Transportation For America » Senate committee boosts funding for clean transportation in the climate bill

Senate committee boosts funding for clean transportation in the climate bill

October 26, 2009
By Stephen Lee Davis

Please thank your senators for moving forward on this landmark bill and ask them to continue to support strong transportation measures in the climate bill.

The long-awaited allocations in the Senate climate bill were released over the weekend, and the news is good for increasing access to cleaner transportation options. Late Friday evening, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee released the final numbers on where the revenues raised under a cap-and-trade climate bill would be directed.

The Senate nearly triples the funding for clean, sustainable transportation over the House climate bill, which only set aside an optional one percent of funding. (Streetsblog Capitol Hill has some details on the allocations.)

After hearing from advocates and their colleagues in the Senate, the authors of the Senate climate bill agreed to include a higher, guaranteed level of funding (roughly 2.4% over the life of the bill) for clean transportation options, such as public transportation, affordable neighborhoods around transit stops, vanpooling and streets safe for walking and biking.

We want to let the Senate know, especially those committee members, that we appreciate their leadership on this issue and we want them to defend that funding as the bill moves through other Senate committees. There is still a long road ahead for the climate bill and the Senate needs to know you will support their efforts to continue fighting for more money for clean transportation.

Take a moment to thank senators for making clean transportation part of the climate bill — and tell them to defend that money over the coming weeks.

Transportation for America is happy for the strong transportation provisions, but we are not stopping at 2.4%. We’re going to continue asking the Senate to increase that amount as the bill moves forward. It only makes sense — transportation pollution is responsible for nearly one-third of our national greenhouse gas emissions.

We applaud Sen. Barbara Boxer and the rest of the Senate EPW Committee for this strong statement that funding clean transportation options is a vital part of reducing our emissions.

Filed under: Campaign Blog
Tags: action, boxer, CLEAN-TEA, climate, climate bill, EPW, transportation funding

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