[D]rivers must reduce carbon emissions if state pollution goals are to be met.
Vermont’s transportation officials say a cap-and-trade program imposed on transportation fuels is among the solutions they’re considering to reach the necessary pollution reductions.
The analysis was released this week by Georgetown University’s Climate Center, at the request of the Transportation Climate Initiative, which is made up of the heads of transportation, energy and environment agencies in 11 Northeastern states.
“I think most states in the Northeast and on the Eastern seaboard … have experience with market-based policies that put a price on carbon, done over a number of years very successfully, for pricing carbon [produced] out of the energy generation sector,” Vermont Agency of Transportation Secretary Chris Cole said.
The report, Cole said, is an analysis of greenhouse gas emission reductions from the transportation sector using “market-based solutions.”
“It’s not a carbon tax. It is a-cap and-trade, a cap-and-invest, policy that we’ll be exploring and evaluating,” Cole said.
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which has proved successful in reducing carbon emissions produced by nine Northeast states’ power utilities, shows that the region’s energy consumers are prepared for a similar approach to transportation fuel emissions.
Under REGGI, caps are placed on carbon pollution from electricity producers. Power generators then pay for credits that allow them to emit more pollution. The credits can be traded.
The Georgetown Climate Center report analyzes the impact a similar program could have on greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles in 11 states. Those states are Connecticut, Maine, New York, Delaware, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Maryland, New Jersey and Vermont. The District of Columbia is included in the Transportation Climate Initiative as well.
Gabriel Pacyniak, the program manager for the Georgetown Climate Center’s Mitigation Program, said transportation generates more greenhouse gas pollution in these states than any other sector.
Transportation accounted for 35 percent of the region’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2011, the most recent year for which such data was available, Pacyniak said.
In Vermont, transportation fuel accounts for 47 percent of total energy emissions, according to Gina Campoli, the environmental policy manager for the Vermont Agency of Transportation.
This large percentage of total emissions has to do less with driving habits than with other emission-reduction efforts, Pacyniak said. For most states, electric power generation emits more greenhouse gas than any other sector of energy use.
Northeastern states, however, produce electricity from sources relatively cleaner than those used in other parts of the country, Pacyniak said.
As emissions from electric power have diminished over recent years, the share of total emissions in the Northeast caused by transportation has grown, he said.
States in the region share pollution-reduction goals “that converge around an 80 percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2050,” Pacyniak said. Vermont’s own greenhouse-gas goals would reduce in-state emissions to 75 percent of 1990 levels by 2050.
To meet those broadly shared objectives, Pacyniak said, transportation, the largest source of emissions, must be addressed.
Existing state and federal emissions-reduction standards, while they’ll significantly decrease the amount of pollution caused by transportation, “won’t be sufficient to meet these long-term goals,” he said.
Current policies would cut 2011 level greenhouse gas emissions by 29 percent by 2030.
This, according to the Georgetown paper, “will not be sufficient to put states on the path needed to meet the mid-century economy-wide reduction goals that most states in the region have identified and that reflect the scientific consensus of the magnitude of action needed.”
Policy changes proposed by the Georgetown group could reduce transportation pollution by 31 to 40 percent.
Vermont will need to hit the 40 percent mark to meet the state’s goals, Campoli said.
These changes include a fuel tax, a tax on vehicle miles traveled, and a cap-and-trade scheme imposed upon carbon emissions.
The cap-and-trade program would likely approximate California’s, which in 2015 took effect for gasoline and other petroleum fuels, Campoli said.
Under this program, the state sets a cap on greenhouse gas emissions produced within the state. Businesses must purchase what are known as allowances in order to emit some portion of that total. The state of California auctions these allowances every quarter, and proceeds from the auctions fund state programs that include high-speed rail and other forms of mass transit.
The state Legislature’s analysts have estimated the cap-and-trade program will raise fuel prices between 13 cents to 50 cents per gallon of gasoline by 2020.
Funds raised through the program would pay for further measures intended to drive down carbon pollution, such as electric vehicles, mass transit and land-use policies encouraging compact development.
Cap and trade could also bolster transportation funding that has dwindled in recent years due to decreased gas tax revenue, Campoli said. Greater fuel efficiency and fewer vehicle miles traveled have resulted in less gasoline consumption, and with it the funding both states derive from taxes on auto fuel.
Unlike a carbon tax, a cap-and-trade program would also create market incentives for producers to find fuel sources less carbon intensive than gasoline, Cole said.
No Northeastern states have yet committed to a cap-and-trade scheme for transportation fuels, Campoli said. The report does lend support to such an approach, but it does to others as well. What seems to work best, however, are market-based approaches, she said.
“One thing this is not about is a gas tax,” she said. “This is about looking reasonably at market-based solutions like a cap-and-trade program like we already have for electricity.
“Vermont’s part of a regional cap-and-trade program in the electricity sector called RGGI, and that hasn’t raised the price of electricity, and it has caused benefits to the state and to the other Northeastern states,” she said.
The report lays out an important foundation for future collaboration between Northeastern states, Campoli said.
“This is very exciting because it’s setting the table for a regional conversation,” she said. “The report says that states are working together on this. We now have a cohort of states that have committed to moving forward.”
The Georgetown Climate Center’s full report can be found here: georgetownclimate.org/sites/www.georgetownclimate.org/files/GCC-Reducing_GHG_Emissions_from_Transportation-11.24.15.pdf
More information on TCI is available at:
georgetownclimate.org/state-action/transportation-and-climate-initiative.
