For Our Climate, the Senate Should Start Over on Transportation

By Scott Goldstein Policy Director at Transportation for America and Deputy Director for Transportation at Smart Growth America

August 2019 marked the first time a bipartisan transportation bill containing the word “climate” was passed by a transportation committee. That month, the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee unanimously approved the America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act (ATIA), which would reauthorize highway policy and funding for five years (this committee only has jurisdiction over highways). 

While the climate provisions indeed represented a notable breakthrough, the ATIA is ultimately just a continuation of the status quo, costing billions in new spending that will overwhelm these important but ultimately incremental and insufficient reforms. The climate title contained in this $277 billion bill is just a mere $10 billion for a new suite of climate and carbon reduction programs which will be completely diminished by funneling the other $267 billion into traditional programs that are perfectly designed to increase emissions. 

These investments in traditional transportation programs are not what the American public wants. Recent polling found that while many voters rely on cars, a majority said they want to have other options to get around. By and large, voters feel they have insufficient alternatives to driving and have no other choice. Among those who reported a car was their primary mode of transportation, about 80 percent agreed that they have “no choice” but to drive as much as they do. Just over half of car users report wishing they had more options, and about the same share of car owners said that public transit was not convenient for their needs. The American public views cars as an unwanted necessity, yet, the Senate’s supposed climate-friendly bill will just plow more money into building new roads that will lock them all into driving even more. 

This voter preference is important because—as we’ll describe below—we need to allow people to drive less in order to reduce emissions. 

In contrast to the Senate bill, this past July, the House approved the Investing in a New Vision for the Environment and Surface Transportation in America (INVEST in America) Act, which strives to modernize our transportation policy, making meaningful progress on climate change and other critical issues such as maintenance and safety. 

Congress bought itself more time when it recently extended the expiring transportation law until September 30, 2021. But, the process to reauthorize long-term surface transportation policy will start in January when whoever wins the election will likely kick off a push for investments in infrastructure. That is why it is critical that the Senate start over and that Congress build on the INVEST Act.

Here’s how we can reduce emissions, why the Senate bill is inadequate, and how the House’s recently-passed bill will actually shift the climate paradigm. The following recommendations were  originally posted by Transportation for America here. 

To reduce emissions, we need to allow people to drive less, and the Senate’s bill does the opposite

Transportation accounts for the largest share of carbon emissions in the U.S., and those emissions are rising—even as other sectors have improved. Carbon emissions rose by 21 percent from 1990-2016 because a 50 percent increase in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) wiped out a 35 percent increase in the overall fuel efficiency of vehicles on our roads during the same period.

We won’t be able to increase fuel efficiency and electrify cars faster than VMT is rising, drastically limiting the impact of electrification, particularly in the next 10-20 years. VMT is rising because the current federal transportation program—the broken program that the Senate is proposing to effectively renew with more money for five years—increases driving by design. U.S. transportation policy is focused on building more and wider highways instead of maintaining current infrastructure. 

Moreover, the current policy does not attempt to  ensure that those new highways actually improve people’s access to the places they need to reach. This divides communities by the highway from the things they need across the highway, and pushes development (and the people who live there) further away from the things they need,  imposing an unnecessary and lengthy commute on a public that is already dissatisfied with driving as the primary method of transportation.  

A sole focus on a shift to electric vehicles also perpetuates a system where only those that can afford a vehicle—now an electric one—get to have reasonable access to jobs, food, education, and medical care.  If you can’t safely cross the street, depend on sporadic or limited transit service, are unable to afford a car in the first place, or spend more than half of your money on housing and transportation, then electrifying the vehicle fleet is not going to solve the problems you face today.

The good news is that, as we describe in our new report, Driving Down Emissions, reducing emissions from transportation is entirely doable. A comprehensive reform of transportation policy brings incredible benefits: it can reduce congestion, improve safety for everyone, and through related land-use reforms, help meet the demand for more housing—enabling millions of Americans to live in places where they can drive less and emit less.

The urgency of the climate crisis demands that we act, and, while we have no idea how to completely electrify our fleet of vehicles or how long that transition will take, we can absolutely lower emissions in a short timeframe through transportation infrastructure reforms that give people the choice to drive less.

The House’s bill is much better for climate 

If we want to reduce transportation emissions, we must reform the programs at the heart of federal transportation policy that allow, and even encourage, states to build new roads and expand existing ones in a way that divides communities and pushes development further out. The Senate bill’s $10 billion for climate is moot against the hundreds of billions the rest of the bill plans to invest in maintaining the status quo. In contrast, the bill recently passed by the House of Representatives—the INVEST Act—is a step in the right direction. 

For one, the INVEST Act requires that states maintain roads before building new ones. This is a huge step toward reducing unwise road building and expansion that often cuts off short local trips, making people drive more, displaces existing communities (more often people of color), and encourages more development far from everything those residents will need to get to. That is, in effect, the status quo maintained by the ATIA: increasing VMT, the backlog of maintenance needs, and congestion. 

While the Senate created an Accessibility Data Pilot Program in the ATIA, the House went even further by creating a performance measure that requires states and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to improve access to jobs and services by all modes. This means that project sponsors must determine whether people traveling by all modes (not just driving) can reach jobs, schools, groceries, medical care and other necessities. 

Under the INVEST Act’s performance measure, states and MPOs will be penalized if they fail to use federal funding to improve that access—effectively incentivizing project sponsors to not build new or expanded roads. New roads don’t help non-drivers and they don’t help drivers get where they need to go any faster if they have to travel further, which is often the result of these projects. 

In another major shift, the INVEST Act also requires that states measure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their transportation system. States that reduce emissions can be rewarded with increased flexibility on how they spend federal dollars, while states that fail to reduce emissions will face penalties, as we wrote in this blog with our partners at Third Way. 

These aren’t the only ways that the House has taken a far superior, holistic approach to the Senate on climate. While not perfect, the INVEST Act also makes significant progress towards electrifying our vehicle fleet, increasing transit funding, and making biking and walking safer for the general public (read more about these policies here). 

The Senate’s bill doesn’t go far enough

One thing is certain: the Senate bill doesn’t go nearly far enough. To be clear, we understand that the Senate’s climate champions do not have the numbers to overcome its climate deniers, and that getting any climate language in their bill took real work. Kudos to those that fought for these programs. However, there must also  be an understanding from real climate champions about the bill’s shortcomings, and how little it does to tackle the underlying climate problems with our approach to transportation in this country. 

These champions might tout the climate provisions they fought to include but ultimately vote against the bill, which happens all of the time. Or they could vote for the bill while being blunt about its limitations and the continuing problems caused by the 96.7 percent of the funding that will harm our efforts to stave off catastrophic climate change. 

Or they could loudly praise the superior House bill and welcome those ideas to the conversation in conference. This issue extends beyond just those seeking to address climate in the Senate: it also encompasses those stakeholders in the environmental community, and the climate-minded transportation advocates who work on the issue from across the country, who praised this bill, despite the glaring flaws outlined here.

It is too late for a meek approach. We all must do more. It’s time for bold action, not just an extension of the status quo.