TCI Regional Policy Design Stakeholder Submissions

Virginia Conservation Network is the partnership of 125 groups across the Commonwealth working to protect our natural resources. We have a 50 year history of working for state level policy changes to protect and restore our air, water, and natural landscapes.

Climate change is the biggest environmental threat we face here in Virginia and across the globe. All levels of government must step up to address this threat by putting policies in place that reduce carbon emissions. Virginia is on a path to joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to ratchet down our carbon pollution from electricity generation with a statewide goal of getting to a carbon free power grid by 2050. However, the utility sector is only on fifth of our greenhouse gas emissions, forty-six percent of our state’s carbon pollution derives from the transportation sector. It is time for Virginia, our neighboring states, and the nation to tackle this source of pollution.

VCN is excited about the solutions the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI) could offer our Commonwealth. TCI would not only put in place a system to reduce carbon pollution from transportation, the resulting revenue streams from TCI could allow us to expand our transit networks and transition our vehicle fleets—from police cruisers to school buses—to all-electric. The potential for revenues to be invested in cleaner and more accessible transportation solutions in communities that suffer disproportionately from transportation pollution and a lack of mobility options can not be overstated. It is important that while we look towards transportation solutions we look not only to electrification but also to smart land-use including walkable, bikeable communities. We look forward to working with TCI and our neighboring states to tackle this problem from all angles.

There are many co-benefits to cleaning up our transportation system; however, the benefits for public health would prove especially significant. Virginia’s rate of asthma and related deaths is well above the national average. Richmond in particular has more deaths linked to asthma than any other U.S. city, and childhood asthma is a top reason that Richmond children miss school. Cleaner vehicles would mean cleaner air for our kids to breathe.

We are excited to support this endeavor to simultaneously tackle the climate crisis, enhance our region's mobility and make a significant shift towards cleaner, healthier communities.

Attached please find Joint Comments from the Northeast Clean Energy Council, the Alliance for Clean Energy New York, and Renewable Energy Vermont

I strongly believe the region's transportation system needs to be efficient but also less polluting to the environment. We need to protect the Earth that we have around us.

Stop with the additional taxes and oh by the way electric cars only put more money in CMPs pocket.

I support this initiative as an important means to stopping the CO2 gasses causing climate change. Leadership by the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states is heartening to those of us who are keenly concerned by the lack of national effort to address climate change. I would urge the states to consider coordination and consultation with the two U.S. congressional Climate Solutions Caucuses and the Citizens' Climate Lobby. Reconciling the existing bill for an Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act with the TCI seems an important discussion to have at an appropriate point in the process. Even if the two initiatives cannot be reconciled, I want to express my support of the TCI. I also want to applaud our governor, assembly, and state government for its action for climate solutions. Thanks particularly to Gov. Murphy.

As a concerned citizen and coordinator of the Conference “Responding to the Climate Crisis with 2020 Vision,” and its Follow Up Meeting, held on January 11th and Feb. 9th, I have become increasingly aware of the devastation Climate Change is already causing to our planet and the scientific basis that grounds analyses of its impending destruction of the world as we know it, unless we take dramatic action, at least by 2030. We now know that the transportation sector is one of the highest contributors of carbon emissions in the atmosphere, almost 50% in Vermont, the major cause of this crisis.

Thus, I urge Vermont to participate in the Transportation and Climate Initiative so that all Vermonters, and residents in the other states involved can “get where they need to go,” and not pollute the planet irreparably. 

Vermont, like other states, desperately needs additional funding to create innovative, equitable transportation options for all, including seniors/people with disabilities/people with low incomes, for whom transportation costs and accessibility are an added burden. TCI can provide this support.

As you know, Vermont’s participation in a cap and invest program is not new. Under Governor Jim Douglas, Vermont joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in 2008. This cap and invest program covers the electric sector in the Northeast, and it has proven very successful, reducing consumer costs and carbon pollution from the power sector by 40%. 
Vermont has strategically invested the revenues raised from RGGI, directing the $2 million annually into weatherization programs that help Vermonters stop wasting energy and save money. We know this type of project works — there is no excuse not to adopt TCI as well.
TCI provides the opportunity to tackle the biggest problem of our day — climate change — by reducing emissions in our state’s most carbon-intensive sector, while diverting funds into much-needed transportation infrastructure that will benefit all.

Let’s seize this opportunity to make monumental progress in confronting this crisis, before it’s really too late.
Thank you for reading this comments. May your decision be one that benefits us all and our home, our planet .

Please, please forge ahead with this initiative! This country is LONG overdue for an overhaul of transportation. Getting between cities in many places in the Northeast is far slower by public transit than by car. This shouldn't be the case. Public transit should be an appealing alternative, not a last resort. If any attempt is going to be made to prevent a climate crisis, it must include a new system of transportation - one that includes enhancing old transit systems and building new ones.