TCI Regional Policy Design Stakeholder Submissions

Instead of getting into tangles about where to allocate the revenues, consider returning an equal amount to every citizen, clearly labeled so recipients know what it is - similar to the proposed federal Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (HR763). That could increase public/political support for stricter cap levels, and lower-income people would receive a dividend that would be a greater percent of their total income.

Climate models are worthless mathematical constructs riddled with guesswork.

CO2-driven Climate Change is an Assertion / Hypothesis that cannot be proven or dis-proven and is, therefore, scientifically invalid.

Bad policy is based on bad information, UNPROVEN assumptions, and PROFIT for insiders.

HOW MUCH WILL THIS COST and WHO WILL PAY?

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.

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...

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

Please find attached joint comments from Climate XChange and Health Care Without Harm concerning the planned modeling scenarios for TCI, directed to the Technical Analysis Workgroup.

The letter attached signed by 27 organizations articulates key principles Maryland should incorporate in process and design of the Transportation & Climate Initiative with other states.

Modeling greenhouse gas reduction from the adoption of electric vehicles without including in that model the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions due to the production (raw materials, manufacturing, shipping to end user, and eventual disposal/recycling) of those EV's is an incomplete model. The first model presented in Aug 2018 only showed GHG reduction from on-road emissions, without presenting the significant GHG emissions from the production of those new EV's. Accounting for and modeling only on-road emissions reductions will also bias the investments toward EV's when other investments may be more effective interventions.

Another concern that I have with bookkeeping of (car-like) EV emissions reductions is that the concept of a low occupancy motor vehicle supports several system level inefficiencies that increase GHG emissions. For example, EV's (with lower operating and fuel costs) are likely to support and perhaps expand sprawling single family housing development, increasing that type of GHG heavy development while also wiping out more GHG absorption due to development of forests and open space. If there was a way to model VMT-increase (or decrease) and the correlation to sprawling development and associated emissions, the model could more completely capture the GHG impacts of low-occupancy vehicle trips.

Keep up the great work!