Category Archives: Transportation

I’ve written before about the developing science regarding the impacts of PM2.5 emissions.  Short version – they’re bad for you.  They’re even worse than we thought, and there’s increasing evidence that they cause a lot of harm at concentrations below the National Ambient Air Quality Standard of 12 ug/m3. 

The most recent report comes from Canada, which is particularly useful in measuring the impact of low concentrations of PM2.5 precisely because PM2.5 concentrations are relatively low there. … More

Take my predictions with a grain of salt, because I still remember saying that Ronald Reagan would never fool enough voters to get elected, but it seems very likely at this point that Maura Healey will be the next Governor of Massachusetts.  That makes her release of a climate plan a matter of some significance. 

My take is that it is extremely ambitious,… More

An article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (login required) has documented the devastating impact caused by the use of leaded gasoline.  The study estimates that more than half of Americans alive in 2015 had been subject to unsafe blood lead levels as children.  The study further estimates that the impact of these elevated blood levels was a net loss of 824,097,690 IQ points as of 2015. … More

I’ve written a lot about how the developing science around particulate exposure supports making the PM2.5 NAAQS more stringent.  So it won’t come as a surprise that a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates that the benefits of on-road emissions reductions from 2008 to 2017 could be measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars and almost 10,000 fewer deaths. … More

Yesterday, the Baker administration announced that the Transportation Climate Initiative is dead in Massachusetts, at least for now.  This is not a surprise, particularly after Governor Lamont’s statement that there is no political support for TCI in Connecticut.  It is difficult to implement a region-wide program to reduce carbon emissions from transportation fuels when only one state in the region is prepared to do so. 

The administration tried to put the best face on the failure of TCI,… More

So CEQ has proposed to amend the NEPA regulations in order to eliminate some of the changes made by the Trump Administration in 2020.  Important changes include:

• explicit consideration of indirect impacts
• renewed emphasis on consideration of cumulative impacts
• elimination of the requirement that there be “a reasonably close causal relationship” between a proposed action and a potential impact,…

More

Late last month, the Washington Legislature passed the “Climate Commitment Act”, a piece of sweeping climate legislation that includes, among other provisions, an economy-wide cap-and-trade system.  Washington was not far behind Massachusetts, which enacted its “next generation roadmap” bill in late March.  This friendly competition among states to move towards net zero economies as aggressively as possible is certainly a good thing.… More

I noted in yesterday’s post about the NHTSA proposal to withdraw the SAFE I Rule that EPA was expected to follow the NHTSA action by restoring the Clean Air Act Section 209 waiver for California’s Advanced Clean Car program. The ink was barely dry on the post when EPA released a Notice that was considering doing just that.

I have always thought that EPA’s waiver withdrawal stood on very shaky ground – shakier even than the NHTSA preemption argument made in the SAFE I rule. … More

On March 1, the Transportation Climate Initiative jurisdictions released a draft “model rule” that would provide a template for individual state rules governing the operation of the TCI Program.  Although only three states and the District of Columbia committed in December 2020 to implement TCI-P, the announcement on Monday indicated that the model rule “was developed by twelve” TCI jurisdictions.”  I guess that eight states like the model rule – just not enough at this point to commit to implementing it.… More

Yesterday, Massachusetts released its “2050 Decarbonization Roadmap.”  I’m tempted to call it a tour de force.  At the very least, it’s jam-packed with important issues.  One of the most valuable aspects of the Roadmap is its discussion of the potential tradeoffs among the different paths towards a decarbonized economy.  Acknowledging that the Roadmap contains much more good stuff than can be summarized in a single post,… More

CEQ has finalized revisions to the NEPA regulations.  I don’t have too much to add to my post on the proposed rule back in January.  NEPA needs reform.  These regulations, however, are not the reform NEPA needs.

The rule largely tracks the proposed rule.  It is worth noting, however, that, contrary to this administration’s frequently cavalier attitude toward judicial review, they have made a few tweaks to increase the likelihood that the rule will survive review. … More

On October 24, 2019, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey filed a 200-page complaint against Exxon in Suffolk Superior Court, alleging violations of G.L. c. 93A, the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act.  The lawsuit is the culmination of a three-year long investigation that has been contested in state and federal courts in both Texas and Massachusetts.

The core legal theories espoused in the complaint resemble and also build upon allegations made by the New York Attorney General,… More

Led by California, 23 states, including Massachusetts, have sued the Trump administration challenging new federal regulations that strip the states’ authority to set their own vehicle emissions standards.  On December 3, 2019, the administration moved to dismiss on procedural grounds, arguing that the D.C. District Court was the wrong venue, and that the case should have been brought before the D.C. Circuit for its direct review.… More

On Tuesday, nine Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states participating in the Transportation Climate Initiative – notably not yet including New York – announced that they:

will design a regional low-carbon transportation policy proposal that would cap and reduce carbon emissions from the combustion of transportation fuels through a cap-and-invest program or other pricing mechanism.

It’s a major development.  Electric sector emissions have dropped substantially in recent years and now account for less than half the GHG emissions resulting from transportation. … More

President Trump’s infrastructure plan includes a number of important proposals.  My initial reaction is consistent with my view of many of the President’s initiatives – he gives regulatory reform a bad name.  We do need to reform the way we implement infrastructure projects in the US, but this President is not the one to lead the effort.

Here are some of the problems I see.

First,… More

On Monday, EnergyWire (subscription required) reported that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has unveiled a plan to cap fossil fuel use in buildings in New York City.  (I haven’t seen the specific plan, but it is referenced in City’s overall plan, “1.5°C:  Aligning New York City with the Paris Climate Agreement,” that the City just released.)  The building plan is based on data gathered as a result of local ordinances requiring buildings with more than 25,000 square feet to report energy and water use. … More

Last week, DOE announced that transportation sector CO2 emissions in the US exceeded power sector CO2 emissions for the first time since 1978.  Why?  The combination of increasing vehicle miles traveled in the transportation sector and the decreasing use of coal in the power sector is certainly most of the answer.

The real question is whether this is good news or bad news.… More

On December 4, 2015, President Obama signed into law the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act—a five-year, $305-billion transportation authorization and spending bill. The FAST Act largely focuses on funding highways and other transit infrastructure, but, interestingly, it also contains provisions overhauling the environmental review of infrastructure projects under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

For example, the FAST Act requires agencies to coordinate their environmental reviews of transportation projects to avoid duplication and accelerate the review process.… More