Streetsblog San Francisco

The energy-saving benefits of transit aren’t limited to the transportation sector. Image: Jonathan Rose Companies via Richard Layman.

At
a panel discussion yesterday at the Copenhagen climate summit, American
policymakers and transit experts delivered a clear message: Walkable
urban development must be part of any effective plan to reduce global
greenhouse gas emissions. Thanks to the magic of live webcasts, I can
relay a few highlights for Streetsblog readers.

Without
directing future development toward walkable urbanism, the climate
impacts of sprawl will overwhelm other efforts to curb greenhouse gas
emissions, said Robert Cervero, a professor specializing in
transportation and land use policy at UC Berkeley. "Urban development
patterns have a significant role to play in carbon reduction," Cervero
told the audience. "Otherwise we’ll just get knocked back by land-use
patterns. Sustainable urbanism has to be part of the equation."

The
benefits of walkable development extend far beyond the efficiencies of
trains, buses, and bikes compared to cars. As journalist (and befuddling congestion pricing critic) David Owen has documented superbly, city dwellers use far less energy to, for instance, heat homes than suburbanites.

Cervero
attached some rough numbers to these "embedded energy savings." While
transit investment alone can achieve a 10 to 20 percent reduction in
America’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions, he said, factoring in
the embedded energy savings of walkable development boosts that figure
to 30 percent. That’s 30 percent compared to present-day emissions
levels. The reduction could reach as high as 60 percent, Cervero added,
compared to the level of per-capita emissions that would result from
continuing business-as-usual sprawl-inducing policies.

Read more…

Acting under a Supreme Court mandate, the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) ruled today that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public
health and contribute to the harmful environmental effects of climate
change, paving the way for pollution regulations under the Clean Air
Act.

(Photo: TreeHugger)

"Today, EPA announced that greenhouse gases threaten the health and
welfare of the American people," EPA chief Lisa Jackson said at a press conference (audio available here). "We also found that greenhouse gas
emissions from on-road vehicles contribute to that threat."

The
EPA’s ruling, also known in Washington as an "endangerment finding,"
clears the way for the agency to play a role in implementing new auto
fuel-efficiency standards released by the White House in September.

Vehicles
are the No. 2 contributor to total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, the
EPA said today, with electricity generation taking the top spot. "U.S.
emissions from on-road vehicles are also greater than the total
greenhouse gas emissions from every other individual nation, with the
exception of China, Russia, and India," the EPA said in a release on
its ruling.

But given that the "endangerment finding" has
been in the works at the EPA since the earliest days of the Obama
administration, what does today’s announcement mean for the future of
climate change legislation?

In the Senate, where a climate bill that would direct hundreds of billions of dollars to clean transportation remains mired in political maneuvering, Democrats aimed to use the EPA ruling to spur their slow process forward.

"The
message to Congress is crystal clear: get moving," Sen. John Kerry
(D-MA), the climate measure’s chief sponsor, said in a statement. Kerry
added:

Read more…

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The trouble with broad analysis pieces on campaign cash is that they
often go for eye-popping numbers while obscuring uncomfortable
political realities. For example, GreenWire reported this morning that the 27 senators who remain undecided on the chamber’s pending climate bill took "more than $20 million … over the past two decades from energy interests with a direct stake in pending legislation."

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) (Photo: CNN)

Whoa!
$20 million is a big number. But the story never defines its
terminology: Should the private-equity giant Carlyle Group be
classified as an "energy interest," given that it has stakes in 40 energy companies, or as an unrelated financial firm?

And
given that Republicans, with the exception of Sen. Lindsey Graham
(R-SC), have shown next to no willingness to play a meaningful role in
passing climate legislation, why attach the "fence-sitter" label to
senators such as John McCain (R-AZ) — who days ago slammed the chamber’s bill as "horrendous"?

But
GreenWire’s calculations are worth re-running, if only because they
smartly combine the transportation and electricity industries into one
bloc. As electrified transport continues to command
Washington’s attention, automakers and power providers are finding
their priorities increasingly in alignment — and their hands
increasingly extended for similar government subsidies.

Of the 27 senators deemed climate fence-sitters by GreenWire, 17 are
Democrats. Using data from the non-partisan Center for Responsive
Politics (which only dates back 20 years), Streetsblog Capitol Hill ran
down the numbers on how much campaign money those 17 senators received
from the transportation and electricity interests that ranked among
their top 20 donors.

Read more…

Democratic lawmakers are discussing the possibility of a one-year
stopgap transportation bill but have yet to reach consensus on how to
pay for the measure, Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) said today.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) (Photo: Politics Daily)

Carper,
speaking at a National Journal policy conference, said the prospects
for short-term transport legislation still depend on finding a workable
funding source. He mentioned an idea first floated last year by economist and Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson: increase the fuel tax by one penny every month.

Such
a gradual increase, Samuelson wrote, would send a price signal in favor
of fuel efficiency. Carper acknowledged that his colleagues didn’t
immediately warm to Samuelson’s revenue-raising idea, but he also
hinted that another economic stimulus measure paid for by deficit
spending could be a non-starter in the Senate.

"Are we going
to have another stimulus bill? I sure hope not, because it means we’re
in the tank again," Carper said, pointing to recent signs of an economic turnaround.

Carper, the lead sponsor of a proposal to give clean transportation 10 percent of money generated by a future climate change bill, also addressed rising pessimism about Congress’ ability to pass carbon emissions limits before next year’s midterm elections.

Passing
a health care reform bill that’s fully paid for, Carper said, would go
a long way towards bolstering the prospects for climate legislation by
demonstrating lawmakers’ commitment to fiscal rectitude.

Carper’s remarks were followed by a panel discussion that featured Polly Trottenberg, assistant U.S. transportation secretary for policy, and James Corless, director of Transportation for America.

Both
Trottenberg and Corless emphasized the importance of messaging in
encouraging public acceptance of infrastructure policy reforms. Asked
about decreasing the nation’s total vehicle miles traveled by telling
Americans to "drive less," Corless re-framed the question as one of
providing more transport options.

Read more…

October 24, 2009, Bay Street in San Francisco: Riders traverse one potential future shoreline

I'll be leaving in ten days for Scandinavia, and will be sending reports to sf.streetsblog on the upcoming Climate Change conference (known as COP15) and the massive demonstrations that are expected to surround it. I've been to Copenhagen (my mother was born there) so I'm excited to return to a place where bicycles reign and the political culture is surprisingly reasonable compared to anything here in the U.S. COP15 will be joined by most of the world's nations, while outside its perimeter, a range of political organizations and ad-hoc political cultures will also converge, bringing memories of Seattle a decade ago, and the half dozen other dramatic confrontations between protesters and police at G8 or IMF summits since then.

Anthropogenic climate change is well underway, with polar ice caps, glaciers, and arctic tundra all melting at unprecedented rates. In San Francisco's mild climate, where we still enjoy abundant fresh food, water, and easy transportation and communications, it's hard to feel climate change as an imminent disaster. In fact, according to recent polls, U.S. residents are increasingly skeptical about climate change and more resistant to remedial actions. (On a local note, I was distributing my new red global warming bicycle license plates at the last Critical Mass and had two unrelated young men go off on me, each claiming that global warming is a government hoax! Apparently we get some Glen Beck fans on bikes even at Critical Mass!)

As reported here yesterday, transportation is a close second to electric power generation in the not-so-great race to become the nation's fastest-rising source of emissions.

Minnesota roads, like this one, produce a greater share of the state's pollution than electric utilities. (Photo: MPR)

So as the climate change debate heats up in the Senate, it's interesting to see lawmakers press so hard for more valuable pollution permits to be given away for free to the dirtiest electric utilities -- while staying comparatively silent on cutting transportation-based emissions.

From a letter sent to Senate leaders yesterday by 14 midwestern Democrats:

We believe it is essential that we strive to formulate [climate change] legislation that equitably distributes transition assistance across individuals, as well as states and regions and economic sectors. We urge you to ensure that emission allowances allocated to the electricity sector – and thus, electricity consumers -- be fully based on emissions as the appropriate and equitable way to provide transition assistance in a greenhouse gas-regulated economy.

If the goal is to "equitably distribute transition assistance across ... economic sectors," shouldn't the Senate climate bill distribute more than 3 percent of its expected revenue to help states plan for cutting emissions from transportation?

That question certainly isn't being asked by the 14 Democrats, whose request boils down to seeking more freebies for the biggest coal burners. As it stands, electric utilities can expect to get more than a third of the climate bill's pollution allowances, while transit and local development can hope for somewhere between the House's optional 1 percent and the Senate's average of 3 percent.

And it's worth singling out Minnesota, where both senators (Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken) signed the freebies-for-coal letter. According to yesterday's state pollution report released by Environment America, transportation accounted for a larger share of Minnesota's statewide emissions in 2007 (35.4%) than electricity (34.3%).

Read more...

The climate change bills being considered by Congress treat electric utilities very well, giving more than a third
of the revenue generated by CO2 regulation away — for free — to power
providers. This move pleased coal country Democrats while seeking to lock down benefits for consumers by averting electricity rate hikes.

But did the focus on electricity generation tackle the fastest-growing source of U.S. carbon emissions? A new report released today by Environment America has the answer: Barely.

The
report tracks state-by-state progress in reducing carbon emissions. The
chart shown below depicts the national totals for emissions by sector
of the economy, with the fifth column from the left depicting the
percentage change between 1990 and 2007 and the sixth column depicting
the percentage change between 2004 and 2007.

(Chart: Environment America)

Electricity was indeed the fastest-growing producer of U.S. emissions
during both time periods, rising by 32 percent in the 1990-2007 period
and 3.4 percent during 2004-2007. But transportation emissions were a
strong No. 2, rising by 27 percent from 1990 to 2007 and 3 percent
during 2004-2007.

The
two columns on the far left show that during the last four years, U.S.
commercial, residential, and industrial emissions have decreased in
real terms while electricity and transportation emissions are on the
rise.

The report’s authors acknowledge that the period they
studied saw "very little" increase in vehicle fuel-efficiency
standards, which are set to rise
notably in the coming years. But considering that transportation
emissions are rising at such a healthy clip, it’s natural to ask
whether the Senate climate bill should set aside
more than 3 percent of its revenue for clean transport — and why the
House bill did so much worse, making its 1 percent allocation optional.

The Senate’s propensity for filibusters, delay, and fruitless attempts at bipartisan deal-making is earning it quite the reputation these days. And climate change legislation, with its big-ticket implications for transit and urban development in general, is becoming increasingly caught up in the Senate’s peripatetic politics.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) (Photo: CNN)

The
Finance Committee held a hearing today on the job-creating implications
of its climate bill, which would set aside hundreds of millions of
dollars for annual clean transportation grants. Neither the transit
industry nor the renewable energy sector was invited to testify,
although two oil industry-backed witnesses were brought in to criticize the measure.

During
the hearing, Finance chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) sounded hopeful notes
about the need to address carbon emissions. "We should recognize that
in the case of [regulating] acid rain, the
negative consequences were far less than projected," Baucus said. "We
should keep this
in mind when similar claims are made about the effects of legislation
to
address climate change."

And on a conference call with
reporters today, the Finance panel’s senior Republican, Chuck Grassley
(IA), gave a reluctant but upbeat assessment of GOP senators’ openness
to a bipartisan climate deal:

Well, we have one, Lindsey Graham, working with [Sen. John] Kerry [D-MA] on some sort
of a compromise — if it would include nuclear and would include
offshore drilling. I don’t know whether that’s good enough to offset
the bad that’s in the bill or not. I don’t think it’s good enough for
me. But you’ll at least him working there. And I wouldn’t want to say that there’s not two or three other senators.

Two
or three Republicans is not a lot, to be sure. But the climate bill
will need all the votes it can muster to surmount a Senate that’s dominated by smaller, rural states — such as Baucus’ and Grassley’s.

The Senate environment committee approved its climate change bill today on an 11-1 vote, shrugging off a boycott by all of the panel's Republicans but missing out on the chance to consider amendments to the lengthy legislation.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) (Photo: AP)

The environment panel's chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) had offered Republicans several days to abandon their walkout, promising time to consider GOP amendments and a complete Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) modeling of the bill before it comes to the Senate floor.

But environment committee Republicans were unmoved, insisting on an immediate five-week delay for EPA analysis despite testimony from the EPA that such work would produce little new information. Boxer's GOP counterpart on the panel, Sen. Jim Inhofe (OK), seemed to delight in forcing the chairman's hand as he labeled the no-amendments move the "nuclear option."

The question now becomes whether the specific proposals added by Boxer's panel -- including grant programs for transit and clean transportation that nearly triple the funding approved by the House -- can survive a long slog through as many as five other committees.

Boxer insisted this morning that "many things in this bill ... are going to be part of that comprehensive bill" that ultimately reaches a full Senate vote. But others on the committee acknowledged that the bill's one-party approval would not bode well for its political prospects.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), the chief sponsor of efforts to boost the climate bill's clean transportation provisions, described himself as "very, very, very disappointed," particularly given the loss of a chance to amend the legislation.

Carper submitted an amendment that would have added more than $400 million to the bill's annual set-aside of climate money for transit, inter-city rail, local land use planning and other projects.  "I don't like this process," Carper said this morning. "I don't think any of us do."