A regional agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks splintered this week, forcing Rhode Island to reassess its strategy for meeting emissions reduction mandates.
Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut and the District of Columbia had signed on to a Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI) plan that required at least three jurisdictions to go forward. When Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont and Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker this week said their states were pulling out, the plan crumpled.
It leaves Rhode Island in a difficult position.
Transportation accounts for 36% of carbon emissions in the state, and TCI was “the only viable and complete program that’s been developed to date” to tackle transportation emissions on the scale needed to meet the state’s legally binding targets, according to Terry Gray, acting director of the state’s Department of Environmental Management.
Speaking Friday, he said the state would have to go “back to the drawing board to really come up with a new approach for that sector.”
“It is disappointing,” Gray said. “We have to regroup. We have to come up with a plan. Everybody understands that we need a plan on the transportation sector. And we’re stronger working together than working separately.”
TCI was conceived as a regional strategy to cut greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector, the region’s largest source of planet-warming carbon dioxide.
Thirteen states, from North Carolina to Maine, and the District of Columbia initially participated. The group developed a policy plan that would charge transportation fuel suppliers a fee for carbon emissions created by burning those fuels. The revenue — an estimated $300 million each year — would be invested in cleaner transportation alternatives, such as expanded public transit and electric vehicle charging stations.
From the start, business and conservative groups opposed the plan, pointing to potential gas price hikes. And the number of participating states has dwindled over the last decade.
Just three states and the District of Columbia agreed to move forward with the policy last year. And that smaller coalition has now dissolved. When Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont withdrew, citing the high price of gas, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker said the regional plan no longer made sense.
“For these governors to be stepping away from the program now, that leaves us in an incredibly difficult position,” said Jordan Stutt of Acadia Center, an environmental research and advocacy nonprofit that has supported the policy.
“There seems to be a sense that it’s okay to wait to act on climate until there’s a politically convenient moment. But things aren’t getting any more convenient,” Stutt said. “And the cost that people are paying from climate change and the costs of local air pollution are only growing.”
States may be able to direct federal infrastructure funding towards some of the transportation projects that TCI would have supported. But it’s a “one-time boost,” Stutt said, that lacks the same requirements. For example, 35% of revenue generated by TCI would have been earmarked for communities historically overburdened by transportation pollution.
But Gray is optimistic that some of the planning for TCI will be put to use in deciding how federal infrastructure funds are spent.
“I think a lot of the investment planning, the modeling, the tracking, the compliance mechanisms, I think those are things we need to look at. Clearly the equity investment plans, the equity advisory board, is something that we’ve been talking about and expanding not only to the transportation sector, but all of our climate change plans,” Gray said. “And you know, that’s not wasted time. That’s good information and good advice that we need to apply going forward.”
Rhode Island and Massachusetts are both committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions to 45% of 1990s levels by 2030. And to reach that goal, he said both states need to get to work on a new long-term strategy for funding a transition to clean transportation.
“We need a plan B. There’s no question about that,” Gray said. “We need a plan for the transportation sector, and we need it soon.”
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Reporter Sofie Rudin can be reached at srudin@thepublicsradio.org.
