TCI Regional Policy Design Stakeholder Submissions

Alternative fuel vehicles, including hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles, will play an important role in decreasing transportation CO2 emissions in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. Ensuring access to reliable and affordable hydrogen fueling infrastructure will play a key role in supporting consumer adoption of fuel cell electric vehicles, thereby reducing CO2.

To that end, TMNA supports efforts by TCI to ensure that the Reference Case accurately represents the need for this fueling infrastructure. NEMS’ fuel availability methodology is based on the historical relationship between vehicle stock and refueling stations. However, given the historical shortfall in hydrogen refueling stations, a Reference Case based on this historical relationship could lead to further underinvestment in hydrogen stations.

If improved to address this problem, NEMS could be used as a tool to assist in projecting how much overall hydrogen infrastructure will be needed to support a growing population of fuel cell vehicles in the TCI Regions, and this infrastructure requirement could be communicated to the states as part of investment planning in infrastructure. It should be noted, however, that hydrogen infrastructure works best when taking into account travel patterns, local vehicle adoption, station redundancy, etc., rather than distributed evenly across all regions. Industry can provide the best guidance for specific placement and number of hydrogen stations needed. It should also be noted that hydrogen stations currently require up to 2 years from planning to opening in order to find land, obtain permits, and complete construction.

I applaud the members of TCI for working together to price carbon on transportation. I believe that global warming is the most important problem to address right now, affecting, as it does, the continued existence of our planet and humans' ability to remain on it.
The price you put on carbon must be high enough to reduce emissions successfully, but it must include subsidies for low-income people and those in rural areas so that the burden of the higher fuel cost is equitably shared.
We need this carbon pricing to happen. Please do all you can to make it so. Thank you.

Can we look into instituting similar programs on federal, state, or local levels similar to what California is doing?
http://www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/files/communications-and-outreach/publications/news-releases/2019/ccfa_190501_2019_017-pdf.pdf?la=en
a sort of cash for clunkers type program for lower income citizens to encourage trading in ICE cars for plug ins.

We should have a price high enough to both offset the damage that GHGs cause and undo some of the damage already done. This has to be done equitably, taking into account low income and rural populations.

This seems like a plan that has some potential to make change in Vermont. I hope that it moves forward.

To reduce emissions from transportation we need a strong focus on the land use/transportation connection. We need to focus growth in cities and towns and in walkable, mixed-use, mixed-income, transit-oriented centers and corridors. Funding transit alone will not be enough - it must be connected to compact, walkable development. Universal adoption of electric vehicles while not addressing sprawling development will mean continued long-distance driving and highway construction, while also risking the conversion of vast acreage of farms and forest to solar arrays just to supply longer distance vehicle travel. So land use must be a primary focus. As for investments to be made - they should include transit tied to land use, reduction in transit fares, affordable housing close to transit, jobs and services, and other infrastructure that supports transit-oriented communities.

The Coalition for Smarter Growth is a 22-year-old non-profit working in DC, Maryland and Virginia and the leading organization promoting walkable, transit-oriented communities (TOD) as the best way for the DC region to grow. We have convinced the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments to make TOD the core framework for regional growth in their Region Forward Plan and in their Visualize2045 long range transportation plan, however, spending practices by state and local government still include massive highway and arterial road expansion. Meanwhile the region must do more to advance public and private investment in TOD at Metrorail stations and other high capacity transit. We received the MWCOG Regional Partnership Award in 2017.

Copied and gave presentation to Essex Economic Development Committee. They loved my idea of making Saxon Hill Road a Greenway Linear Park as this already pristine, well maintained gravel public road, is an effective means of connecting people with their jobs in Saxon Hill Business District, school, and the land the Town now owns. The Greenway concept is a response to a Town severely fragmented. It would serve as an access by foot, bike, electric bike or ski not only to get to businesses in Saxon Hill Business District, but connects one another with the 90 acre school property, the new 225 acres gifted to Essex for passive recreation and connects all portions of Saxon Hill Road with one another. Our Town outside the Village community has fragmented neighborhoods, Saxon Hill Business District to Jericho line becoming very populated but, our parks, wet lands, playgrounds, trails, public gravel roads, and other open spaces, are scattered; to many people, accessible only bar car. This Greenway concept which has maybe 6 houses at most with long driveways, focuses on reconnecting our recreational carbon free lifestyle that most millennials want, in order to decide if they want to live here. The question is: how convenient will you make it for them? I gave presentation on why millennials are leaving Vermont, and how a simple concept of putting up Greenway signs to connect Saxon to Thompson Dr., Allen Martin all within the Saxon Hill Business District would be a millennial magnet. Most of living here no matter what age or background are demanding quality of life worth living and
Demand Carbon Free Lifestyle. Thank You, Patty Davis

As a mom, what comes to mind first are the school busses. Please include in the MOU and work towards replacing ALL diesel school busses with electric busses, and support school districts in doing so! Diesel stinks, makes the kids sick, is expensive, and wrecks havoc to the environment and the busses are loud. It is of utmost urgency to finally replace all busses with healthy, quiet, emission-“free” alternatives.

As financing system, I propose the “fee & dividend” model as exemplified by Citicens’ Climate Lobby in Congress, HR 763. Fee on carbon is raised at the source (well, or port of entry), and dividend is reimbursed to the people. Cap and trade has not yielded enough results in the last decade or so, we need a more comprehensive model. With distribution of dividends to the people, everyone can keep up with raising costs, especially lower income families. Business could “earn” dividend in relation to number of employees, see the bill that was proposed in CT General Assembly.
Fee and dividend has been accepted by Nobel prize winners and countless other economists as the best, quickest, most transparent and most effective way to reduce emissions. It works for transportation as well.
Other issues: push EV charging infrastructure, make public transit more attractive (eg New Haven-Springfield line has no commuter trains for morning rush hour, how silly is that?), get freight off the roads and on the tracks, decrease truck traffic, incentivize car pools and car sharing, support local electric bus lines!, stop sprawling parking lots, push better efficiency in air and sea traffic...

Why don't you just skip all of the complication and add a tax directly on the price of gasoline/jet/diesel/nat gas/coal rather than trying to hide the cost that will ultimately be passed on to the consumer in some nonsensical program? The tax would be based on carbon from a nonrenewable source (i.e if gasoline has 10% ethanol content then 90% of the gasoline is taxable). All of these "programs" are just taxes to try to incentivize the consumer to find an alternative. Make sure the money collected from the tax actually goes to renewable r&d and isn't diverted somewhere else. Forget the rebates for using renewables. If the tax is high enough people would go buy more efficient cars and renewable electricity sources would become more economical. Or, make the tax low enough so it doesn't have an impact on the local economy and the r&d from the taxes would eventually bring the price of renewables down enough that people will choose to buy it on their own.