Watts Up With That by Roger Caiazza 2/24/2020
Guest post by Roger Caiazza,
I have previously described the
Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI)
framework and Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). This post summarizes my comments on the MOU in hopes that readers of this blog will submit comments to the
TCU Public Input form to balance the
comments made that are flooding that forum saying that, for example, “We must forge ahead at full speed if we have any hope of staving off climate disaster.â€
Last December the TCI released a
draft proposal and
invited public input on “a new draft proposal for a regional program to establish a cap on global warming pollution from transportation fuels and invest millions annually to achieve additional benefits through reduced emissions, cleaner transportation, healthier communities, and more resilient infrastructure.†They propose a cap-and-invest approach to reduce pollution from the transportation sector. According to their
fact sheet, this is “an approach that limits the total amount of emissions from an industry or the whole economy. The total emissions limit—or cap—gets lower and lower over time, which means that less and less pollution is permitted from the capped sources of pollution.†The second aspect, investments “provide funding for programs to further reduce emissions or to provide other benefits to households and communities, as determined by each state.â€
If you are a resident of Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, or the District of Columbia it is in your best interest to comment on their
public input page. Most of the comments have been entered on the input page form but you can also attach a document. Hopefully my description of the comments that I submitted will give you some ideas for your submittal. The bottom line is that this is a fuel tax that has little hope of making cost-effective reductions much less reductions that could possibly do anything to affect climate change.
More:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/02/24/transportation-climate-initiative-request-to-comment/
