Without full transparency on California’s transportation spending, the state’s transportation investments will never align with our climate goals.
This post by Transform Policy Director Zack Deutsch-Gross and T4A Policy Manager Corrigan Salerno was originally published by Next City. Click here to read the original.
With the fifth largest economy in the world, California has for decades set the tone for what is possible on climate, with other states and even countries looking to it for bold policy leadership and direction. Yet while Gov. Gavin Newsom continues to tout California as a climate leader, his transportation agency—operating with little public oversight or accountability—continues to advance harmful projects that will guarantee future increases in emissions.
Nowhere is this contradiction more apparent than in how California is spending its Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) dollars.
The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was hailed by the Biden Administration as the biggest investment in climate in U.S. history. It devoted $1.2 trillion to “rebuild America’s roads, bridges and rail, tackle the climate crisis, advance environmental justice, and invest in communities that have too often been left behind.” But states were given enormous latitude in choosing how to spend the hundreds of billions intended for transportation.
Both states and the federal government failed to embrace climate-forward policy to implement the infrastructure law, predictably directing funds to emissions increasing highway building. California’s current IIJA spending will result in a net increase of over 2.2 million metric tons of greenhouse gasses above pre-IIJA levels by 2040, according to a recent analysis of IIJA grant awards in California by Transportation for America. Despite ambitious climate legislation and impressive emissions reduction targets, California has dedicated more IIJA funds toward emissions-increasing projects than any state except Florida and Texas.
Driving this increase in emissions is the over $2 billion of federal dollars alone that California’s Department of Transportation, Caltrans, is spending on highway expansion. Building more and wider roads encourages more people to drive, undercuts public transit investments and increases greenhouse gas emissions. Transportation is the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in California, and one of the few sectors where emissions are still increasing annually. Yet while the state is literally on fire, Caltrans is doubling down on climate arson—a term we do not use lightly.
California’s IIJA spending begins to explain why we are off track when it comes to meeting climate goals. What about the rest of the state’s $30 billion in annual transportation spending?
Unfortunately, we don’t know. Caltrans does not collect and publicly display data in an accessible manner, and reports to the legislature are piecemeal at best. RebuildingCA.ca.gov, the public dashboard Caltrans uses to report on projects, is the best available resource to learn how transportation dollars are being spent in your community. But the website includes no information about how these projects contribute to improving safety, increasing opportunity in disadvantaged communities, or addressing climate change.
This lack of accountability allows Gov. Newsom to proclaim himself a climate leader even as his transportation agency fails to live up to his public promises. We need transparency if we are to hold state agencies to account.
Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo’s Transportation Accountability Act, AB 2086, which Transform is cosponsoring with The Greenlining Institute, will change that.
AB 2086 requires Caltrans to publicly demonstrate how its annual spending on major transportation programs is advancing the vision and goals of the California Transportation Plan. It will streamline existing, fragmented transportation reporting efforts into a uniform and consistent format made publicly available online. This will ensure that the public, lawmakers, and transportation decision-makers can easily access and understand how California’s transportation investments impact their communities and align with the state’s goals.
Now more than ever, we need more than rhetoric. We can’t expect another generational infrastructure investment from the federal government, and in tight budget years to come, California needs to maximize the return on every transportation dollar it spends.
We need to rebuild public trust by demonstrating results to voters through transparent, public reporting. We need to put our money where our mouth is by prioritizing climate-friendly transportation investments. While AB 2086 won’t change transportation spending overnight, it is an essential step toward addressing the climate crisis with fundamental good governance. Without it, all we can expect is continued inaction.
It’s nearly impossible to move forward with a transition to electric vehicles without a network of chargers in place. However, though some federal funds have rolled out to the states, efforts to build out a charging network still have a long way to go.
This apartment building in Vienna, VA (Halstead Square) includes space for vehicle charging. Chargers placed near apartments can help create a more robust charging network. (Dan Reed, Flickr)
Transportation is one of the leading sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Take it from USDOT—any effective strategy to reduce emissions requires both a transition to electric vehicles and opportunities to travel outside of a car.
To support the shift toward more sustainable transportation, federal and state governments are funding vital infrastructure for non-gas and non-diesel options. Highways that reliably connect sustainable fuel sources are gaining a shiny new distinction: alternative fuel corridors, or AFCs.
AFCs have become a key aspect of national strategy toward reducing environmental harms. First name-dropped on Capitol Hill in 2009, state governments from California to New York have been supporting efforts toward non-gasoline or diesel fuels even before that, naming their own corridors as well as establishing tax credits and HOV lane access for electric and alternative fuel vehicles.
Federal legislation from as early as 2015 called for the designation of AFCs, allowing them to be mapped out on a national level. Alternative fuel corridors could be designated for five specific fueling types: hydrogen, propane, compressed natural gas, liquefied natural gas, and electricity. Among the alternative candidates on the list, electric vehicles have been the option of choice for everyday Americans looking to commute to work, school, and the grocery store with the occasional road trip for leisure.
While this early effort helped link individual states’ efforts to build a connected sustainable highway network, money to build infrastructure would not arrive until the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Under the IIJA, it’s up to states to deploy the majority of EV funds through the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure formula program, and the administration to handle the $2.5 billion Charging and Fueling Infrastructure program. The Departments of Transportation and Energy jointly administer and manage these programs through the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, though the Federal Highway Administration plays the leading role.
Funding charging options
While the Biden administration has faced criticism for a sluggish EV charging station rollout, with fewer chargers deployed than hoped after 3 years, states each had to spin up individual programs for two-thirds of that funding. As states roll out their plans and start scaling deployment, we’ll begin to see progress accelerate.
In many states, NEVI sites are meeting trends in industry standardization, adopting the Tesla-led NACS guidelines for chargers while also including adaptors for CCS vehicles. The Department of Transportation has made progress in loosening and clarifying certain requirements for federal electrification programs. Under the first round of Charging and Fueling Infrastructure grants, half of the funding for EV and alternative fueling stations was initially required to be placed within 1 mile of alternative fuel corridors, a rule that helped functionally limit chargers largely to car-dependent gas stations and roadside malls.
However, the CFI Alternative Fuel Corridor program’s second round of funding expanded this radius to 5 miles, a change T4A has previously advocated for. This change comes just in time too, as applications for the current notice of funding are open until September 11, 2024. On top of that, the CFI grant can help build more than just car chargers — FHWA has clarified that some e-micromobility improvements can be added on top of CFI projects. Recently announced awardees of CFI Round 1B, like New York City, may be taking advantage of this. While CFI fills in many gaps, future programs should go all the way on supporting e-micromobility.
The gas station model won’t be enough
The EV transition alone can’t be the sole strategy toward fighting transportation emissions, and it’ll fail if we follow the same patterns as the gas-powered status quo. The basic mechanics of fueling are different, taking an average of two minutes for gas-powered cars versus the twenty required for EVs.
People stand to benefit from healthy, walkable services and amenities, but that environment is not easily found given the current infrastructure. Building charging stations in small town main streets off the highway, even if they may take slightly longer to access, could boost local economies while also providing a more engaging break from the road: walking to local parks, checking out mom-and-pop stores, or grabbing groceries from nearby markets.
Additionally, more thought must be placed into how chargers’ placements can influence driving patterns. Focusing charger construction along highways could lead to more time spent driving, leading to tire emissions and increased wear on our roadways due to the high weight of EV batteries.
Alternative fuel corridors are only as efficient as the types of vehicles that they transport: for natural gas and hydrogen options, which are more focused on long-distance freight, it makes sense for these fueling stations to be placed near industrial areas and highways. However, EVs that largely serve commuters should have charging stations placed where individuals live and work, not necessarily where people drive the longest.
While these programs are taking steps forward, we could go further to ensure that the EV transition is making the biggest benefit. Perhaps a new designation can be created for urban areas, where residents and pedestrians are forced to walk near the polluted air of crowded city streets. Alternative fueling zones, similar to the low emissions zones that limit polluting vehicles from accessing some city centers, could provide charging solutions to promote cleaner population centers. Prioritizing charging in urban offices and apartment buildings can boost charging access, making communities more energy-efficient and more convenient places to live and travel.
The bottom line
Constituents and markets—even in states deeply entrenched in America’s fossil fuel industry—have an appetite for greater choice in transportation. While the IIJA contained major funding wins for cleaner transportation options, its 2026 expiration is quickly approaching. As federal legislators plan the next transportation reauthorization’s funding for EVs, they need to remember it is not just how much funding to allocate, but what policy to enact to maximize benefits for all.
The following post was written by Mehr Mukhtar and London Weier.
Recent record-breaking temperatures demonstrate that we can no longer rely on old design approaches to meet the needs of our communities. Transportation infrastructure is no exception. Extreme heat can cause road surfaces to buckle and rail tracks to warp, leading to significant travel disruptions and safety concerns for commuters.
Sweltering heat has pushed transportation infrastructure, from roadways to railroads, to the brink, potentially leaving thousands of travelers stranded in the aftermath. Extreme heat has already caused major damage and disruptions, from planes being unable to take off in Phoenix to pavement buckling in Minnesota. Amtrak, too, recently witnessed service disruptions across the Northeast Corridor, and WMATA announced widespread delays in service. Asphalt and metal rails can expand and buckle under high temperatures, creating potentially unsafe travel circumstances. This results in delays caused by the need to reduce speed levels of train cars in the heat, brought about by the need to reduce speed levels of train cars in the heat, impacting travel plans for commuters. Extreme heat and other climate change induced weather events, such as rising sea levels, are poised to drastically increase the costs of maintaining, repairing, and replacing transportation infrastructure—at a time when the nation is already behind on roadway maintenance and repair.
Transportation infrastructure can also exacerbate the effects of extreme heat on our communities. The urban heat island effect, which occurs in urbanized areas, is partly caused by the large amounts of heat-absorbing materials found in buildings and roads. The impacts can make these heat events drastically more extreme, with pavement reaching temperatures of 160° F when the outdoor temperature breaches 100° F.
Community impacts
The impact of heat waves is not limited only to infrastructure. During the heatwaves this past June, over 30 million people were subjected to extreme heat advisories and their deadly effects as treacherously hot conditions persisted across the country. People walking, biking, or utilizing public transit are especially vulnerable to the health risks associated with extreme heat.
Imagine a bus user, navigating their typical commute on a record hot day where temperatures are breaking 100° F. The five-minute walk to the bus stop in the sweltering heat causes sweat droplets to form as soon as they leave their home. The sunlight bounces off surrounding buildings and structures, creating an almost blinding light, and fatigue sets in immediately. These conditions, exacerbated by the delay of a bus, or non-shaded shelters, can spiral into emergencies, such as heat exhaustion or heat stroke.
Often referred to as the ‘silent killer,’ extreme heat has profound health risks due to its effect on the body’s ability to regulate internal temperature. Health impacts of extreme heat disproportionately harm low-income communities and communities of color, as emphasized in a recent video released by Smart Growth America on the disparate burden of extreme heat experienced by communities in Atlanta. Low-income neighbors and communities of color more often lack trees, shade, and natural landscapes that can reduce the urban heat island effect. For some, a hot day means driving instead of taking transit, but for others, that option is nonexistent, and they are forced to endure the high temperatures out of necessity. Communities can use tools, such as the CDC’s Health and Heat Tracker, to determine if they are more vulnerable to extreme heat and develop their own heat preparedness plans (advice for decision makers on how to develop a heat preparedness plan can be found here).
At a recent congressional briefing on extreme heat resilience for community well-being co-hosted by the American Public Health Association and Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey, experts brought these impacts to the attention of federal legislators. At the core of Markey’s opening statement was the sentiment that “prevention is preferable to cure,” highlighting the importance of both responding to climate change-induced warming and reducing carbon emissions in order to avoid exacerbating climate conditions. It is clear that we will continue to contend with increased and more intense heatwaves in the future, requiring governments, community leaders and planners, and residents to urgently develop a vision for adapting to, and preparing for, a changing environment.
Resilience in the face of extreme heat
The impacts of extreme heat can threaten urban infrastructure that was not built to withstand such extreme weather events. Just as we created these conditions, we also have the opportunity to create environments that protect communities from the dangers of climate change and extreme heat.
With transportation policies and investments encouraging highways and sprawling development, communities have to drive further away to access the jobs and services they need to get to, causing more emissions to be generated. In combating extreme heat, a necessary strategy is measuring and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and vehicle miles traveled (VMT) within the transportation sector is one way to help combat the impacts of extreme heat. With transportation policies and investments encouraging highways and sprawling development, communities have to drive further away to access the jobs and services they need to get to, causing more emissions to be generated. Tackling car-oriented design can play a significant role in not only reducing emissions but also mitigating the negative outcomes associated with extreme heat.
Other ways that we can address extreme heat in urbanized areas are heat mitigation and heat management. Heat mitigation seeks to reduce heat in our cities by changing the design of built environments. These initiatives might include incorporating more tree shade and native vegetation or using different building materials like more permeable and reflective pavements.
Heat management protects those in our communities when extreme heat can not be avoided. Management strategies could include improving bus shelters, establishing cooling centers, and creating heat preparedness plans. Approaching heat management with smart growth policies—like prioritizing location-efficiency, improving conventional zoning and land-use regulations, and adapting existing infrastructure—can drastically enhance effective response capabilities.
Additionally, our federal government should direct current and future investments toward building more resilient infrastructure. When government agencies, such as the Federal Highway Administration, set standards for materials used in new builds to be greener and better able to withstand high temperatures, they will ensure that taxpayer dollars are used to build a future that is sustainable and livable for all of the nation’s residents.
Solutions to the extreme heat crisis require bipartisan support to ensure that protections are enshrined in legislation and our built environments’ standards. Urbanized areas need to improve their resilience to extreme heat, especially our transportation system, to help ensure residents can safely travel to where they need to go, regardless of the temperature.
54 years since the first Earth Day, the US is still focusing on highway expansion. In light of increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, due in part to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), Transportation for America and its partners engaged the Future of Transportation Caucus to brief Congress on transportation decarbonization. We explained that to truly decrease emissions we need to electrify transportation systems and support travel options beyond private vehicles.
In a briefing on Capitol Hill, T4A Policy Associate Corrigan Salerno showed how highway expansion funds in the IIJA dwarfed historic investments in public transit leading to disastrous GHG emissions increases. The short and sweet of it is that mode-shift needs to be coupled with electrification to decrease our GHG emissions. Taylor Reich from the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy explained that coupling electrifying transportation with mode shift (opportunities to travel outside of a car) will save the government and private citizens trillions, lower energy consumption, and lower emissions.
Miguel Moravec from the Rocky Mountain Institute and Move Minnesota advocate Katie Jones described how states are already incorporating electrification and mode shift into policy. Minnesota’s Climate Action Framework and Colorado’s GHG Transportation Planning Standard require transportation infrastructure projects to abide by local GHG reduction targets. Thanks to these regulations, major highway expansion plans have been set aside in favor of bus rapid transit, active transportation networks, and transit oriented development.
The path forward
Most of the funding for highway expansion projects comes from formula funds with few strings attached, giving state departments of transportation (DOT) the option to expand aggressively. With the Senate voting 53-47 against mandating DOTs and metropolitan planning organizations (MPO) to track their GHG emissions, Congress is not helping increase transparency into our state transportation investments or halt endless highway growth.
Colorado and Minnesota are already implementing solutions and Maryland is trying to catch up. The federal government must meet their decarbonization efforts by bringing these state-level approaches to a national scale.
And there’s a path forward to do just that. Legislation such as Senator Markey’s GREEN Streets Act requires minimum standards for GHG, vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and air pollution reductions. It would also require DOTs and MPOs to publicize the environmental and health impact data for large expansion projects.
We already know that transportation decarbonization is necessary for fighting climate change. Electrifying all cars, a lofty goal on its own, won’t be enough to solve our climate crisis. Goal setting and transparency are integral to decarbonization. Without building more public transportation, establishing more active transportation infrastructure, and giving people the freedom to travel outside of a car, we won’t make significant progress. To truly respect our planet, our federal leaders must do more to address mode shift and electrification.
The four presenters at the briefing (from left to right): Miguel Moravec, Katie Jones, Taylor Reich, and Corrigan Salerno.
The environmental impacts of the Interstate Highway System continue to harm communities of color through health hazards, pollution, and displacement.
A highway snakes through Seattle, Washington (Flickr photo)
The sprawling roadway network of the Interstate Highway System (IHS) is a ubiquitous feature of life in America. Long drives along vast stretches of freeway have come to symbolize mobility and freedom in cultural memory, obscuring the insidious nature of the creation of the highway system and its legacies of environmental racism and inequality.
These legacies are not abstract; they have tangible effects in terms of pollution, population displacement, and environmental degradation. To illustrate this point, we’ll start with a story.
The community of Shiloh in Coffee County, Alabama
Highways can endanger lives by exacerbating negative health and safety outcomes. This is exemplified in the ongoing injustices against the predominantly Black community of Shiloh in Coffee County, located in the rural south of Alabama, where the expansion of Highway 84 from 2 to 4 lanes has compounded flooding impacts for the residents. Completed in 2018, the highway expansion project elevated the roadway significantly higher than the existing terrain and neighborhood.
When it rains, the water from the highway is diverted towards people’s homes (as you can see in this video from ABC News) as pipes in the drainage system are pointed in the direction of the neighborhood. Paved roadways are also particularly impervious to stormwater and create substantial run-off, which picks up additives such as rust, metals, and pesticides. The Shiloh community consistently experiences flooding, and with heavy rain becoming increasingly frequent due to climate change, the situation is only expected to worsen. Flooding has affected the structural integrity of homes and is raising alarming health concerns with residents reporting the appearance of mold. Physical damages and rising maintenance issues have forced the Shiloh community to contend with the difficult reality of investing in expensive repair projects or leaving their homes.
The Shiloh community has been working to bring awareness to the plight and adversity they have been experiencing for the past 6 years, in a political landscape that has largely neglected to address the severity of the environmental disaster created in their backyard. Alabama DOT (ALDOT) continues to maintain that no discrimination took place when they planned the highway widening project and that the flooding is not a consequence of the expansion. Following community complaints, three residents received settlements of $5000 or less in exchange for restrictive covenants on their property that release ALDOT from any responsibility of flood damage, which is the extent of any action taken by the state.
Robert Bullard, popularly known as the “father of environmental justice,” has also been collaborating with the community to demand accountability at the federal level. Their efforts culminated in an ongoing civil rights investigation from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and a visit from the U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg in early April of this year. But so far, no real relief has been found. The residents that signed away their rights feel misled and misheard, with the fear that their homes—and all the wealth and history they hold—are being washed away.
A compounding price
While the community of Shiloh’s case is an extreme example, countless communities across the country are harmed by existing highways and highway expansion projects. The highway system was constructed in a way that cut through vibrant existing neighborhoods, plowing through the heart of communities of color. This build-out of infrastructure cemented racial divides and segregation, encouraging connectivity for certain communities at the expense of others.
Inequities produced by the highway system are reinforced daily, with communities neighboring freeways bearing a disproportionate share of environmental harm. The siting of highways has historically exposed low-income communities and communities of color to higher amounts of air, water, and noise pollutants which in turn produces higher risk for disease and illness. Research indicates that there is a higher exposure to air contaminants for these communities which increases risk for cardiovascular disease and lung problems, among other health concerns. Proximity to paved surfaces, which absorb more heat than natural surfaces, means that communities are subjected to extreme heat as well.
Residents of Little Village, a predominantly Hispanic community in Chicago, have had to contend with poor quality air as a constant feature of their neighborhood that is located in close proximity to Interstate 55. Despite this, a proposal was introduced to add new lanes to the highway, incentivizing increased traffic, leading to a higher concentration of air pollutants in the region and a litany of detrimental health effects. Similarly, a controversial expansion of I-45 in North Houston is set to start soon, which would displace communities and add to existing problems of air pollution.
One of the regulatory tools that the public has at their disposal to challenge administrative actions is the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Enacted in 1970, NEPA requires agencies to produce detailed statements on the environmental impacts of a project, potential actions to mitigate damage, and alternative projects with lower impact. Periods for public comment are integrated into the process as opportunities for affected communities to raise concerns and ensure that their considerations are involved in the decision-making process. Although NEPA gives the public a platform to voice their concerns about projects, it is not designed to stop these projects from being implemented, even if they may cause significant environmental harm. This means that infrastructure projects, such as highway construction and expansion, can continue to move forward even when the repercussions on environmental justice are clear.
Recent research and analysis conducted by T4A has found that trends of highway expansion are continuing to stay the same. Funding is being moved towards emissions-increasing roadway widenings at a critical moment in the climate crisis when our dollars should be spent towards robust public and alternative transportation options. Our transportation system is steeped in environmental racism and continues to function as a driver of inequality. It has created countless socio-economic benefits for certain communities at the tremendous expense of others. Changing weather patterns have also unearthed the fragility of our transportation networks and the need for resilience to allow them to withstand vulnerability.
As the current administration works towards building a future for transportation infrastructure that is equitable and sustainable, it is presented with an opportunity to radically redress historic inequities and meaningfully change how we invest our federal transportation dollars and prioritize who we invest in. Our report, Divided by Design, explains further. Read it here.
New legislation introduced by Senator Markey, the GREEN Streets Act, seeks to establish goals for emissions reduction and resilience in our transportation system, marking a pivotal step in alleviating the climate crisis on our roadways.Tell your senator to cosponsor this legislation.
Yet, federal transportation policy and funding historically, at all levels, have encouraged projects that expand highway networks at the expense of public and active transportation. Our recent analysis demonstrated that even with landmark legislation like the IIJA, touted for its climate programs, states are continuing to designate billions of dollars towards expanding road capacity. Such a car-oriented design forces people to drive for longer and more frequent trips, creating more congestion—and generating more emissions.
On January 25, 2024, Senator Ed Markey introduced the Generating Resilient, Environmentally Exceptional National (GREEN) Streets Act, co-sponsored by Senator Merkley, with companion legislation introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Huffman. This bill aims to reduce GHG emissions on all public roads and create resilient transportation systems that can adapt to the adverse effects of climate change.
To achieve these goals, the GREEN Streets Act directs the Secretary of Transportation to create minimum standards for states to reduce GHG emissions, per capita VMT, and air pollutants on public roads. Furthermore, the bill requires states and metropolitan organizations (MPOs) to publish an analysis of the effects of projects that increase traffic capacity on environmental justice communities that are at higher risk of experiencing adverse health and climate impacts. These measures build on the GHG emissions measure released by USDOT, encouraging more transparency and accountability within our transportation system.
Investing in our transportation system means investing in social, economic, and environmental outcomes. It is crucial that federal investments help Americans safely, reliably, and affordably get to where they need to go. Federal legislation like the GREEN Streets Act will play a fundamental role in avoiding the worst effects of climate change and enhancing the resiliency and connectivity of our communities.
Despite the transportation sector being the biggest emitter of U.S. greenhouse gasses, our AI-powered analysis of over 57,000 infrastructure law-funded state projects shows that over a quarter of the law’s formula dollars are funding highway expansion projects that will drastically increase emissions. Will states reverse course with the last two fiscal years of funding?
In a recent briefing with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials in Washington, DC, Delaware Senator Tom Carper took to the stage and reflected on the 2021 infrastructure law (also known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act or IIJA), and its importance in the fight against climate change. While several Democratic senators have touted the IIJA as important for reducing emissions, as it currently stands, the landmark legislation has not made a positive impact.
While it is true that the IIJA gave states an unprecedented opportunity to use formula program dollars towards emissions-reducing projects, state DOTs also retained the flexibility and authority to invest in traditional, unsustainable road-building projects. Climate researchers found that states are key in determining if the infrastructure law would reduce emissions or use the new funding to make the current problem that much worse.
Keeping these two potential outcomes in mind, we set out to determine how states are actually using the IIJA’s historic funding. With the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI), we categorized thousands of infrastructure law federal award project descriptions (here’s an example) in line with the Georgetown Climate Center’s Transportation Investment Strategy Tool. We now have a picture of how states are using their federal program funding.
Through the analysis, we categorized over $130 billion in funding that has been reported as obligated (or designated to be spent) using IIJA funding from over 56,000 Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) projects, over 1,200 Federal Transit Administration (FTA) grants, and dozens of grants from the Office of the Secretary and Federal Railroad Administration.
While we’re still just scratching the surface of this massive data set, what we found does not paint a pretty picture.
Our findings
Instead of using the historic funding levels to give people alternatives to congestion, pollution, and car dependency, our analysis finds that states have designated over $33 billion in federal dollars (over 25 percent of analyzed funds) toward projects that expand road capacity, doubling down on a strategy that has failed time and time again. Worse still, states and authorities are slow to designate funds for transit and other emissions-reducing projects and even slower to outlay (actually spend) funds relative to FHWA dollar spending, even as we’re running out of time to reduce emissions in the face of climate change. Only about 20% of FTA formula apportionments from fiscal year 2022 to 2024 are reported as obligated in this dataset, while 64% of FHWA formula apportionments are reported obligated, in line with reporting from USDOT. There is also concern that if IIJA funds are not obligated/designated to be spent within a specified period of time, they could expire (or lapse) and become unavailable for use.
To maintain just the literal surface of the nation’s massive inventory of roads, nearly 28% of analyzed funding has gone to highway resurfacing, a strategy that the Georgetown Climate Center’s Transportation Investment Strategy Tool found to help reduce emissions. Considering other infrastructural work unrelated to on-road emissions, we found that road maintenance accounts for more than half of all FHWA formula spending.
Our analysis includes only the information provided by the federal government on USAspending.gov. State DOTs and federal agencies are slow to update project spending data, and many discretionary awards are not yet uploaded to USAspending.gov, so this analysis does not reflect all of the IIJA’s spending. Instead, we intend this analysis to shine a light on how states are using the largest, most flexible, and often least understood chunk of federal funding—federal highway formula funds. Without federal guardrails on states or a drastic change in spending priorities, our analysis predicts a substantial increase in GHG emissions if current trends persist.
We’re only just approaching the midway point for the IIJA, which is set to expire on September 30, 2026. If states continue to fund and advance projects in the same way that they’ve done so far, the IIJA will have an alarming impact on the climate. If states do not change course, the IIJA is on track to produce an additional 178.5 million tonnes of CO2e GHG over baseline emissions by 2040. According to the EPA, this is the emissions equivalent of running 48 coal-fired power plants for a full year.
While the IIJA could have been a win for the environment, across the country, states have instead used this once-in-a-generation level of funding to expand roadways the same way they’ve been doing for years. Considering the billions of federal dollars already spent on highway expansion projects, it’s going to take more than self-congratulation over the bill’s historic funding to undo the environmental harms. In light of our findings that state spending continues to undermine climate goals, the administration cannot compromise on reducing transportation emissions and must explore every means available. Congress needs to get real—the largest and most growing sector of emissions is transportation. If we want to tackle congestion and the climate crisis, instead of offering platitudes, the next transportation bill needs to offer clean mobility options, like transit, car share, active modes, and electrification—not just the same strategies that got us in this position in the first place.
United States Reported Obligation Strategy Breakdown
AI-assisted analysis based on data reported to USAspending.gov, updated 2/15/24.
Electric vehicle (EV) carshare is an effective strategy in speeding the transition to zero emissions transportation, providing more affordable transportation options and syncing up with other smart growth solutions. This strategy is worthy of public investment.
Carshare is a model of car rental where people rent cars for short periods of time, such as by the hour or minute. Sometimes the car has a home base that the user brings it back to, and some carshare systems are “free-floating” so that the user can drive a car on a one-way trip, usually within a limited area such as a city, and leave it at the destination for the next user. Electric carshare simply means providing this kind of service with electric cars instead of gas-powered cars.
Why is EV carshare such a powerful strategy, and how does it help on both fronts of the battle to reduce emissions?
Supporting the transition to zero emissions
First, EV carshare moves more travel from gas-powered cars to EVs. Better than one person buying one EV, multiple people get to share the use of one EV car. Since most privately owned vehicles sit idle 95 percent of the time, a carshare vehicle delivers more bang for the buck if it is well-utilized.
In addition, giving more than one household access to each EV means more people getting real-world experience using these kinds of cars. People who are more familiar with EVs are more likely to buy one if and when they make a new car purchase.
One more benefit EV carshare can deliver to the EV transition is charging infrastructure. EV carshare programs are typically designed to provide charging infrastructure for the vehicles serving the program. Depending on how the program is designed, it can also provide charging options for nearby EV owners. For example, Evie Carshare in the Twin Cities (which has seen impressive growth in usage since we last wrote about it) has four-port charging locations where two spots are dedicated to the carshare program, and the other two are available to the public.
A transportation option that supports other travel modes
Besides being an effective strategy to support fleet transition, EV carshare is paradoxically a way to invest in cars to encourage less driving instead of more. For folks who rely primarily on walking, biking, and public transit day-to-day, every once in a while a car is useful for a particular trip. If you have access to a carshare when you need it, there is no need to waste money on purchasing, insuring, and storing a car you use infrequently.
A carshare car can replace anywhere from 5 to 15 cars that the users of the service would otherwise own. Since they pay per trip, carshare users are less likely to choose driving for a trip than car owners, resulting in less traffic. Carshare can save Americans thousands of dollars annually that they might otherwise spend on car ownership costs.
Advancing equity
Transitioning America’s car fleet to electric means encouraging the purchase of new EVs. Most new car owners are wealthier and whiter. It’s hard to get around the issue that programs that subsidize the purchase of a new car for individuals, even if it is an electric car, and focus government subsidy on an already privileged group of people.
EV carshare can flip this script, delivering benefits and electric mobility to people less likely to be able to afford a car, generally lower-income and often communities of color. For example, an EV carshare program in rural California supports farmworkers and raiteros, the drivers who help get them to their jobs and essential services.
Worthy of public investment
While carshare operates in a few well-off and densely populated areas with little-to-no public subsidy, it has become clear that the infrastructure and service just doesn’t pencil as a purely private enterprise in most of the U.S. – just like every other transportation option from driving to flying. This begs the question of whether and how we should invest in carshare as a transportation option. With the IRA and IIJA investing billions in EV charging infrastructure and subsidies for EV purchase, carshare’s multiple benefits make it look like a very attractive national investment.
The next transportation reauthorization is sure to include another tranche of funding and programs supporting the EV transition. For all the reasons outlined above, Congress should make sure EV carshare is a significant piece of the pie.
For more information on how to implement effective EV carshare programs (including insurance, procurement, pricing, tech barriers, payments & privacy, fleet management, host sites, timelines and utilization) check out Forth’s resources on the topic.
Many climate advocates and pro-climate decision-makers are focused on electrification as the primary, or even only, emissions reduction solution in the transportation sector. As smart growth advocates, we know that electrification is essential but insufficient to achieve our greenhouse gas reduction goals. How do we push transportation electrification forward in a way that supports essential smart growth goals?
Electric vehicles aren’t the only way to travel in the above photo, where a vehicle charges next to a wide sidewalk with bike parking. Photo by Andrew Roberts on Unsplash.
Transportation is the largest energy-related source (38 percent) of greenhouse gas emissions. Emissions reduction models consistently show that electrification is essential to eventually get us to zero emissions on transportation. These models also show that EVs don’t get us there fast enough. Cars last on average for 15-20 years, and that means it will take time for the fleet to turn over from internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles to electric.
To draw emissions down quickly enough to meet targets, we need to remake our transportation and land use system to be less car-dominated at the same time that we electrify. Transportation for America stepped up to get involved in this intersection between the two big strategies for transportation emissions reduction—electrification and VMT reduction. Alongside the Clean Vehicles Campaign, we co-lead CHARGE, a broad-based coalition seeking to advance transportation in a way that achieves multiple goals, including advancing smart growth.
Considering embodied emissions and rebound effects, electrification typically reduces emissions by about 70 percent compared with comparable fossil fuel vehicles and takes decades to achieve significant results. Many vehicle travel reductions can be implemented quickly and provide large co-benefits by reducing vehicle traffic and sprawl. As a result, travel reductions generally achieve more percentage point years (PPYs) of emission reductions and more total benefits than electrification. Chart and analysis by Victoria Transport Policy Institute.
Cross-pollination
EVs are essential but insufficient to reach climate goals, and multimodal smart growth strategies reduce emissions while delivering other benefits like equitable access to opportunity, reduced urban footprint, and less need for battery minerals, which can relieve supply chain and global security pressures.
As smart growthers in the EV-charging space, we get the opportunity to take EV enthusiasts by the hand and keep educating and reminding them about the importance of the VMT side of the equation, the co-benefits, and the strategies to accomplish it. Here are a few of our top takeaways.
1. We need to be clear that it’s not either-or. It’s both-and!
Often, rationales for reducing car dependency are misconstrued by the media as a reason to oppose the EV transition, but this is not helpful. EVs are a valuable tool for reducing emissions—they simply can’t be the only tool.
2. Learning more about how each side is approaching their issues is critical.
At first blush, electrification looks simple—just get people into EVs—while VMT reduction seems more complicated, involving land use, parking policy, street design, and transit investment. The real truth is that electrification has its complexities too. Since getting more involved in these issues, we’ve learned a lot about electric utilities, interoperability standards, tax incentives, and more.
3. Smart growth solutions can help us reach our electrification goals.
The interactions between smart growth and transportation electrification get pretty interesting. There are a few areas where we need to protect smart growth goals from misguided electrification proposals. For example, we shouldn’t require transit agencies to transition to zero-emissions in a way that undercuts transit service, and we need to be careful about subsidies for EVs that encourage car ownership or primarily benefit wealthy new car purchasers. However, education across the EV-smart growth divide has helped us to surface many powerful synergistic solutions together.
Minnesota made waves last week by passing a landmark transportation spending bill that will fund transit expansions and passenger rail service while reducing transportation emissions. The law, which was passed by razor-thin margin, serves as a blueprint for transformative transportation legislation.
Master class in political will
Minnesota passed ambitious climate goals in 2007, as many states were doing during that era. But as with other states, Minnesota had a difficult time following through with concrete actions to meet those goals.
But far from giving up or taking half-measures, Minnesota legislators are willing to risk their seats to make big moves. For example, Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman and Senate Majority Leader Kari Dziedzic prepared and executed an extensive legislative agenda that included a law to move Minnesota to 100 percent clean energy by 2040. That bill provided transportation champions enough momentum to pass other transformational changes, including a new transportation funding agreement passed last week.
This rare, fast-moving legislative push was made possible by the work of advocacy groups like Move Minnesota. Even when there was no hope of passing things like transit funding and limits on vehicle miles traveled (VMT), they worked with climate-forward legislators to draft, refine, and advocate for the provisions that eventually made their way into this law. They encouraged legislators to start from a vision for what the future of transportation can look like and work from there, rather than start from a dollar figure. Then during the 2023 legislative session, they organized a diverse group of transit users and supporters to testify at Transit Equity Day-themed hearings in both the House and the Senate. This was a crucial move in building momentum for this law, bringing in the voices of educators, students, cultural and faith leaders, economic development advocates, transit service providers and union leaders, mobility and disability justice advocates, bikers, elected officials, and both local and national environmental and transportation policy experts.
Not only did Minnesota legislators lap other states that call climate a priority, but they did it with the slimmest of majorities: one seat in the Senate and six in the House. There was strong opposition from the minority, which panned the bill as “regressive taxes that hurt lower-income Minnesotans the most.”
The passage of this legislation is a perfect example of why building capacity and investing in champions is a critical step in sparking change.
What’s in the law?
At a glance, the new law passed by the Minnesota legislature provides:
The authority for Metro Transit to deploy non-police personnel to check fares and issue administrative citations.
$195 million to design and build the Northern Lights Express, a new passenger rail route that will operate between the Twin Cities and Duluth.
$150 million to erase a transit funding deficit in the Twin Cities region.
$300 million annually to build out and improve the Twin Cities region’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system.
Means-tested tax credits for up to 75 percent of the cost on an electric-assisted bicycle.
$2 million for a pilot program to connect people experiencing homelessness or mental health and addiction issues to social services.
These provisions are funded by:
Increasing Minnesota’s gas tax by 5 cents/gallon by 2027 by indexing it to inflation. This provision will provide stable funding not only to transit and passenger rail, but the entirety of Minnesota’s transportation system.
Increasing the statewide sales tax by 0.25 percent to fund housing programs and projects.
Increasing the sales tax in the Twin Cities region by an additional 0.75 percent.
Imposing a $0.50 fee on deliveries over $100 in value.
It also requires that the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) assess proposed highway expansion projects for consistency with their established greenhouse gas reduction goals, specifically by reducing the VMT on Minnesota’s roads. If MnDOT authorizes a project that increases VMT, they will need to offset the increased emissions by linking the project with a portfolio of other projects that reduce VMT by the same amount or more.
While the transit and passenger rail funding provisions are exciting, this portion of the law may have an even greater effect. Many states have passed climate laws, goals, policies, and mandates, but few get at the real drivers of transportation emissions like this new law. In fact, Minnesota and Colorado are now the only two states to enact such rigorous processes to reduce transportation emissions. Some states enact ambitious goals, but fail to follow through.
The actions of Minnesota’s slim majority stand in stark contrast with the 117th congress and Biden administration, who have taken a ham-handed approach to curtailing transportation emissions. Despite passing historic transportation investments through the IIJA, nationwide transportation emissions could still be poised to drastically rise in coming years. And when the Biden administration released a memo that merely suggested transformational change to transportation spending, they quickly cowed to Republican pressure and rescinded it.
Perhaps climate forward legislators in the states, federal government, and even the Biden administration could learn from MN legislators and move forward with transformative climate action.
A new report shows splitting clean transit funds between zero-emission vs. low-emission is holding U.S. transit agencies back from cleaning up the bus fleet.
WASHINGTON—A new report by Transportation for America (T4A), “Greener Fleets: Meeting the Demand for Clean Transit,” examines the Low or No Emission Vehicle (“Low No”, “5339(c)”) and Buses and Bus Facilities (“5339(b)”) grant programs. The report finds that zero-emission projects were in high demand, representing 95% of Low No funds requested in applications last year, and relatively few project applications were funded. In comparison, low-emission projects made up such a small proportion of applications that nearly all applications were funded with money left over in that category.
Higher demand for zero-emission grants significantly lowered the probability of accessing zero-emission project funds. The report finds that this discrepancy could incentivize transit agencies to change their clean transit plans in favor of low-emission vehicles that still pollute. Click here to read the report, executive summary and access graphics.
“Seeing this kind of demand for electric public transit buses shows that America is ready for mass adoption, and we need to revise these programs to reflect that new reality,” said Chris Rall, outreach director for T4A. “Our number one recommendation to improve the programs is to remove the outdated and arbitrary split between zero- vs. low-emission categories to ensure 100% of the funds find their best use.”
U.S.-based transit fleets compete for Low No program grants to help them transition to the lowest polluting and most energy-efficient transit vehicles. Last year, the program received $1,105,329,750 in funding, of which 25% must go to low-emission buses and facilities such as diesel hybrid buses, compressed natural gas (CNG) buses and fueling infrastructure. The remaining 75% is for using electricity and/or hydrogen as a fuel for zero-emission buses and facilities. The report finds that this 75-25% funding split is unsustainable.
“As an industry leader in clean transit, we see Low No funds as essential for helping transit agencies like ours transition to modern electric buses that deliver service at a lower operational cost with zero tailpipe emissions,” said Corey Aldridge, CEO and General Manager of Mountain Line, Missoula, Montana’s transit agency, which has been transitioning its fixed route fleet to be fully electric since 2017. “The data in this report is intriguing. We encourage the legislature to consider its recommendations. Updates to the program could help fleet managers access the cleanest vehicle technologies that make the most sense for them.”
Using data collected from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the T4A research team analyzed applications submitted by American transit agencies to the Low No and 5339(b) programs funding.
TOP FINDINGS
Overall, transit agency-requested funding exceeded awards by over 4.5 times in the combined programs. Requested zero-emissions project funding made up 86% of all requested funding.
Low-emission projects in the Low No program were so undersubscribed that every low-emission applicant received an award regardless of the project rating (Highly Recommended, Recommended, Not Recommended).
In contrast, applicants with zero-emission projects had only a 33% chance of receiving any funding. In the 5339(b) program their chances were even lower, at just 18%.
“Congress’s goal was not to drive a shift in demand and investment toward low-emission projects at the expense of investments in zero-emission transit,” continued Rall. “This trend could lock transit agencies into more polluting technologies for decades.”
The report concludes that this unbalanced dynamic creates a strong incentive for agencies to avoid applying for zero-emission projects and instead use the Low No program to apply for funding for diesel-electric hybrid buses. This is already evidenced by the fact that applications for low-emission projects are up for the 2023 application window.
Here is a summary of the report’s recommendations for improving the programs:
Eliminate the arbitrary requirement that 25% of Low No funding goes to low-emission vehicles.
Increase funding for both 5339(b) and Low No to meet the overall demand for buses and facilities.
Create incentives for both programs to leverage state, regional, utility, and local funding to encourage applicants to propose zero-emission projects at scale and increase the return on investment.
Reduce the matching funding requirements of Tribes and Justice40 communities.
Increase transparency by making basic application and award information available on the Federal Transit Administration’s website.
Simplify the application process and help agencies understand how to make their applications competitive.
“As the market of zero-emission vehicles grows and changes, so must our programs that support the transition,” said Rall. “The increased demand for zero-emission projects is a good thing. We can update these programs to make them better for transit agencies that want to save money and clean up their air.”
“The Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District has stepped out as a leader in transitioning to zero emission vehicles. Our hydrogen fuel cell electric buses run on hydrogen that we produce on-site utilizing 100% renewable solar energy, said Karl Gnadt, managing director for Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District (MTD). “The remainder of our fleet is made up completely of hybrid buses so we have long appreciated the value of low emission vehicles as well. However, as zero emission technologies advance, we believe it is time to focus on a national transition to zero emission buses. Removing the dedicated low emission set aside within the Lo-No grant program will allow the program to be more responsive to transit’s needs.”
While NEPA exists to protect the environment and communities, it has long fallen short of addressing climate emissions and protecting disadvantaged communities. In response to a call for comments about new guidance on climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, Transportation for America joined a nine-member working group to urge the White House to address transportation’s role in climate emissions and historic injustices. Read the full comments here.
Streets like this one allow for multiple modes of travel, helping to reduce emissions from personal vehicles. Flickr photo by Billie Grace Ward.
On January 6, 2023, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) released Guidance on Consideration of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate Change, directing federal agencies to improve the evaluation of climate impacts in environmental reviews as part of the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) process.
The CEQ, created in 1970 with the passage of NEPA, is a body that oversees federal agencies’ implementation of NEPA-required environmental assessments of federally funded projects. As the lead body for the NEPA process, the CEQ’s Guidance determines the scope of scrutiny that projects must undergo through the NEPA process. However, for decades, the NEPA process and the CEQ have ignored or understated the significant role that federally approved transportation projects play in contributing to climate change emissions and overburdening Black and Brown communities.
The current approach from CEQ allows agencies like the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to sign off on faulty traffic models that fail to account for the role increased highway capacity has in increasing car usage and the associated CO2 and fine particle pollution that follows. Inaccurate models used today often project, paradoxically, that new highways will reduce harmful emissions. But decades of previous experience have consistently shown that these projects worsen the congestion problems they were built to solve, while harming the communities they go through.
Ensure that transportation agencies’ actions and plans reduce emissions in order to meet the country’s international commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Direct FHWA and states to include realistic assessments of how transportation infrastructure investments could contribute to or reduce greenhouse gas emissions
Devise criteria in the NEPA process that prioritizes actions to reverse damage to community health from transportation infrastructure projects.
By taking into account these comments and other points included in the working group’s response to the Guidance, the CEQ can align the NEPA process with national climate policy. More detail on why the Council on Environmental Quality should consider these goals and how they would achieve them is included in the full comments document.
Lawmakers in Nevada have recently introduced legislation to set aside Carbon Reduction Program funds—about $3.9 million per year—for medium- and heavy-duty vehicle (MHDV) electrification. Although MHDV electrification is essential, assembly bill AB184’s method for doing so is inefficient, ineffective, and unnecessarily generous to private actors at the expense of taxpayers.
When the 2021 infrastructure law was passed, it included a number of new formula and competitive transportation programs. The focus of these funds ranged from culverts and wildlife crossings to set-asides for state and regional level Complete Streets planning. Among them was the Carbon Reduction Program (CRP), which was authorized to disperse $6.4 billion on projects that—as the program’s name would suggest—reduce carbon emissions. It is the first federal program created within the national highway program explicitly focused on reducing carbon emissions and most of the eligible uses for the funds are focused on getting more efficiency out of the transportation system by moving trips to less polluting modes.
Unfortunately, even this small amount of funding dedicated to shifting travel to emissions-free modes is under threat. As we wrote last summer, this formula program has a significant loophole in it that could allow up to half of its funds to be spent on projects that actually increase emissions. And now, a group of Nevada state legislators want to require over one-third of the funding to be reserved for truck electrification only.
Nevada lawmakers set a low floor
Introduced last month, Nevada assembly bill AB184 would stipulate that 35 percent of CRP funds—or approximately $3.9 million dollars per year—that Nevada receives would go into a newly created funding pot called the Account for Clean Trucks and Buses. With money in this account, medium- and heavy-duty vehicle (MHDV) purchasers could receive a subsidy for buying electric versions of these vehicles, so long as they meet minimum criteria for how they’re operated.
Electrifying MHDVs does not violate the CRP. Deployment of alternative fuel vehicles is indeed one of the thirteen types of projects that these funds can be used for, and it is an important use: over one-fifth of transportation emissions come from MHDV emissions. In addition, electrifying MHDVs would have significant public health benefits for communities across the country (especially those living near ports, both inland and waterway). It is for these reasons that the Coalition Helping America Rebuild and Go Electric (CHARGE)—which Transportation for America co-leads—outlined MHDV electrification as one of three principles that should guide the electrification of our automobile fleet. However, AB184 has flaws in its execution and its decarbonization logic that ensures it would be no more than mining public funds for (minimal) private gain.
As it is written, AB184 has three requirements for contractors to receive a rebate for their purchase. First, they must agree to operate or store their electric MHDV in Nevada for at least five years. Second, they must agree to operate said vehicle for at least 5,000 miles or 1,000 hours per year. Third, at least 75 percent of the time the vehicle is in operation must be in Nevada. This means that, in order to receive a rebate, purchasers would only have to operate an MHDV for 18,750 miles or 3,750 hours in Nevada. According to Department of Energy (DOE) data, this is less than one-third of the amount that an average Class 8 truck travels. If the taxpayer is going to help pay for these trucks to displace gas-powered emissions then these trucks should be used to the maximum extent possible throughout their useful lives.
Robbing driving reduction to pay for driving electrification
Electrifying the vehicle fleet across the country is absolutely essential. It must be done. But it is just not sufficient to meet our climate goals (much less our equity, public health and economic goals). Just like we couldn’t make HVAC systems maximally efficient while keeping the windows in buildings open and still meet our emissions goals, we can’t electrify the fleet and force people to drive more, farther every year, and meet our climate goals. The CRP is an important element in allowing people to move in more efficient modes.
The CRP has thirteen eligible use categories—including public transportation capital projects and building active transportation infrastructure—but there are multiple other programs specifically intended to electrify MHDVs. These include the Bus and Bus Facilities Grant, the Clean School Bus Program, and the National Highway Freight Program. Importantly, many of these provide for the construction of public infrastructure, such as recharging facilities, that will induce private actors to purchase electric MHDVs on their own. More effective than incentives are efforts like in California to simply require newly-purchased drayage trucks to be electric starting in 2025, with all registered trucks being zero-emission by 2035. In addition, the infrastructure law and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provide further investments in port electrification, as well as a tax credit explicitly for qualified commercial vehicles that simply hasn’t been implemented yet.
AB184 doesn’t address reducing how far people need to drive or giving their constituents access to more low-emissions travel options. As CHARGE, Transportation for America, and the Climate and Community Project have all noted, any proposal to electrify existing transportation infrastructure without significant reductions in how far people need to drive is fundamentally insufficient. If Nevada already has a strong plan to ensure that the state isn’t cutting into the gains made by electrification with investments that cause more vehicle travel overall, then it might be time to dip into CRP funds as they have proposed. If not, the state DOT and legislators need to consider whether the emissions benefits of this diversion is sufficient to justify it.
Considering that the rebate program as currently formulated would provide at least $175,000 (with potential increases for purchasers who meet additional criteria, such as being a minority- or veteran-owned business, AB184 could only be used for buying about twenty-two electric Class 8 vehicles. When combined with the DOE data, this means that the standards for this rebate are so low that they might only replace eight Class 8 trucks. The question for Nevada lawmakers is whether that benefit is enough to justify taking this funding from other needs that might be hard to fund any other way.
The bottom line
The central flaw of AB184 is simple: there is no consideration of whether there are better uses for CRP funds today or in the future. There is no consideration of other needs such as improving transit or active transportation and whether the state has access to sufficient funding elsewhere to address these needs before a portion of this funding is diverted. Additionally, Nevada lawmakers are creating a program that could be exploited by those who want to expand their MHDV fleets on the taxpayer’s dime without having to demonstrate sufficient use of those vehicles or emissions reductions.
USDOT has finally added more substance to their plan to implement the Biden administration’s Justice40 Initiative. Despite some questions about how many programs can meet Biden’s goal of spending 40 percent on disadvantaged communities, the projects and programs they’ve moved toward Justice40 suggest a real effort to improve equity.
Back in May, we wrote about Executive Order 14008, signed by President Biden a week after his inauguration to establish an initiative known as Justice40. This is the administration’s effort to fulfill Biden’s campaign promise to direct “at least 40 percent of the overall benefits from federal investments in climate and clean energy to disadvantaged communities.”
At the time, we identified two main concerns with Justice40’s upcoming implementation. First, because over two-thirds of the money that USDOT distributes is through formula funds, we were worried that USDOT didn’t actually have the ability to direct 40 percent of its investments to disadvantaged communities. Second, we were concerned whether the concentration would actually help those communities, especially given what happened the last time the federal government concentrated transportation spending within marginalized communities.
Now, based on information that USDOT has released shedding light on their plan to implement this policy, as well as a webinar the agency conducted on November 17, 2022, we have a much clearer picture of how much money will be subject to Justice40 and what projects it may be used to fund.
One word worth tens of billions of dollars
USDOT stated in its webinar that it plans to apply Justice40 to approximately $204 billion of funding, which is slightly more than the sum total of its discretionary funding as authorized in the 2021 infrastructure law (the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act or IIJA). However, based on the list of covered programs, over one-fifth of that is formula funds over which the agency has questionable control.
For example, the Carbon Reduction Program and National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program together have just over $11 billion authorized by the IIJA. Both of these programs require states to detail how they plan to spend these funds before receiving them. If USDOT wants Justice40 to apply to these programs in more than name only, it could threaten to withhold funds from states with inadequate plans. However, this muscular implementation strategy would result in substantial political backlash and possible legal challenge.
Similarly, the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) Improvement Program has some statutorily-required set-asides that the IIJA also mandates benefit “disadvantaged communities or low-income communities.” However, this set-aside is significantly less than 40 percent of the program’s total funds. This calls into question whether the department will actually be able to apply Justice40 to this and other less-prescriptive formula programs.
These discrepancies extend to the whole Justice40 umbrella. The 39 programs seem to be authorized at $20 billion less than the agency claimed in its webinar. By either estimate—ours or USDOT’s—the department’s Justice40 targets are tens of billions of dollars below 40 percent of surface transportation spending. This may explain why the department’s language defining Justice40 in its webinar changed to “that at least 40 percent of certain federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities” (emphasis ours).
Some of the right funds in most of the right places
Thankfully, how the money going to Justice40 communities is being spent is much more promising. This starts with defining the disadvantages a community must face to identify as a Justice40 community. The agency focuses on six criteria—transportation, health, environment, economic, resilience, and equity—to inform these decisions.
Within transportation, the focus will be on addressing transportation access, health, environmental, economic, resilience, and equity disadvantages. Overall, this is an excellent set of priorities. The one thing worth watching is how one criterion within transportation access disadvantage is interpreted: percent of total population with a drive time to employment greater than or equal to 30 minutes.
First of all, a 30-45 minute commute is pretty standard and not generally seen as a disadvantage. Second, the only mode with a time focus is driving, while transit trips tend to be much longer creating a much bigger disadvantage to those impacted. And finally, this kind of measure has typically been used to justify the same old highway expansions that are at least as likely to create problems for disadvantaged populations. It is just one factor of many, but this is one area where the administration could improve and lead the way in modernization by using a multimodal access measure.
Thankfully, the other five criteria of disadvantage more than make up for this. Access to jobs and services, as opposed to travel time, is mentioned in both the health and economic categories. The environment criterion focuses on “pollutants and poisons,” and equity criterion highlights shared communal discrimination and oppression, much of which can be tied directly to highway infrastructure. Together, these criteria imply that Justice40 funds will go to the right places.
USDOT also considers benefits and burdens beyond just dollars and cents in its five impact areas: safety, jobs and economic competitiveness, resilience, access, and emissions. In both safety and emissions, increased speeds and traffic volumes are identified as burdens. Reducing congestion and improving traffic flow are even listed as ways to introduce these burdens. In at least one part of USDOT, it seems that the 1970s-induced fear of idling’s impact is finally in the rearview mirror.
The jobs and economic competitiveness category speaks to the focus on increasing the vitality of communities, even linking air quality to economic competitiveness. By even mentioning access, but expressly describing division of a community as a burden, the agency’s entire effort to implement Justice40 is imbued with the spirit of the new Reconnecting Communities Program.
Still, there are places to improve. Construction impacts are described as a burden without discussing different types of construction impacts. Building improvements for transit or active transportation is disruptive, but they are temporary compared to the permanent disruption of many highway projects. In addition, the resilience category rightly mentions judging a project’s ability to withstand an accelerating climate crisis. But, adjudicating whether an individual project would help speed up said climate crisis—such as by entrenching emissions-intensive modes of transportation—could ensure that Justice40 doesn’t fund projects that sow the seeds of other projects’ destruction. Furthermore, these drawbacks don’t change that USDOT conceives of benefits to communities as more than lines in their local and state DOTs’ balance sheets.
But the agency also seems set to ensure that they are actually able to deliver said benefits. Whether or not they control all of the funds they claim to, the programs they apply to Justice40 are overwhelmingly climate-friendly and community-connecting. Nearly one-fourth of the funds the agency will apply the initiative to are for rail programs. The covered Federal Highway Administration programs aren’t ones that easily allow for building more lanes: CMAQ is explicitly dedicated to VMT reduction and the Congestion Relief Program has many eligible applications that will be looked upon favorably given the agency’s definition of benefits and burdens. Especially important is the $30 billion under the purview of the Federal Transit Administration, given the disproportionate reliance of historically underinvested-in communities on transit. Choosing programs like these means the investments being made in Justice40 communities will be good for equitable access to economic opportunity, public health, the climate, and quality of life.
Infrastructure Week becomes implementation years
According to the agency’s website, these targeted infusions of resources are “not a one-time investment.” Making information about grant programs more accessible and creating tools developed to help communities bolster their applications to these programs are two efforts that reflect this desire to lower administrative burdens far beyond the end of a Biden administration.
Justice40’s long-term impact will be most greatly influenced by state capacity. For decades, planning capacity in the United States has slowly atrophied, like soil during a drought, with significantrepercussions. This means that when Congress rains new resources down as it has with the IIJA, DOTs are unable to take full advantage of it. This can be seen even at the federal level: methodical steps taken by staff since the very week the initiative was announced still haven’t covered new formula programs like the Carbon Reduction Program, about a fifth of authorizations.
Fully implementing this initiative was always going to take years, and USDOT’s webinar acknowledged that transportation policy will continue past the IIJA, detailing ways that states and MPOs can include Justice40 principles in their longer-term plans. When combined with the types of projects that will likely be delivered, this has the potential to make the initiative transformational for U.S. transportation policy. However, whether it is a one-time investment, whether resources make it from the balance sheets to the streets—whether Justice40 becomes runoff or soaks deep enough to change how communities across the country move through their day-to-day lives—depends on each state’s capacity and commitment to the goals of the initiative.
10/14 Update: Comments are now closed. More than 60,000 comments on a new rule to measure greenhouse gases from transportation were submitted to USDOT during a comment period that closed on 10/13. Comments in favor outweighed those opposed by more than 3,000 to 1.If the Biden administration moves forward, this new rule could reestablish sunlight and accountability for transportation’s impact on climate change. Here’s what’s next for the proposed measure.
Note 10/24: The FHWA’s final count of comments and submissions is 62,319, but some submissions included more than one comment, which means the actual number of comments is likely higher. A coalition of advocates determined that over 100,000 comments were submitted in favor of the rule.
States were recently granted a historic amount of federal transportation funds, which provides a great deal of flexibility in how states can use their funds. Even though transportation is the largest contributor to U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, states currently have no requirement to track their projects’ impacts on transportation climate emissions. The proposed GHG emissions measure would reestablish this requirement, previously rolled back under the Trump administration, and help states and MPOs take climate concerns into account in their spending decisions.
Black and brown communities are disproportionately impacted by climate change, and the Biden administration set a goal to advance environmental justice. Justice40 aims to deliver 40 percent of the benefits of federal climate and clean energy investments to communities of color. (For more information about Justice40, read our past blog post.) However, without any sort of tracking in place at the state level for GHG emissions, any Justice40 benefits for marginalized communities could be dwarfed by the consequences of unchecked emissions levels rising overall.
So far, the rule is experiencing a wave of support from advocates, organizations, concerned citizens, and even state DOTs.
However, once comments close, the Biden administration will have to decide what happens next.
Many states are willing and prepared to take on the urgency of the moment. We wrote last month that 24 states and the District of Columbia already have emissions tracking rules in place, some that are more aggressive than what the federal government is proposing. In addition, the FHWA can and should commit to providing tools and best practices to states and MPOs to help them meet their GHG reduction targets. The USDOT can also shed more light on state emissions by providing accessible, user-friendly data for state and regional policymakers, whose job is to ensure that state transportation decisions align with voters’ priorities.
Urgency is needed. The reestablishment of this commonsense measure was one of the first actions we called on the Biden administration to take when they took office. It has been a long time coming, and we are pleased to see an end in sight. Now the administration must be careful not to delay the rule further. The federal funds granted under the 2021 infrastructure law have already started flowing into states’ hands, and shovels are hitting the ground. States are currently making decisions about long-term transportation projects that could make emissions worse. To set them up for success, the administration should finalize the rule quickly and require states’ GHG targets be set within 6 months of the final rule. Failure to act will only move the administration further from its goals and our country further from reducing transportation impacts on climate change.
The Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act, a budget reconciliation package that includes some portions of President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda. This is the largest climate investment in U.S. history, and programs in it will help Americans save money and stay safe on our streets. Here’s what you need to know as the bill awaits the President’s signature.
Roads like this one could benefit from redesign projects made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act. Flickr photo by Paul Sableman.
It’s a surprise that we even got a bill
It’s been a while since we wrote about the Build Back Better Act, the previous attempt to pass some of these provisions, so here’s a quick recap:
Congress removed climate-focused investments when the new infrastructure law passed with the hope of including these funds in a reconciliation bill, the Build Back Better Act. However, once those investments were cut from the infrastructure law, those in favor lost any leverage they had to include them in separate legislation, especially since there are restrictions that bar Congress from approving multiple programs that accomplish the same task.
When the Build Back Better Act finally made it to the Senate floor, Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) refused to vote in favor of it. As negotiations stalled repeatedly, it became clear that the Build Back Better Act was dead.
However, in late July, new legislation appeared seemingly out of nowhere. The Inflation Reduction Act was a deal struck between Senator Chuck Schumer and Senator Manchin. Noticeably lacking the transit, biking and walking investments climate advocates had hoped to see, this reconciliation package still carried some portions of the Build Back Better Act. Though this package largely preserves the car-based status quo, there are a few wins for transportation, which we note in the section below.
Support for safety, access, equity, and reducing emissions
$3 billion in this package goes to a brand new program called Neighborhood Access and Equity Grants, which help mitigate the danger of overbuilt arterial roadways, especially in underserved areas. This is by far the biggest win.
These grants can be used to redesign roadways to make them safer, providing more mobility options for community residents. In addition, these changes can help alleviate the negative health impacts of living near heavily-trafficked roads by diverting travel to other, less polluting modes of transportation like walking, biking, and rolling. Unlike the Reconnecting Communities Program, these funds can go beyond connecting across highways and railroads to allow redesigning big roadways that create division due to the danger in crossing.
As we said in our statement after the Inflation Reduction Act was released: “By providing funds to redesign these roadways, these grants can help to connect the community, support local economic development, save people money on gas by allowing them to get out of their cars, close an obstacle to economic opportunity and, in the process, save lives.”
Safe, walkable communities are in high demand, and their scarcity makes them expensive places to live. To help ensure that the people who live near divisive or dangerous infrastructure will be able to benefit from any improvements, these grants also help fund anti-displacement efforts in economically disadvantaged communities impacted by redesign projects. $1.1 billion of these grants are specifically designated for economically disadvantaged communities, and to qualify for funding, the areas must have an anti-displacement policy and a community land trust or community advisory board in effect. After decades of making infrastructure decisions without substantial community input, the program encourages decision-makers to involve community members in the planning process. Decision-makers must also include a plan to employ local residents in the redesign process.
Because these grants are embedded in U.S. Code, they go beyond the temporary pilot programs (like Reconnecting Communities) introduced in the infrastructure law to address safety, access, climate, and equity, helping to ensure that these issues can be addressed for years to come.
Additionally, the budget reconciliation package includes clean vehicle tax credits to encourage the transition to electric vehicles. The existing clean vehicle credit is now amended to include not only plug-in electric vehicles but fuel cell vehicles as well. The credit applies to new, used, commercial, and heavy-duty vehicles. Unfortunately, the amended credit adds restrictions on eligibility based on vehicle and battery assembly, which would make many current U.S. electric vehicles ineligible for the credit and make them all ineligible in the coming years (unless EV manufacturers make significant changes). $3 billion is available to support the manufacturing of these vehicles.
The tax credit also extends to USPS vehicles, both purchasing an electric fleet and infrastructure to support the new vehicles. We’ve been advocating for the electrification of heavy-duty vehicles and USPS vehicles with the CHARGE Coalition because these vehicles are responsible for a significant portion of transportation emissions.
Unlike the infrastructure law’s investments, the Inflation Reduction Act’s funds go beyond infrastructure. Keep an eye on Smart Growth America’s blog for more information on the land-use investments that will further help tackle the climate crisis.
The status quo strikes again
This bill will be the largest climate investment in U.S. history. However, when it comes to transportation, overall the bill does almost nothing to counter the infrastructure law, which provided more funding for the same broken status quo approach that led to such high transportation emissions in the first place. Transit is entirely absent. While there are billions for new electric cars, there are no tax credits for e-bikes, which currently outsell electric cars and trucks and have incredible potential to replace car trips entirely and expand who can ride a bike. Yet Congress is still focusing entirely on vehicles, and electric vehicles alone will not dig us out of our current climate crisis. We need electric vehicles, and we need to allow people to drive less overall. The Inflation Reduction Act invests heavily in the former while mostly ignoring the latter.
It’s good to see progress on climate.
This has got to be the 1st step, though. We have so much work to do for the environment—stopping the drilling before it begins, giving people alternatives to auto dependency, building more green, affordable housing. The fight moves on. https://t.co/dxtmUM0aTg
Let this be a lesson to our Congressional leaders. We can’t continue treating transportation as separate from climate. The infrastructure bill is a climate bill, whether it helps or hurts. And if Congress wants to reduce transportation emissions, they can’t cave at the slightest possibility that some infrastructure programs could be included in future legislation. The next time Congress passes a surface reauthorization or any significant infrastructure investment, they must advocate for the full package outright, not only in rhetoric.
This post was written by Mollie Dalbey and Stephen Coleman Kenny, members of the Transportation for America policy team.
The Carbon Reduction Program (CRP), a new formula program released by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), provides states with $6.4 billion over 5 years for projects and strategies to reduce carbon emissions. However, thanks to a costly loophole, the program could end up making emissions worse.
Funds for the CRP could support more active transportation systems like protected bike lanes, but right now, it looks like spending is likely to be diverted to other projects. Flickr photo by Bart Everson.
The $6.4 billion Carbon Reduction Program (CRP), created under the new infrastructure law, is a substantial investment in carbon reduction. Under the program, each state must create detailed plans for how they will reduce transportation emissions. The money must be used to create and expand systems for public transit, active transportation (walking, biking, and rolling), congestion pricing, and other strategies to reduce emissions.
The CRP presents states with an opportunity to have a real impact on limiting greenhouse gas emissions. However, it’s important to note that this is just a small pile of cash compared to the other major funding streams in the infrastructure law, many of which states have traditionally used to make emissions worse. To effectively deliver on climate, states will have to move away from the status quo approach of building more and more roadways that increase emissions. That means they will need to make proper use of CRP funds and other federal dollars at their disposal.
Unfortunately, as we’ll cover below, there is little accountability to ensure states follow through, which means the FHWA will have a lot of work to do if it wants to get the most out of the CRP.
A high-emissions loophole
The CRP allows states to avoid using program funds for their intended purpose. State DOTs can flex up to 50 percent of CRP funds to other transportation projects including ones like highway expansions that increase emissions, as long as they records a reduction in carbon emissions.
Unfortunately, state reductions don’t have to be linked to any particular target. The FHWA is still developing their methodology for what emissions reductions will qualify for flexing funding out of the CRP, but all signs point to leniency. In other words, states that see reductions in their greenhouse gas emissions will be able to use carbon reduction funds to increase emissions. At the moment, the FHWA has not stated a specific level of carbon reduction required prior to flexing funds, which means states can start flexing funds to high-emissions projects after recording minuscule emissions reductions.
States are already spending their CRP dollars despite the fact that carbon reduction strategies (CRS), the plans they should be using to appropriately utilize CRP funding, are not due to the FHWA until November 15, 2023, nearly halfway through the infrastructure law’s funding timeline. These strategies can take up to 90 days to review and could still take rounds of adjustment before they are accepted by the FHWA. States without a reviewed CRS cannot adequately plan CRP spending, so there are no guarantees that the program will be able to meet its goal of reducing emissions.
A complimentary tool for transparency and accountability
The FHWA might be able to leverage a proposed regulation it rolled out for comment on July 15 to get the most out of the CRP. The proposed greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions measure would require states to measure the total amount of GHG emissions produced by transportation and reduce them to half of 2005 levels by 2030 and reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Because of these declining targets, the new rule might incentivize states to use their CRP money to reduce emissions. However, that depends on how closely states adhere to the emissions measure guidance.
So far, climate-unfriendly states have not been too keen on listening to the FHWA. Enforcement of the GHG emissions measure will take diligent administrative action, which is uncertain even in administrations friendly to climate action like the Biden administration. Congress could ensure the success of the CRP by holding states accountable for failing to meet GHG emissions measure targets.
The bottom line: FHWA must add some chutzpah to the CRP
In order to make this program consequential for reducing transportation emissions, the FHWA needs to make changes. We won’t be able to reach our nation’s carbon reduction goals if even the programs aimed at reducing emissions are making our emissions worse. To start, they must require CRP funds to be used solely for the purpose of carbon reduction until states have hit benchmarks similar to those in the GHG emissions measure.
After states hit the target level of carbon reduction (based on emission per capita and per economic unit), states should only flex funds into projects which will not counteract those reductions (e.g. transit and rail). Congress can also nudge the FHWA towards this by clarifying the intention of the program as only allowing states to flex money out if they are making real progress on transportation emissions.
The FHWA must also outline an adequate timeline for the completion of carbon reduction strategies, requiring states to demonstrate how they plan to use their funds and that they have reached the benchmark prior to flexing to other programs. Climate change is an ever-growing problem, and half measures will not help us reach our goals. The FHWA must provide more structure to this program, or else billions of dollars in climate funding could be spent in vain.
Transportation for America members have access to exclusive resources that provide further detail on this topic. To view memos and other members-only resources, visit the Member Hub located at t4america.org/members. (Search “Member Hub” in your inbox for the password, or new members can reach out to chris.rall@t4america.org for login details.) Learn more about membership at t4america.org/membership.
When it comes to the climate crisis, we at T4A have historically been focused on the land use and transportation options that can reduce driving to cut emissions. However, transportation electrification is also essential to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Here are three key strategies for doing it right.
T4America got involved in the Coalition Helping America Rebuild and Go Electric (CHARGE), an effort we are co-leading with the Clean Vehicles Coalition, to help bring a smart growth perspective to electrification. CHARGE is made up of transportation, industry, environmental, labor, health, equity, and civic organizations that support smart policy to electrify America’s transportation system. If your organization is interested in joining up with CHARGE, let us know!
T4America’s long-standing position has been that transportation electrification is essential but insufficient to meeting our GHG reduction goals. Our signature report Driving Down Emissions lays out the strategies we need to implement in order to reduce emissions through provision of more transportation and housing options, which not only results in fewer emissions but economic, environmental and equity benefits as well.
We can’t expect electrification to solve our climate woes. However, the way we electrify will impact our ability to implement smart growth strategies, and it will influence job creation, equity and environmental impacts beyond the climate. That’s why we’ve decided to start weighing in on the electric vehicle transition.
There are three key strategies for electrifying America’s transportation system in a way that supports smart growth and transportation options and ensures we get the most out of taxpayer investments.
1. Put public transit operations first
We know that one of the best ways to reduce emissions is to move more trips from driving to public transit. Improving public transit to attract more riders to this affordable option better serves lower income families and BIPOC communities, supports healthier walkable development, and requires less road space.
Electrifying public transit also has great benefits including cleaner air in our cities and the potential to reduce transit operating costs. But we need to make sure that the higher upfront cost of electric buses in no way hampers our efforts to improve public transit service. An electric bus can only significantly reduce emissions if people choose to ride it.
By engaging with our electrification advocate allies, we’ve been able to establish public transit service as the first priority in fighting GHG emission from transportation, immediately followed by electrification.
2. Integrate electric options and EV charging into communities
Tesla charging station near Miner Street in Idaho Springs, CO. Publicly available EV chargers near business districts benefit drivers and local business owners.
People deserve access to convenient modes of transportation outside of car travel, but the reality is a lot of folks will continue to rely on cars thanks to the current design of our cities. To reduce emissions, we need to electrify our vehicles and figure out where people will charge them. For people who own their own home with a dedicated parking spot, it’s relatively easy to just charge overnight in your driveway or garage. But for many folks in apartments, there may be no dedicated parking, or no charging available in the parking provided. EV users also need charging options when they take a road trip beyond the range of their vehicle.
The infrastructure law is working to address this with lots of investment in public charging. We can create a charging network that supports smart growth, economic development, and even transportation options other than driving. How?
The first thing to consider is the age-old smart growth strategy of co-location, in other words, putting things near each other. Charging an EV takes longer than gassing up an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle–anywhere from 20 minutes to a couple hours depending on the type of charger and the charge needed. The car occupants are going to want something to do, and the community where the charger is, be it urban or rural, has the opportunity to serve customers if they can walk to local businesses. The administration should invest in chargers in disadvantaged communities where they can support economic development.
We also need to think about how our communities are shaped by the shift to EVs and what kind of transportation options people have in denser urban areas where dedicated parking (and the easy charging that goes along with it) is less common. These are the kinds of neighborhoods where walking, biking and public transit are more viable, so we want to support and encourage them. We need to make sure public charging is available for apartment dwelling car-owners. Better yet, we can get more bang-for-the-buck supporting fleet vehicles–e.g. carshare vehicles, municipal fleets, and corporate fleets that see more use and, in the case of carshare, provide a mobility option for more people while supporting a low-car lifestyle.
We also can’t forget electric bikes, a clean, healthy and affordable mobility option that has been rapidly gaining traction in many communities nationally and worldwide. We can support continued growth in electric bikes with better bike infrastructure, secure bike parking, charging opportunities, and purchase incentives. We also need to make sure that car chargers aren’t located at the curb in such a way that precludes future bike lanes or bus lanes.
3. Clean up the trucks and fleets
As the government supports the shift to electric vehicles, we need to make sure that we get the most for our tax dollars. Trucks are a large source of emissions, and an area where more support is needed to make the transition to electric (and in some cases hydrogen) vehicles. We can bolster the economy and create good-paying jobs by focusing this support on domestic manufacturing of electric trucks and conversions in places where improved air quality can benefit frontline communities such as adjacent to heavily-polluted ports. As mentioned above, investing in fleets and carshare before personal cars will support more emissions reductions, and be more in line with a parallel smart growth strategy.
It’s true that transportation electrification can’t be the sole answer to our climate crisis. But it’s clear that EVs are part of the answer, and the way we electrify matters. By taking into account these three strategies, decision makers can make electrification a valuable part of our climate solution.
Rules for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program are currently open to public comment. This program can help shape our nation’s approach to electrification. Learn more about the program and how to submit comments here.
How can we ensure that investments in communities lead to safer, more convenient infrastructure for all?
In President Biden’s first weeks in office, he established an environmental justice initiative called Justice40, which aims to direct benefits from federal investments to disadvantaged communities. Today, the administration is working on more specific guidance on how Justice40 should be applied, which will determine how effective this effort will be.
To see which communities are most in need of climate and clean energy investments, view the beta Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, developed by the Council on Environmental Quality. This tool is open for public comment. Submit feedback by May 25, 2022.
Last year, President Biden signed Executive Order 14008, aimed at tackling the climate crisis and creating jobs across the federal government. In this order, the president established Justice40, later described as “a whole-of-government effort to ensure that federal agencies work with states and local communities to make good on President Biden’s promise to deliver at least 40 percent of the overall benefits from federal investments in climate and clean energy to disadvantaged communities” (emphasis ours).
Many types of investments can be justified as climate investments, and it’s not clear what will ultimately fall under the Justice40 umbrella. The executive order listed the following as areas of emphasis: clean energy and energy efficiency, clean transit, affordable and sustainable housing, training and workforce development, the remediation and reduction of legacy pollution, and the development of critical clean water infrastructure.
Typically, the government measures “benefits” in dollars and cents. For USDOT investments to comply with the Justice40 initiative, 40 percent of the infrastructure law’s surface transportation investments would go to underserved communities—a whopping $257 billion, or roughly $51.44 billion per year. There are at least two areas of concern here:
First, USDOT does not have the authority to meet that number because 69 percent of infrastructure funds are formula grants and have very few strings attached. The Administration does not have the authority to direct any of these funds to Justice40 communities. 40 percent of the discretionary funding, on the other hand, comes out to $31 million (far less than 40 percent of the whole program), and that could still be a generous estimate for what the Administration will be able to use to meet Justice40 objectives.
Second, even if the USDOT was on track, there’s a huge difference between simply spending 40 percent of money within underserved communities, and spending 40 percent to accomplish something productive or bring measurable benefits to those places.
While underserved communities absolutely need infrastructure investment, the kind of project matters. For example, installing Complete Streets in disadvantaged communities that lack basic safe infrastructure could improve health outcomes, reduce emissions, benefit the local economy, and provide fundamental access to people in areas that tend to have low car ownership. Adding a new highway or lane could do the exact opposite. Both investments could be counted toward the 40 percent goal in the Justice40 initiative, but one brings greater benefits than the other.
Infrastructure investments often don’t directly benefit the community where the construction takes place. In fact, in many cases when states and localities have built infrastructure in disadvantaged communities, the long-term result has been harm. Highways, for example, tend to benefit people traveling through an area while dislocating, isolating, and/or polluting the communities in which they’re built. In other words, highway construction projects are a major investment within the bounds of a community but are far from a major benefit to them.
Many funding opportunities have already rolled out, and the USDOT’s calendar of funding opportunities shows that there are still many more to come. In addition, the USDOT recently released their Equity Action Plan (EAP), and later we’ll dive deeper into what that plan could mean for infrastructure investments.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is expected to release guidance on Justice40 soon. Fundamentally, they need to be honest and clear about what funding they have the power to steer—and consider that in the future when they negotiate huge amounts of funding that they cannot influence at all. And to ensure that this initiative meets its stated goal, we strongly recommend that they take into account not only the size of federal investments but the impact these investments will have on disadvantaged communities. More than just building things inside Justice40 communities, the aim of Justice40 should be delivering solutions that will improve daily life to the people who need them most.
Despite the rhetoric, the infrastructure law falls well short of truly addressing the decades of harm our transportation system has inflicted on marginalized communities, and could even exacerbate existing inequities. However, it does provide some notable opportunities to restore and invest in these communities’ infrastructure needs.
This post is part of T4America’s suite of materials explaining the 2021 $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which governs all federal transportation policy and funding through 2026. What do you need to know about the new infrastructure law? We know that federal transportation policy can be intimidating and confusing. Our hub for the new law will walk you through it, from the basics all the way to more complex details.
Our transportation system should be designed to connect all people to essential jobs and services through affordable and accessible transportation options. However, our system has largely prioritized access and options for wealthier and whiter communities while creating barriers and dividing Black and brown communities in the process.
Of the $643 billion in the infrastructure law, there are few dedicated programs that directly address equity in our transportation system. However, there are steps in the right direction, including historic funding for transit infrastructure ($109 billion), new programs such as the Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program, and changes to the local match requirements for certain competitive grants for projects in areas of persistent poverty.
The Biden administration and Congress missed an opportunity to create an underlying standard for equity in the infrastructure law. Sure, the administration’s Justice 40 initiative aims to invest federal money equitably, but this is not a permanent solution as it can be easily undone by future administrations. And as we wrote about in our posts on climate, access, or other similar priorities, the freedom and ability to prioritize advancing equity and undoing past harm in communities lies with the states and metro areas who control the lion’s share of the law’s funding. And it’s up to them what they choose to prioritize.
What’s in the law?
First, each of the largest formula grant programs (like the NHPP and STBG) and every other program with broad eligibility can and should be used to promote equity by undoing the damage to marginalized communities.Check out our IIJA hub for guides on how to make sure equity underlies all spending, category by category. But here are some categories worth noting in particular:
The infrastructure law authorizes $109 billion, an increase in federal funding by nearly 80 percent for public transit projects through formula and competitive grant programs. Expanding and improving transit is the best way to serve and improve access to jobs and opportunity for marginalized communities, especially when it’s low-cost and high frequency. For low-income and communities of color who often rely on public transportation the most, making the right investments that improve accessibility and reliability, that connect people to food, health care, educational services and jobs, can have immense financial and quality of life impacts.
The Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program and the Healthy Streets Programs are two new competitive programs that go directly toward undoing past damage or addressing disparities created by our transportation investments in Black and brown communities. However, if states use their formula funds as they historically have, these smaller programs will be overwhelmed by the damage that is still being created by highway projects that just keep hurting these same communities.
The Reconnecting Communities Program was funded at $1 billion over five years for the planning and construction of projects that reconnect communities divided by viaducts, highways, and other principal arterials. For the people who call these communities home, these divisions continue to have catastrophic impacts on health outcomes, safety, and local economies. The restorative projects funded by this new program, which T4America helped create and introduce in Congress in late 2020, will help undo this damage by removing, retrofitting, or replacing an infrastructure barrier to restore community connectivity.
This is a good starting point, but it’s important to note that $1 billion over five years only begins to address the decades of “urban renewal” projects built to divide communities. The cost of dismantling divisive highways rivals, and in some cases even surpasses, the billions of dollars spent over decades to build these highways in the first place. Remember that while the Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program is small compared to the amount of work that needs to be done to restore historically marginalized communities, states have the ability to use their highway formula funds to complete highway teardown projects. They do not need this specialized program in order to do highway removal projects. The limited funds for the new pilot program should not be used as an excuse to continue to ignore these communities that have experienced decades of harm.
The Healthy Streets Program is a competitive grant program authorized at $100 million annually but is subject to congressional discretion for funding year after year. This program was created to fund projects that address the urban heat island effect that has disproportionate negative health impacts on low-income as well as Black and brown communities. In a harbinger of what could happen in future years for these sorts of helpful but small programs that Congress created in the IIJA (which the administration touts as their effort to eliminate inequities), this program did not receive funding from Congress for FY22, while states received all the funding they could possibly need to continue to harm these communities.
In addition to these programs that were designed to directly address inequities within our transportation system, the infrastructure law revised the federal cost share requirements in the existing Local and Regional Project Assistance Program. For most competitive grant programs the federal cost share is capped at 80 percent, which means the eligible applicant(s) must come up with 20 percent of the grant award for the project (also known as the local match). But for the $3 billion per year available in the Local and Regional Project Assistance Program, projects in rural areas, historically disadvantaged communities, or areas of persistent poverty can receive up to 100 percent of the cost of the project from the federal government, requiring no local match.
On the topic of more equitable grant distribution, the infrastructure law also requires certain criteria the Secretary should use when selecting projects for competitive grant awards. The National Infrastructure Project Assistance Program directs the Secretary to consider how a project would benefit a historically disadvantaged community or population or an area of persistent poverty when awarding grants. The Safe Streets and Roads for All Grant Program instructs the Secretary to consider if the applicant ensures equitable investment in the safety needs of underserved communities in preventing transportation-related fatalities and injuries.
The Corridor Identification and Development Program directs the Secretary to outline the process and criteria to facilitate the development of intercity passenger rail corridors. The law directs the Secretary to consider whether the corridor serves historically unserved or underserved and low-income communities or areas of persistent poverty when selecting a corridor for development.
What can the administration do to promote equitable outcomes?
Black and brown communities have suffered from harmful and dangerous transportation projects for far too long, and there are great opportunities beyond those programs with equity as their central purpose for the administration to restore and rejuvenate these communities. One clear way the administration can do that is to use as many competitive grant programs as possible to fund projects that remove barriers, revitalize marginalized communities, and prioritize projects with strong anti-displacement actions in place.
The administration also has a lot of flexibility and leeway in the guidance and models that are used in transportation. Many of these models contribute to worsening conditions and exacerbate the equity issues from our transportation system. The administration should reconsider their models to measure access to jobs and services for drivers and nondrivers alike. The administration should also provide technical assistance to state DOTs, MPOs, and transit agencies on how to measure multimodal access to jobs, essential services, fresh food access, and public health.
In addition, USDOT should also replace the value of time guidance, which primarily focuses on the impact that transportation decisions will have on the limited number of people who are driving, ignoring the impacts on all other travel. Read our recommendations for the administration in this post about value of time and how it can be improved.
Another way the administration can improve equitable outcomes is to define “reasonable cost” and how it applies objectively and equitably across the federal transportation program. Reasonable cost is used to estimate an infrastructure project’s cost that includes construction, engineering, acquisition of right-of-way and other related costs. What often happens is that when a project is deemed “too expensive” and the project includes bike and pedestrian elements, decision makers will use “reasonable cost” as an excuse to ignore or remove these elements from a proposal. Reasonable cost gives heavy preference to the infrastructure needs of cars, when it should instead better include and prioritize other road users and nondrivers, who are disproportionately people of color.
How can the new money advance other goals?
Climate
The built environment exacerbates the negative impacts of climate change on low-income and communities of color. Marginalized communities have suffered from higher air pollution levels, energy costs, and heat-related health effects as a result of urban heat islands. Investing in infrastructure that protects our most vulnerable communities from the impacts of climate change will have positive impacts for these communities and our environment. We wrote about how the infrastructure bill can be used to lower emissions and address resiliency here.
So what?
There was a missed opportunity to embed equity into the fabric of the infrastructure law, so it is now up to USDOT to use all of their tools to ensure equitable outcomes for our most vulnerable communities. States also have an opportunity now to reevaluate and change the way they spend their formula dollars. Congress and the administration will have utterly failed if this historically huge infusion of infrastructure funding just results in more projects that place excessive burdens on the same historically marginalized communities. Expanding highways to serve more affluent communities who can afford to own a car cannot continue as the status quo.
We must center the desires and lived experiences of the communities we are restoring to reverse the transportation planning trends that continue to lead to injustices. This means improved outreach to these communities to understand the problem inclusively, especially through the lens and perspective of marginalized communities that are most negatively affected by our infrastructure investments.
The flexibility in the formula programs allow for states, cities, and MPOs to conduct community outreach and public engagement in the planning process for projects. These entities should be using these funds to conduct robust public engagement to ensure any transportation project meets the needs of marginalized communities. That will mean truly engaging the community to define the problem, taking full stock of the tools in the practitioners’ toolbox to address the problem, and looking at strategies to integrate community feedback into how those tools are used. From tabletop exercises to outright pilot projects that allow communities to touch and feel potential solutions, there are plenty of opportunities to create community buy-in and ownership of transformative transportation solutions, rather than impose transportation investments on the communities who need their voices heard most.
