Washington — States would be required to track and move toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions on federal highways under a rule proposed by the Biden administration Thursday.
The rule would establish a national framework for states to track tailpipe emissions on highways and set individualized goals for reducing those emissions.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement that the proposal is an “important step forward in tackling transportation’s share of the climate challenge.”
“Our approach gives states the flexibility they need to set their own emission reduction targets, while providing them with resources from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to meet those targets and protect their communities,” he said.
Transportation is the biggest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Emissions from transportation decreased 13% from 2019 to 2020 due to reduced travel from the coronavirus pandemic, but total transportation emissions have increased between 1990 and 2020 as vehicle miles traveled rose 30%.
The Transportation Department argued the proposed rule would help the transportation sector move from the leading source of emissions to “the biggest part of the solution” by making data comparable across states.
President Joe Biden has pledged to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. 50% below 2005 levels by 2030 with the aim of stopping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoiding the worst effects of climate change.
U.S. Sen. Tom Carper, D-Delaware, chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said Congress approved a national goal of making the nation’s highways more environmentally sustainable a decade ago and directed DOT to establish a system for states to measure their performance.
“This proposal will fulfill the original congressional intent of performance management and improve the functioning of our highway programs,” he said in a statement.
Environmental groups also praised the proposal on Thursday. Deron Lovaas, a senior advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council called it a “commonsense proposal” that will help states and local governments “determine how to build a resilient and efficient transportation system that will serve us all for decades to come.”
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an advocacy group representing most major companies producing autos in the U.S., did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
The National Association of City Transportation Officials also said it supports the rule, which it argues “will unify a hodgepodge of incomplete data from across the country into a unified standard.”
“We can’t change what we don’t measure,” said Janette Sadik-Khan, chair of NACTO. The proposal would ensure states and cities would “no longer be flying blind and will know which transportation projects are the best use of taxpayer dollars.”
rbeggin@detroitnews.com
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