TCI Regional Policy Design Stakeholder Submissions

I am deeply and gravely concerned over this petition. By limiting the amount people will drive you are affecting an entire industry and workforce on the available cars to work on after the industry has already sustained raising workforce costs. We as an industry cannot sustain being attacked on both angles by our own government who is supposed to help foster small business instead of kill it. I voted for a Republican Governor in my state to help protect me from these issues.

Disincentives to single person automobile travel such as a substantial increase in gasoline taxes complement the cap and invest mechanism of the TCI.

To minimize the regressive nature of such a tax there could be an exemption to persons or families earning 250% times poverty level, or perhaps 60% of median income for the state.

People who qualify would be given a transponder and gas stations a transponder reader. The upfront set up cost would be borne by the state then reimbursed from the tax revenue.

In 2017 Massachusetts drivers used 2,700,036,000 gallons of gasoline according to the EPA.

Approximately 25% of Massachusetts residents would qualify for an exemption using the above means testing.

A 50 cent increase would net a bit over 1 billion dollars a year after the exempt population is discounted. This money would go to infrastructure and public transportation.

As revenue falls when more people switch to EVs or take public transportion the could be a surcharge; either means tested or, by miles driven to keep the infrastructure and transportation investments funded.
II wholeheartedly support the TCI

Initiatives like this would absolutely devistate a rural state like Maine. I'm a hybrid plug-in owner; I believe in conservation, but slamming through crippling taxes on a state that naturally already struggles to compete economically (I say naturally, but how much is from decades of willful disdain of economic realities?) is short sighted at best, if not just down right cruel. Please THINK about the repercussions of your actions, not just your long term pipe dreams (or nightmares as the case may be, despite that those have so consistently been proven to be not entirely well founded). Maine does not need this, and outside of insular bastions in the state, DOES NOT WANT IT.

NO! Absolutely not! Governor Janet Mills, please stop doing things like this that will make it harder for people in Maine to survive. It may be the politically correct thing for you that will make you look good to your liberal lunatic supporters, but it is absolutely the wrong thing to do for all the normal citizens of Maine. We are a poor state as it is, and we need to have affordable oil and gas to heat our homes and to get around. You are just going to make the people of Maine poorer, while making yourself look good. It's a stupid and selfish thing to do. Please don't!

Transportation infrastructure should include vegetated green infrastructure to manage stormwater as well as reduce air pollution and urban heat. Vegetation directly adjacent to roadways can decrease PM2.5 and PM10 as well as be up to 9 degrees cooler than surrounding areas. In addition, vegetation incorporated into transportation networks helps sequester CO2 and other GHG.

I am very concerned over the TCIs goal of rationing fuel through auctions. This will artificialy drive up fuel costs for the most vulnerable in the state. We have no control over these fuel rations yet what happens when we have an unusually cold winter and lets say with long term power outages. Then what, we pay the piper. What happens when the fuel carbon allowance is exceeded due to out of state visitors that we forget to factor in to the equation. Killington World Cup attracts thousands of SUVs. In the seventies, I was taught personal responsibility, and to spread that message. Now we teach our children that ineffective protesting is the only way forward. Teach your children how to be a custodian of the planet and stay out of my life. Climate change=corporate greed, not me and my family trying to survive on less and less. Take away everyones money and theyll quit polluting the planet. Start with Leo and Al?

For most Mainers we depend on the forestry industry, we have to travel to work, not just a 5 minute drive, more like an hour plus. My wife has to drive her and our son for appointments over an hour and 4 hours away. We are a 1 income family because my wife is disabled. For us to get any decent health care we have to go way out of town..

The Transport Hartford Academy has been sharing a statewide survey on the topic of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector with those that live and/or work in Connecticut. The survey began on Oct 1st and will close on Oct 29th. The survey is being shared well beyond the network of environmental advocates. For example, AAA will be sharing the survey with Connecticut members. The survey has also been shared widely across city and town social media discussion groups. The survey includes home and work zip code information, and intentional outreach is being focused on areas of the state that do not have many responses. The survey currently underrepresents low-income, younger age groups, and people of color relative to their share of the state’s demographic. Intentional outreach is being focused on those groups and their responses could be considered separately to home in on equity issues.

Halfway through the survey, the results are quite interesting. There are clear preferences in Connecticut for which TCI revenue investments and complementary policies have the most support. Here are a few overall responses pulled from a 10/15 snapshot  65% Strongly Support and 18% Support a TCI cap-and-invest program in Connecticut. There was also a super-majority of support for dedicating a percentage of TCI revenue to overburdened and underserved communities and environmental justice projects.

Connecticut Survey Link – www.tinyurl.com/tci19survey

Live, Snapshot of Survey Results (these results update automatically until the survey closes on Oct 29th)
- Demographics, awareness, and support of TCI – https://centerlatino.wufoo.com/reports/transportation-climate-initiative-report-1/
- Support for potential TCI investments - https://centerlatino.wufoo.com/reports/transportation-climate-initiative-report-2/
- Support for potential complementary policies - https://centerlatino.wufoo.com/reports/transportation-climate-initiative-report-3/
- Survey comments on revenue investment and complementary policies - https://centerlatino.wufoo.com/reports/transportation-climate-initiative-report-4/

We believe strongly that these survey results (after the survey closes on Oct 29th) should be used to help shape Connecticut's approach to a politically viable and publicly supported state framework to the Transportation Climate Initiative. If similar or identical surveys were delivered in partner states, their results could be combined to set the most successful regional framework for TCI and the complementary policies.

Beyond the information gathered from the survey, sharing the survey widely across the state has a civic engagement and educational benefit. In the 10/15 snapshot 50% of respondents knew nothing at all about the Transportation Climate Initiative. 40% or respondents didn't know that the transportation sector was the state (and the region's) largest contributor to emissions.