example, shows that gasoline consumption in Connecticut in 2015 was the same as in 2011, despite prices being more than $1/gallon less. Energy consumption is inelastic. Even if TCI is successful in increasing cost of fuel, the data clearly demonstrate that people will be paying higher prices for fuel and not curb consumption. Further inflation will result as the price of every product sold in Connecticut increases as merchants and manufacturers increase prices to account for TCI. Either that, or people will vote with their feet and leave the state or region.

Finally, even if TCI resulted in changes in consumption behavior in Connecticut, such changes will have no impact on climate change. As reported in U.S. News & World Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report claims that even if the U.S. as a whole stopped emitting all carbon dioxide emissions immediately, the ultimate impact on projected global temperature rise would be a reduction of only about 0.08°C by the year 2050. China and India will dominate global carbon emissions for the next century, and there’s little the U.S., let alone Connecticut can do, to affect this. A Princeton University study likewise predicted that even if all countries stopped emitting CO2 entirely, the Earth would continue to gradually warm, before cooling off.
I ask that TCI take all of these issues into consideration before they decide to move forward.

Thank you for listening.

I hope this response is taken seriously - i am not just a propane company owner. i am a Vermont tax payer who has NO interest in being forced into an electric vehicle and that is what this is designed to do. I also have no interest in a heat pump home in New England. I have already seen (and my company has worked on) too many frozen pipes in homes with heat pumps!! This is yet just another freedom being taken away Because someone somewhere has decided this is the only way to save the planet! or is it? i am old enough to remember the ozone layer being destroyed and we were all going to burn up if we didn't do something right away. now these same scientists are back with yet another scare. i'm not saying don't be good stewards of what we have but where is the common sense and balance??
i'm a little company and don't have the power of the environmental lobby groups and electric companies but i will fight this until i am forced out of the state i was born and raised in by people who have just come here to take over!!
don't even get me started on the fact nobody will be able to afford higher taxes - but then, as I've already stated, i guess that's the plan - right:(

We are not California. I thought we have made it quite clear we don't want Obama's cap and trade resurrected. We killed Rykersons anti poor, and anti senior bill. Stop persecuting us. We the people cannot afford anymore destruction to the economy. I urge you to stop this folly. It's mean and vindictive.

Sincerely,
Vincent TAmmaro
Lewiston ME