EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson doesn't have to worry about getting hamstrung by theatrical House GOP legislating.

With budget talks reaching a critical pass to avert a government shutdown, House Republicans have been busy passing an ideological wishlist, including an attempt to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from “raising taxes.” H.R. 910, which they are calling the “Energy Tax Prevention Act” would undermine the EPA’s ability to restrict greenhouse gas emissions from industrial and manufacturing plants and gut the Clean Air Act.

Democrats offered a few amendments to the bill which made for some good political theater, including a gem from Representative Earl Blumenauer. Stating that “I, too, am opposed to any attempts by the EPA to impose taxes,” Blumenauer offered an amendment that struck the provisions of the bill and replaced them with a measure to “help us find out whether Republicans are truly concerned about the Environmental Protection Agency imposing an energy tax on America.” The amendment text continued: “During its 40 year history, the Clean Air Act has prevented millions of hospital visits, asthma attacks and cases of lung cancer while strengthening our economy. A record like that deserves support, not partisan attacks.”

Blumenauer’s amendment didn’t get far but environmental and public health groups can rest easy, for now. The bill, and a few others attempting to curb the EPA’s regulatory powers, didn’t make it through the Senate. President Obama had also stated that he would veto any bills that did not reflect “scientific consensus on global warming.”

Meanwhile, budget talks have continued behind closed doors. Billions for transit, rail, and green transportation are still at stake in the negotiations.President Obama met with House and Senate leaders late last night and earlier today in another attempt to reach an agreement on how to avoid a government shutdown. House Republicans have drafted yet another Continuing Resolution to keep the government running – this time for just one week – that would cut a further $12 billion from the budget but would fully fund the military through October 1. (The GOP is calling it the “troop-funding” bill.)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has already rejected the CR, saying the Republicans are not “solving problems, they’re stalling. They’re procrastinating. That’s not just bad policy, it’s fantasy.”

House Speaker John Boehner says he is serious about a solution, but as the chief negotiator for the Republicans, he has his hands full managing the expectations of the GOP’s Tea Party contingent. Boehner has tried to temper internal party conflicts with meetings to “educate” freshmen on the political and financial risks of a government shutdown. It has widely been reported that he believes Democrats would score the political victory if a FY2011 Budget is not passed by tomorrow. Boehner has been taking time this week to meet with the “cut it or shut it” crowd within his party’s ranks to push for some compromise – and it could work. “It’s helped a lot of freshmen see the bigger picture,” said Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama. “You could see a lot of freshmen evolving and growing and maturing as legislators.”

But it still might not be enough. Congressional rules make it particularly difficult to push through the necessary legislation within the next two days, at which point a shutdown would go into effect. House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy has said compromise would not be necessary to pass the newest CR, if he can get his entire party’s support. Without it, members of our armed forces could see their paychecks withheld, the IRS would stop processing paper tax returns, hundreds of thousands of federal employees would be furloughed, and all small business loans would be placed on hold.

President Obama is calling Speaker Boehner and Senator Reid back to the White House at 7 p.m. today. Stay tuned.

Compact urbanism can work in the suburbs, like Bethesda, Maryland. Image: Maryland Sierra Club

“Growing Wealthier: Smart Growth, Climate Change, and Prosperity” starts with the simple assertion that accessibility – “bringing origins and destinations closer together” – is, after all, “the very reason that cities exist.”

“You want to have your choices nearby so you can meet your daily needs as efficiently as possible,” said report author Steve Winkelman.

By separating residential areas, commercial services, and places of employment, suburban planning requires that people travel long distances to meet their needs. All those miles used to be viewed as a measure of economic progress.

“[Vehicle Miles Traveled] and GDP have grown concurrently since World War II and in lock step for much of that time,” the report states. But around 1996, GDP began growing faster than VMT, and, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, “the importance of travel as a component of the U.S. economy has been declining since the early 1990s.”

Indeed, CCAP’s research shows that states with lower VMT per capita tend to have higher GDP per capita.

Excessive travel is more likely to be an economic detriment than a benefit. Ironically, GDP counts as economic productivity many of the counterproductive aspects of motorized travel, such as fuel consumed waiting in traffic jams, oil spills, vehicle repairs and medical treatment resulting from collisions, costs of air pollution, and defense operations to protect U.S. petroleum interests around the world. In fact, many costs of sprawling land use patterns (particularly increased infrastructure) themselves boost GDP figures.

The authors also urge us to distinguish between economically productive travel and what they call “empty miles.” It’s like differentiating between empty calories and nutrition.

“A lot of driving that most people are doing nowadays is not helping them economically,” said report author Chuck Kooshian. “Although the VMT has been going up per capita, as we’re making trips to the grocery store five miles to get some milk, and we’re taking the kids out driving to go trick-or-treating, and driving to the park to walk our dog, this is not helping the average household economically. It might be helping the Saudis.”

From the Center for Housing Policy's 2006 report, “A Heavy Load: The Combined Housing and Transportation Burdens of Working Families.” Is the strangulation of the suburbs by rising transportation costs really contributing to GDP?

Economic benefits from walkable, bikable neighborhoods aren’t calculated by GDP alone. They’re also calculated in the drop in health care costs when people get more exercise. The authors cite a study in Seattle, where researchers found that with every five percent increase in the overall level of walkability, there was a 32 percent increase in walking or biking, and Body Mass Index was reduced.

Not to mention the economic impact of the real estate boom in compact urban areas, relative to the suburbs. The authors say that in Denver, homes within a half-mile of stations on the Southeast light rail line rose in value an average of 17.6 percent between 2006 and 2008, while home values in the rest of Denver declined by an average 7.5 percent.

Will driving 2.93 trillion miles again next year help us become healthier and wealthier? Not likely.

The CCAP report focuses largely on economic benefits of compact development, but it also addresses climate change – and comes to the opposite conclusions that Pew came to in its report touting clean car technology as the only viable avenue toward carbon reduction.

If the U.S. is to meet the goal of reducing emissions by 80 percent by 2050, CCAP says clean car technologies like those lauded in the Pew report won’t be sufficient. Public transportation can help: mass transit produces, according to a study by APTA, about 45 percent less carbon dioxide per passenger mile than travel by private vehicles. But in the end, we have to give people the option to drive less. And not even that much less: “The actual drop in miles driven per person that is required is relatively modest: We calculate that a 9 percent reduction in per capita VMT (roughly equivalent to each person driving 2.5 miles less per day) will be sufficient.”

California's lack of bold transportation policies and transit investment points to a failure in Sacramento. Photo: aquafornia

A new report from NRDC and Smart Growth America — which examines what all 50 states are doing to curb greenhouse gas emissions from transportation — lauds California as the most progressive state on policy, but points out that its transportation and spending priorities don’t match the bold blueprints, particularly as it relates to public transit.

It all points to Sacramento, where legislators have continuously raided the only dedicated fund for transit, leading to massive cuts statewide.

The report praises the state’s smart-growth law, SB375, as a model for other states, noting that “it puts in place a strong framework that can be used to drive better coordination between transportation and land use, and, of particular relevance to this analysis, to do so in a way that reduces GHGs.” It remains uncertain, however, “whether SB 375 will deliver results on the ground as opposed to just changes in planning documents.”

In September, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) adopted ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and 2035, a move that will compel the state’s metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to better integrate land use and transportation planning. The real test for SB375 will come at the local level as MPOs draft plans to meet the targets.

Unless the state prioritizes investments in sustainable transportation, California’s progressive policies will continue to be undermined.

“Huge cuts to public transit threaten these (policy) gains and could lead to even more devastating consequences for California communities and the economy,” said a joint press release from Smart Growth California, NRDC, TransForm and the Sierra Club of California. “In California, transportation policies and spending decisions are not in line with the state’s bold commitments to reduce the amounts of carbon dioxide and other emissions being pumped into the air.”

Last year, TransForm released a study that found that good access to public transit in major metropolitan regions could save California residents $31 billion a year and reduce GHGs by 34 percent.

“By failing to increase investments in transit — and worse, by drastically cutting transit in recent years — California is working against its own interests and missing key opportunities to save money, rebuild the economy, create jobs, and build the transportation system needed for the next hundred years,” the joint statement said.

Graham Brownstein, TransForm’s statewide policy director, said it’s unclear what the upcoming legislative season holds for public transit. Considering the funding restraints imposed by Proposition 26, the coming year is going to be especially challenging as legislators attempt to lift the state out of its financial mess. Sustainable transportation advocates are hoping to work with legislators to craft a long-term funding solution for transit, as well as walking and biking infrastructure.

“This is not a mystery. People do understand this, but it’s such a big problem and the solutions are so politically and economically difficult that we just haven’t seen the leadership that I think is ultimately needed to really drive through the necessary reforms,” said Browstein, adding that he sees it as a “moral hazard” problem.

“Nobody wants to be the first legislator to stick out their neck, and so, it really does remain to be seen. We are hopeful that with the new governor, that with some of the new folks in the Legislature, the politics may shift a little bit in this session and we may see some leadership on transit funding issues.”

Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), center, and John Kerry (D-MA), right, with onetime climate bill cosponsor Lindsey Graham (R-SC) at left. (Photo: CSM)

"This is one of those cases where we really can't even talk about the merits of any portion of the bill because the fundamental position is flawed," Millar said.

Referring to the legislation's promise of funding for the clean transport and land-use grants known as "CLEAN TEA" and TIGER, he added, "Many of those are very good ideas … but you can't make those ideas work if there's no significant funding to make them work, and this bill would aggravate the funding situation for public transit."

John Horsley, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), was more direct in outlining where state DOTs want to see the Senate climate bill's fuel revenues directed. "Channel[ing] every dollar through the highway trust fund," he said, would help the industry break through a congressional stalemate and win passage of a new six-year federal transport bill.

Stephen Sandherr, CEO of the Associated General Contractors, and Pete Ruane, president of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, echoed Horsley's interpretation of the new fuel fees in the climate bill -- which are imposed on oil companies and refiners but are likely to be passed along through higher gas prices -- as a de facto "user fee" on drivers.

The climate proposal, Ruane said, does "nothing more than finance a lot of goals, which are enviable in part, on the backs of transportation users."

It remains to be seen whether the transportation industry's combative stance against the partial diversion of the bill's transportation revenue, billed as a "call for a rewrite" of the climate legislation, will help force senators into restructuring the measure. Ruane said he "like[s] the odds" facing the four groups.

But a spokesman for Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) said that APTA, AASHTO, and 25 other industry groups mis-estimated the amount of revenue set aside for transportation in a letter outlining their concerns that was sent today to Kerry and his chief climate bill co-sponsor, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT).

“Let’s get the facts straight," Kerry spokesman Whitney Smith said via email. "This bill invests more than $6 billion annually in transportation infrastructure, which is more than any other comprehensive energy and climate bill and more than twice what's claimed in this letter. In effect, the letter advocates a policy that would accelerate emissions from the transportation sector and increase our dependence on foreign oil. That's not good for anyone, especially consumers."

One congressional source was befuddled by APTA's move to "bit[e] the hand that feeds them" by criticizing a climate bill that stands to give broad, lasting benefits to rail and bus systems.

“Perhaps these groups are confused about the purpose of the climate bill: It’s to reduce emissions, not increase them," the source told Streetsblog Capitol Hill. "The Kerry-Lieberman bill invests more money in transportation than any of the previous climate bills. Instead of working constructively to increase that investment, they are biting the hand that feeds them. Why is APTA advocating for a strategy that will decrease the amount of climate money going to transit? Transit makes out like a bandit in the Kerry-Lieberman bill.”

APTA's alignment with AASHTO and the construction industry groups marks a split of sorts from the Transportation for America (T4A) infrastructure reform coalition, which has praised the upper-chamber climate bill's focus on investing in clean transport projects while taking no official position on the legislation as a whole.

The Senate climate plan provides "a new source of revenue" for transportation, T4A spokesman David Goldberg said in an interview. "This is not a gas tax, and it's not conceived of as a supplement to the highway trust fund, for whatever the business-as-usual, run-of-the-mill highway trust fund projects are."

How big would that new source of transportation revenue be, relative to the total amount raised by the Senate climate bill's new fuel fees? APTA and AASHTO claim in their letter that more than three-quarters of total fuel fees would be used for non-infrastructure purposes:

In 2013, fees from on-road fuel consumption [under the climate proposal] would generate at least $19.5 billion.  Instead of returning revenue from these fees to improving the transportation system, the bill diverts at least 77 percent of the funds away from transportation infrastructure investment. As carbon prices increase, the bill diverts as much as 91 percent of fuel revenues.  Of particular concern, the bill limits new investment in the Highway Trust Fund to $2.5 billion per year, far below the amount the bill raises from system users. 

As Kerry's office pointed out, however, the industry groups' math appears to lowball the amount of funding set aside for transportation. The 77 percent estimate would yield an annual pot of less than $4 billion, while Kerry and Lieberman have estimated that transport would receive upwards of $6 billion during the first several years after their legislation takes effect.

In
a release previewing its joint press conference with AASHTO, scheduled
for this morning, APTA said the Senate bill’s use of new fuel fees
for purposes beyond infrastructure, such as paying down the federal
deficit, "would harm efforts to pass
a new surface transportation bill and would also greatly impair the
ability of
states, counties, cities and transit systems to reduce our dependence
on foreign
oil and reduce transportation-related emissions."

Does the Senate climate bill include a user fee? That depends on how the term is defined. (Photo: Pop and Politics)

The
central complaint raised by mainstream transport players boils down to,
as American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials
(AASHTO) executive director John Horsley put it in a statement, the Senate bill’s "preemption" of user-fee revenue that historically has gone into the nation’s dwindling highway trust fund.

"Congress
can ill-afford to consider any legislation that" siphons off money from
the trust fund, which has required more than $30 billion in
replenishment from the general Treasury over the past 18 months,
Horsley said.

Stephen Sandherr, chief of the Associated General Contractors — a backer of the Senate effort
to bar the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating
greenhouse gas emissions in the absence of congressional action –
echoed that sentiment in his own statement on the upper-chamber climate proposal.

"[B]y taking funds raised through the proposal’s new transportation fees
and committing all but a small percentage to unrelated spending, the
legislation leaves our aging and inefficient roads, airways and transit
systems vastly underfunded," Sandherr said.

But
does the Senate climate bill impose a user fee on transportation fuel
consumers? The text of the measure specifically requires "each refined
[fuel] product provider" to purchase emissions permits from the EPA on
a quarterly basis at a fixed price, with no permit trading allowed.
Horsley’s depiction of those charges as a "user fee" relies on the
considerable likelihood that oil companies and refiners would pass on
the cost of those emissions permits to consumers in the form of higher
gas prices.

In the meantime, how much of the revenue raised by the bill’s new fuel permits would infrastructure receive?

The American Road and Transportation Builders Association estimated last week
that the Senate plan would raise $20 billion from the new charges on
oil producers and refiners, with about $6.25 billion of that divided
into equal parts — one-third for the highway trust fund, one-third for
competitive federal grants similar to the TIGER program, and one-third for local land use projects, in the style of the so-called "CLEAN TEA" proposal.

Sens.
Lindsey Graham (R-SC), left, Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), center, and John
Kerry (D-MA), right, began their climate talks in December. (Photo: Getty)

That money for infrastructure would be
divided into three equal parts, according to the legislation.
One-third would go into the nation’s cash-strapped highway trust fund
– with a mandate to set aside the funding for projects that
decrease greenhouse gas emissions – while another third would go
towards competitive federal grants in the style of the stimulus law’s
Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER)
program. 

A final third would go towards local land-use planning,
as envisioned in the so-called “CLEAN TEA” bill championed by
Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE).

“We want to make this the Senate
where we finish the job and cast the decisive vote for the future,”
Kerry told reporters at a packed Capitol Hill press conference where
veterans’ groups and industry representatives lent their support to
the legislation.

The
climate bill also takes a step towards requiring a set of national
transport objectives – a longtime goal of reform groups – by
giving the U.S. DOT and Environmental Protection Agency one year to
propose “national transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions
goals” as well as unified strategies for states and metro areas to
measure their compliance with those goals.

State
and local transportation planners would then have two more years to
draft plans for emissions reduction, using a variety of strategies
named in the bill, including transit-oriented development, high-speed
rail, zoning changes, and promotion of biking and walking. Any areas
that do not propose plans for reducing transport emissions would be
declared ineligible for the proposed “CLEAN TEA” grants.

The
bill states that emissions allowances set aside for the highway trust
fund “shall be used to promote the safety, effectiveness, and
efficiency of transportation,” specifying that the money should be
used in accordance with the principles of the “CLEAN TEA”
package. But the legislation did not specify how such a firewall
surrounding highway trust fund money would be enforced within the
U.S. DOT.

Nonetheless, transportation reformers hailed the bill as a step forward.

"The authord deserve
high praise for ensuring that revenues generated from the transportation sector
go in part toward meeting the growing demand for more, better and cleaner
travel options," Geoff Anderson, co-chairman of the advocacy group Transportation for America, said in a statement.

Carper, in a statement on the bill’s release, said the addition of "CLEAN TEA" language "puts us on the right path to reduce
transportation emissions and oil consumption and improve our nation’s
crumbling transportation infrastructure … I hope we can continue to build bipartisan support for
infrastructure investment as part of the comprehensive climate bill as we
move through the legislative process."

Even
as lawmakers, aides, and advocates picked through the substance of
the nearly 1000-page bill, its political future remained very much in
doubt.

An
aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) warned recently that
the measure may not reach the upper-chamber floor this year unless
Democratic leaders see a path to reaching the 60-vote threshold
necessary to break a certain GOP filibuster. The onetime Republican
cosponsor of Kerry and Lieberman’s effort, Lindsey Graham (SC), did
not appear at today’s unveiling, though he vowed in a statement to
consider the legislation.

We
should move forward in a reasoned, thoughtful manner and in a
political climate which gives us the best chance at success,”
Graham said, reiterating his previous conclusions that the Gulf oil
spill and simmering immigration debate “have made it extremely
difficult for transformational legislation in the area of energy and
climate to garner bipartisan support at this time."

Answering the perception among
many Hill observers that the climate bill’s odds of passage are slim
at best, Kerry decried what he described as an attitude inside the
Beltway that assumes a broad climate bill would be “dead on
arrival, replaced by a watered-down energy bill or nothing at all.”

Nonetheless, Reid indicated
earlier this week in an interview with Univision that he would be
open to moving forward with a smaller energy bill this year that did
not include broad emissions cuts.

The
two senators replaced their initial plan for a linked fee on
carbon-based motor fuels, which became politically toxic for the
White House and Graham after critics branded it a new gas tax, with a
fixed price for emissions permits that oil producers and refiners
would have to purchase at the end of each quarter. Those permits
could not be traded among businesses or “banked” for later use,
and any over- or under-supply would count against the next quarter’s
allocation.

We
took refiners and fuel providers out of the market,” Kerry and
Lieberman’s offices said in a summary of the bill’s transport
section. “Instead of having them participate in the market for
allowances, we made sure the price of carbon was constant across the
industry.”

(ed. note. This post was updated to add comment from Carper’s office.)

The
legislation no longer includes its originally conceived "linked fee" on
motor fuels — which was quickly branded as a gas tax increase, alarming Graham and the White House while catching
many members of the transport industry off-guard. But how does the
Senate climate bill address the 30 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas
emissions that come from transportation?

The Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin has an early look,
reporting that the transportation section makes room for a "cap" on
emissions but eliminates the "trade" aspect of the House-passed climate
bill:

The transportation sector will not have any allowance trading, sources
said. Instead, companies will have to buy quarterly carbon allowances
that would be based on the average price in the previous quarter; the
fee would be tacked on at a stage known in the industry as "the rack,"
which is after the fuel has left the refinery but before it reaches gas
stations.

The bill would put electric utilities first in line for a
sector-specific emissions cap, with other fossil fuel-using industries
to follow, according to a report in National Journal
that also includes a link to a leaked four-page summary of the measure.
That summary suggests that the transportation industry may be pleased
with the measure, referencing annual funding of "over $7 billion" for
infrastructure.

For more details on how the legislation would affect U.S. infrastructure, check this space tomorrow …

Indeed,
the analysis concludes with a candid assessment that the nation’s
existing methods of transportation and land use planning have generated
an unsustainable reliance on fossil fuel consumption:

The ingenuity of transportation planners and engineers has produced a
vast network of transportation infrastructure and services to support
the mobility and economic vitality of the Nation. However, our historic
approach to transportation and land use has created an energy-intensive
system dependent on carbon-based fuels and automobiles.

The authors, including three dozen aides at the U.S. DOT’s Center for
Climate Change and more than a dozen private consultants, also take a
direct tone in evaluating the various emissions-cutting policy
proposals that are available to the Obama administration.

For
instance, the analysis identifies several upsides to increasing the gas
tax, which has "a strong precedent for [its proceeds] being dedicated
to transportation investments," as opposed to a broader carbon tax or
cap-and-trade system, where multiple competing interests would — and did,
as the House climate bill shows — lay claim to a share of the
resulting government revenue to help finance efficiency upgrades.

The
major downside of a gas tax hike to spur emissions cuts, according to
the analysis, would be its risk of exacerbating economic inequity for
businesses and lower-income workers dependent on auto travel. But the
debate is moot, as the U.S. DOT authors remind their congressional
audience, because "an increase in the federal motor fuel tax is not
proposed by the current Administration, given the economic recession."

The
analysis is also open about the unnavigable politics of setting lower
speed limits, despite their potential to yield "an immediate and
significant impact on [greenhouse gas] reductions as well as yield
substantial safety and air quality co-benefits." The U.S. DOT authors
wrote:

Public resistance is likely to be high, and
an aggressive education program and strong political leadership would
be required to gain broad support. Delay costs could be incurred in
goods movement and passenger travel. … In addition, this strategy
would require enhanced enforcement and could impose considerable costs
on States to pay for increased traffic monitoring and enforcement.

A
complete copy of the U.S. DOT analysis, including its comparison of the
emissions-reducing benefits of better land use planning (minor to
moderate) and fuel-efficiency improvements (moderate to high) is
available for download here.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), one of the new NEPA bill’s sponsors, holds up a copy of the Senate climate legislation. (Photo: AP)

The GOP senators said their bill
was aimed at ensuring the government could not delay new road and
power-plant construction to gauge its climate impacts under the
precepts of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). That
40-year-old statute that requires local planners to conduct reviews of
any transport project that could significantly impact the health of
surrounding areas.

"As it stands, NEPA is
subject to frequent abuse by radical environmentalists who want to use
litigation to impose their agenda on federal agencies," Sen. David
Vitter (R-LA), one of the measure’s sponsors, said in a statement. "Our
bill seeks
to prevent that abuse."

The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), responding to a petition from green groups, issued draft guidance
in February that asked agencies to evaluate the climate impacts of new
projects estimated to increase emissions by 25,000 metric tons or more
of CO2 — the same level that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
used for its rule on mandatory reporting of greenhouse gas production.

As the EPA noted in its explanation of the 25,000 metric ton threshold,
such a level of emissions would be equivalent to 4,600 new passenger
cars or the energy use of 2,3000 new homes.

The CEQ’s guidance is not set to become final until after a period of public comment ends next month.

Should
the approach California used in SB 375 (being signed into law above) be
applied to a congressional cap-and-trade climate bill? (Photo: EcoVote)

But what does Mary Nichols,
chair of the California Air Resources Board and administrator of the
state’s landmark effort to cut emissions by changing development
patterns, think of the idea of tackling sprawl via climate legislation?

"I don’t necessarily think SB 375
[the California land-use bill] should be in a cap-and-trade bill,"
Nichols said today during a session of today’s Transportation Research
Board (TRB) conference devoted to climate change.

The
provocative question of how important a congressional climate bill
would be to transportation was first raised by EMBARQ program director Nancy Kete, a veteran sustainability advocate.

Asking
the TRB audience to consider that "whatever happens on climate change
really is not going to have much impact on transportation," Kete
praised the climate bill’s grants for transit and land-use planning but described them as unsuitable for achieving "significant, short-term" pollution reduction.

Nichols’
uncertain perspective on the path to addressing transportation — which
produces 40 percent of California’s emissions and 30 percent of total
U.S. CO2 — through climate legislation may surprise some, but it
tracks with what she described as an "unsettled" political climate
surrounding the issue of pollution limits.

Indeed, Nichols’
remarks today emphasized the importance of a federal climate plan that
did not attempt to preempt the regulations of individual states, and
California is one of several seeking a go-slow approach to greenhouse gas restrictions from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

So if climate change legislation, which faces
considerable resistance from Senate Democrats, isn’t the vehicle to
begin remodeling the nation’s transportation planning system, what is?
Kete proposed a shift in focus to the six-year federal transport bill
– though its political future is as murky as the climate measure’s.

Yet Kete’s suggestion brought a telling remark from John Stoody, an aide to conservative GOP senator Kit Bond (MO).

<

Bond has fought the proposed Senate climate bill tooth and nail, releasing
a report that used some dubious math to re-brand it as a "$3.6 trillion
gas tax." Such heated rhetoric suggests that Bond would be opposed to
higher fuel taxes in any form, but Stoody suggested that a gas-fee
increase would be on the table to help fund a new transportation bill.

Referring to estimates that climate legislation would increase gas prices by anywhere from about three cents per gallon to 13 cents
per gallon every year, Stoody said: "If the cap-and-trade bill is
sucking that amount of money out of the system … that much more money
[is unavailable] to pay for a highway bill."

Stoody wondered
aloud whether the climate bill’s projected effect on fuel prices
"actually hurt[s] prospects for a highway bill."

Given Bond’s record,
Stoody’s assessment is unlikely to dissuade transportation reformers
and green advocates from pursuing both a new transportation bill and a
climate bill that dedicates new grants to local planning.

But
Nichols’ and Kete’s inclination to look beyond Congress for
emissions-cutting land use changes could signal the shape of things to
come as the midterm elections approach and Washington’s already meager
appetite for political risk grows even thinner.

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) described the Copenhagen talks this week as a motivator for Senate climate action. (Photo: Getty)

The CBO found that the Senate environment committee’s climate bill, which would nearly triple
the House’s investment in clean transportation, would decrease the
federal deficit by "about $21 billion" during its first 10 years and
result in net spending decreases even after that point.

Environment panel chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) was elated by the CBO’s report [PDF],
which also attached a $16 billion estimate to the bill’s 10-year
funding for transit, land use, bike-ped infrastructure and other green
transport.

Boxer said in a statement:

The CBO score shows that there is a way to design a clean
energy and climate bill that is fiscally responsible and gets the job done
– while protecting the health of our families and the planet.

But unfortunately, the money-saving news may not be enough to save the environment committee’s framework, which sparked a GOP boycott and fears that moderate Democrats from coal-dominant states would ultimately withhold their votes.

Boxer’s
co-sponsor on the climate bill, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), is separately
working with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) on
a compromise climate proposal aimed at winning 60 votes in the upper
chamber of Congress.

That bill is expected to include new
subsidies for nuclear power as well as an emissions cap lower than the
environment panel’s version. Whether it maintains a respectable level
of support for clean transportation remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Boxer’s GOP counterpart on the committee, Sen. Jim Inhofe (OK), stopped in Copenhagen for just two hours today to crow that a U.S. climate bill has "zero" chance of winning congressional passage.

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.

Since
most Americans aren’t all that familiar with walkable urbanism, the
question of how to generate public support for more sustainable
development patterns inevitably arises. John Inglish of the Utah
Transit Authority shared some of the successes on this front from his
home state. It’s a bit of an old story, but it’s a good one: In the
late 1990s, the public-private venture Envision Utah began a campaign to shape regional growth in the Salt Lake City region. Through a series of public workshops, they built support for smart growth strategies that became state law in 1999.

How
did they do it? Inglish focused on the sheer fiscal common sense of
walkable urbanism. When presented with the fact that transit investment
produces huge savings in overall infrastructure costs, Utahns got on
board. By 2020, a transit-oriented growth scenario would save some $15
billion, which would otherwise go to roads, sewers, and other utilities
under the sprawling business-as-usual scenario. "That’s more money for
schools and parks," Inglish said. "The community was not as
conservative when faced with the realities as had previously been
thought."

Unfortunately, the audio turned spotty during
Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s turn at the podium. To substitute,
here’s an excerpt from his interview with Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman, in which the mayor marvels at Copenhagen’s bike culture, visible even deep inside city hall:

MAYOR
JOHN HICKENLOOPER: …here we are in Copenhagen. Thirty-seven percent
of the people in this city, when they go to work in the metropolitan
area, ride a bicycle to work. I mean, it’s remarkable. Their goal — I
met yesterday for an hour with the deputy mayor of the environment and
transportation, Klaus Bondam, and Klaus Bondam described how their next
goal is to hit 50 percent. I mean, to have half your population, when
they go to work on bicycles, they’re healthier, the air is cleaner,
there’s less carbon emissions, you save money. I mean, the benefits are
dramatic, and you can see the difference just when you walk down the
street.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, we were just in the city council
last night at like 10:30, 11:00. The whole bottom floor of this
century-old building is filled with not only bicycle racks, but
bicycles that fill them.

MAYOR JOHN HICKENLOOPER: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: And city council members, the guards, everyone are riding in and out of the city council on their bicycles.

MAYOR
JOHN HICKENLOOPER: Yeah. When I flew in, the fellow next to me on the
plane is a hotshot young technology expert, makes a huge amount of
money — doesn’t own a car, rides his bike. You know, he says, “It’s
healthier. It’s more fashionable.” It’s — you know, it’s what his
friends do. And I think that’s the whole thing that — when you get to
public sentiment, I mean, what Lincoln was talking about. We need to
change our public sentiment so people want to do these things. And it’s
not government coming down and being punitive, but it’s creating a
change, a transformation in our attitudes.

Only two cities of more than a million people are known to have a bicycling mode-share over 30 percent: Amsterdam and Copenhagen. As Rutgers urban expert John Pucher has documented, cycling's vibrantly high percentage of urban trips throughout Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany was not the product of amorphous cultural factors. Rather, it came about through public policies that not only made cycling safe and convenient but also made driving costly and cumbersome.

Free parking for electric cars would go against the grain of longstanding policies, like the decision to pedestrianize the Strøget, shown here in 1935, when private cars were still allowed. Photo: Copenhagenet.

The government of Denmark this week unveiled a package of incentives to jump-start the sale and use of electric cars. As the New York Times reported on Wednesday, each new electric car comes not just with a per-purchase subsidy of $40,000, but with this stunning perk: free parking in downtown Copenhagen.

Free parking, as UCLA Professor Don Shoup has taught us, comes with a high cost: greater car use. The more valuable and pricey the parking space, the greater the inducement to drive when it is given away. In the case of downtown Copenhagen, where parking probably goes for the U.S. equivalent of $25 a day, the inducement will be powerful indeed.

Consider a resident of metropolitan Copenhagen headed downtown from, say, 10 miles away. Even with petrol taxed to a price of $8 a gallon, the fuel cost of the 20-mile round-trip in a 32 mpg car is just five bucks. That's pocket change next to the $25 parking cost. But make parking free, and the $30 car trip can now be made for $5. Econometric models using price-elasticity suggest that the number of trips will roughly triple as a result -- at least until the resulting traffic chokes off some of the increase.

Granted, the parking subsidy applies only to electric cars, so for a while the surge might remain a trickle. But once put in place, subsidies are hard to withdraw. Eventually, the increase in use of electric cars for commuting and other trips into the heart of Copenhagen will take mode share from cycling, walking and transit -- not just directly due to the subsidy for driving, but indirectly because those "green modes" will have become less efficient, less safe, and less valued by society.

But perhaps the most jarring aspect of the new policy is the way the national government is cloaking it in green.

As the Times reported:

"We want to be a test and laboratory country for electric cars, hybrid cars and other new technology," said Lars Barfoed, the Danish minister of transport. "And as host of the climate change conference, that’s made us feel responsible and want to show the world we can do something."

"Doing something" apparently refers to supplying the battery-charging stations with kilowatts generated by wind turbines, which now account for a world-beating 20 percent of the nation’s electricity. While effective use of wind power is a big carbon plus, subsidizing electric car use could easily end as a net negative if it pushes the travel mix to more car use and undermines Copenhagen's urban vitality.

Denmark and Copenhagen are hardly alone in being blinded by alternate-fuel vehicles' green halo. The 2007 Bloomberg congestion pricing plan specified a two-thirds discount for "clean-fuel" trucks, despite the dwindling air quality advantage as cleaner diesel fuels and engines are phased in anyway, and in seeming denial of the additional traffic congestion (as well as reduced toll revenues to support transit).

The veteran energy and transportation specialist Lee Schipper wrote recently in a related context:

Creating a zero-carbon car for China tomorrow won't solve the much bigger problems of urban congestion, traffic fatalities and the paving over of once-beautiful cities to make room for more cars. The discussions should back up. Energy is only a means to an end. What are the ends, urban access and mobility, or cars for a small minority?

Wise words for Danes and Americans alike.

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.

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.

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."

The question now becomes whether Sen. Lindsey Graham (SC), the lone Republican who has shown willingness to work with Democrats on the climate bill, can provide the momentum needed to overcome the Senate's molasses-slow pace.

Even if Graham's work produces an end result that can win over liberals and centrists, the billions of dollars that the environment committee devotes to transportation is not guaranteed to survive that process.

Senate environment chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA), at right, with the panel’s top Republican, Jim Inhofe (OK). (Photo: CNN)

The
GOP gambit is intended to push the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to conduct a complete
analysis of the Senate climate bill, a task that could take upwards of
five weeks.

The senior Republicans on the six Senate committees with jurisdiction over climate change renewed their entreaties in a letter sent yesterday to environment panel chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA). They wrote:

While
such analyses are never perfect, they are an essential aspect of the
legislative decision-making process when policy changes of such
consequence are in play. As is the case with legislation itself, these
analyses are worth the time and resources required not only to get them
done, but to get them done right.

As Grist’s David Roberts observed
on Friday, the Senate climate bill is largely similar to the House
version that was passed in June after in-depth analysis by the CBO and
the EPA. Performing another full workup of the Senate climate bill,
then, would serve little purpose other than to push its consideration
past next month’s global environmental talks in Copenhagen — notching
a political win for GOP leaders.

So how can Boxer take up the
bill with only Democrats in attendance? The answer is a complicated one
that relies on a specific interpretation of committee rules and
precedents; but even if work can begin today, it’s unclear whether amendments to the bill can be considered without a GOP presence.

The Republican senators referred to this outcome in their letter to Boxer:

We
understand that there may be an effort to report [the Senate climate
bill] from the [environment] committee not only without a satisfactory
analysis, but also without sufficient opportunity to address the
bipartisan concerns raised over the course of legislative hearings on
the measure.

In fact, neither Boxer nor Sen.
John Kerry (D-MA), the Senate climate bill’s co-author, likes the idea
of pushing the legislation through its first committee votes without a
debate on amendments. Kerry released a statement yesterday afternoon
noting that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) supported emissions limits during
his presidential run last year and asking "everyone to come back to the
table," sentiments also voiced by Boxer.

Limiting amendments to the climate bill would also have consequences for transportation policy.
Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) has submitted a
proposal to increase the bill’s annual set-aside of revenue for clean
transport by more than $400 million.

If his amendment comes
to a vote, it could well be approved, given that six of the environment
panel’s 12 Democrats have signed on to Carper’s bill dedicating more
climate money to transit. But if no amendments are considered, the
chances of increasing the bill’s clean transport funding — which is
already nearly three times the size of the House version — would get notably slimmer.

Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) (Photo: Baucus 08)

The Senate climate bill calls for a 20 percent reduction in U.S. emissions by 2020, relative to 2005 levels. The legislation also sets aside nearly three times as much money for transit, inter-city rail, and other cleaner-burning transport than a similar bill passed by the House in June.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), a sponsor of the effort to focus more climate revenue on transportation, credited environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) with doing more for transit than her House counterparts.

"It will make a huge difference on the infrastructure we need to conserve energy," Cardin said of the Senate climate bill. "We do subsidize the passenger car more than we do public transportation in this country. We need to change that."

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood also hailed the bill's dedication of valuable emissions allowances to rail, while reminding senators that the economic stimulus law's $8 billion high-speed rail fund would represent only the tip of the iceberg for America's under-performing passenger trains.

"We know [rail] is cleaner-burning," LaHood said, "and we know that when someone's on the train, they're out of their automobile. The benefits will be enormous in terms of getting CO2 out of the air."

But amid the hosannas for the climate bill's transportation provisions were signals of the rough political journey that faces the Senate legislation.

Republicans on the environment panel reiterated their vow to delay a committee vote on the climate bill, which was co-authored by Boxer and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), until they are satisfied with the amount of time given to examine the plan and for analysis to be done by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). All GOP members of the committee left today's hearing before the four Obama administration witnesses had finished taking questions, further underscoring the partisan tension.

And Republicans were not alone in their criticism of the climate bill. Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), chairman of the powerful Finance Committee that plans to claim jurisdiction over emissions allowances -- including those for transit -- said he would pursue a softening of the bill's emissions reductions targets (which are already softer than international goals) and a preemption of the EPA's ability to regulate CO2. Baucus said:

I have some concerns about the overall direction of the bill before us today, and whether it will lead us closer to or further away from passing climate change legislation. For example, I have serious reservations with the depth of the mid-term reduction target in the bill and the lack of preemption of the Clean Air Act's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.