TCI Regional Policy Design Stakeholder Submissions

It is imperative that we do all we can to mitigate the effects of climate change. Implementing a comprehensive regional program could help to create safe roads for biking and walking, more frequent and reliable public transportation, greater access to electric vehicles, and a more equitable system with cleaner transportation options for everyone in the region.

My name is Richard Butz, I’m a member of the Bristol, Vermont, Energy Committee, a Board member of Vermont Interfaith Power and Light (VTIPL), a Board member of Addison County River Watch Collaborative (ACRWC), a father and grandfather. I’m writing in strong support for Vermont’s participation in the Transportation Climate Initiative.

As a college professor (now retired as an assistant professor of engineering technology), I lectured on building and transportation systems and have been staying up on the environmental and technological aspects of those systems. To me the evidence is clear, while we’re in trouble regarding greenhouse gas emissions, the technology exists, right now, to address them. What’s missing are the will and financial resources. TCI will facilitate change in attitudes and provide funding to encourage sustainable practices while protecting low income vermonters through rebates and incentives. It will result in clean, good paying jobs as we make the necessary transitions.

As a member of the Bristol Energy Committee, I work to plan and implement ways our citizens can achieve the mobility they need, whether it involves frequent and convenient public transportation or finding ways to afford more efficient and affordable personal vehicles. We’ve already benefitted from weatherization programs that have been funded through monies received as a result of the two million dollars Vermont receives each year as part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Our Button-up and Window Dressers initiatives are local examples. TCI will function in a similar way to RGGI.

As a person of faith, a progressive church member and a Board member of Vermont Interfaith Power and Light, I advocate for TCI because it is a significant step in reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, critical to protecting Creation, something people of faith understand and are called to do. Last Thursday more than fifty members of VTIPL spent the day at the State House in Montpelier, meeting with our legislators to lobby for the first bill of the Global Climate Solutions Act. Imagine our joy when it passed the House with a large majority.

I know that transportation contributes 43% of Vermont’s greenhouse gas emissions, and if we are to make any progress in this regard we are going to have to invest in cleaner public transportation modes, particularly in rural locations where driving is a significant factor. As a long-term Prius owner I know how much less gasoline an efficient vehicle uses and its impact on my budget, something that needs to be made available to low income vermonters, and the funding from TCI would assist in that regard.

As a grandfather I fear for our kid’s future. The Fourth National Climate Assessment and the IPCC reports among countless others, make it clear that we have very little time to act. We know from our own experience that we are already experiencing erratic and destructive weather patterns, emergence of tick and mosquito born diseases that we never saw before, and we run the risk of losing our maple trees, having shorter ski seasons, degrading our beautiful streams, rivers and lakes, and the tourism that these resources support. In short, our way of life and the Vermont Brand may be lost. We can’t let that happen.

To be clear, I urge Vermont to join TCI!

We must take aggressive climate actions now. Transportation improvements are a huge step in the right direction!

I am a concerned resident, parent, and voter. I request that Ohio join the plan to reduce transportation emissions. It is important to my wife and I that Ohio takes action on the climate crisis now since inaction will lead to high costs to our environment as well as it's inhabitants. I demand a strong program that invests in public transportation, biking, walking, and prioritizes equity. Thank you for your time.

Climate change is the biggest issue of our time. Our current public transportation infrastructure in the US is quite lacking. We must build extensive public transportation networks and upgrade existing networks to be carbon neutral.

I am a scientist with over 35 years of experience in teaching and research in biology including environmental toxicology, such as air pollution. I strongly support the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI) for several reasons:
1. TCI will bring much needed reductions in toxins from transportation and this pollution reduction will save lives and reduce health care costs.
Reducing the amount of commuter car traffic and replacing fossil fuel transit of goods and people with low-carbon methods reduces the toxins emitted from combustion engines in cars and trucks. For example, these toxins include nitrous oxides and volatile organic compounds that harm lungs and also cause ozone formation, another substance that triggers asthma and heart attacks in sensitive people and scars lungs in healthy individuals. I have lived in cities with serious air pollution from traffic congestion and in rural towns with truck emissions and studied the peer-reviewed science of transportation pollution effects on public health. The scientific evidence is clear that a wide range of people need reductions in air pollution. For example, areas of Southwestern Pennsylvania have 10% of school children with asthma and about 50 % of people in the sensitive category because they have one or more of the following conditions: asthma, diabetes, lung impairment, cardiovascular illness or advanced age. TCI is critical because the alternatives of piecemeal change in transit and tinkering with combustion engines are too slow and ineffective to make reductions we need now in transportation toxins. Much of the technology to change transit is available; TCI provides the organization to implement it and accelerate cleaner transit systems.

2. TCI fosters job growth through American development and manufacturing of transportation innovations. Growth in this job sector requires the power of large scale projects fostered across all of the Mid-Atlantic and New England. For example, I lived many years in Pennsylvania and know many counties where underemployed workers have the skills to be reemployed in transportation and manufacturing jobs TCI will create. These workers are ready now to become part of projects, but investors and entrepreneurs need help to organize projects, especially across state borders. TCI provides this organization.

3. TCI builds better local economies through better access to employment, health care and education. Our economy suffers now because we need better public transportation and affordable housing near transit networks. I have seen how poor public transportation impairs quality of life when people cannot reliably get to jobs, the doctor or classes for vocational or other schools. For example, I have participated in many revisioning sessions in rural/suburban Pennsylvania where county officials admit they cannot overcome public transportation gaps that impair economic development. Now, as a resident of New Hampshire, I see similar problems in rural areas. This is a problem throughout Mid-Atlantic and New England states. TCI is essential to help small towns get this help quickly to stem the downward spiral in declining small towns.

4. The Fee and Reinvest component in TCI can be used to provide fair incentives to make the changes we need and have funds for continuing innovation. Those who criticize this approach are often large companies who cause transportation pollution and other problems, but do not pay their share of solving problems. No one state or even the federal government could act efficiently to provide incentives for coordinated change because laws and regulations take too many years to enact. With key incentives through TCI, however, those transportation companies that are willing to change could benefit.

Cynthia Walter, Ph.D.
22 West Concord St.
Dover, NH 03820

Please please please join the TCI program, our economy and the health of our state depends on these important funds!

Because the federal government is destroying EPA standards, states need to take the initiative on climate change, pollution and renewable energy. Please make it happen.

The Transportation and Climate Initiative needs to consider and implement a comprehensive transportation initiative program now that includes but is not limited to improved transportation options, as well as for polluters to pay for their share and responsibility for the climate crisis.  To this end I strongly recommend the initiative review, consider and incorporate these documents into its transportation initiative program: 1) 2018 Fourth National Climate Assessment Chapter 12: Transportation (.pdf attached), and 2) the 2019 International Monetary Fund approach to pricing carbon that holds fossil fuel producers economically accountable while directly compensating the citizen's  via a carbon rebate.  The IMF approach is summarized and the full pdf file can be downloaded can be downloaded here: https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2019/12/the-case-for-carbon-taxation-and-putting-a-price-on-pollution-parry.htm.