Transportation and Climate Initiative aims to complete design process before end of 2019.

A coalition of nine Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states and the District of Columbia today announced their intent to design a new regional low-carbon transportation policy proposal that would cap and reduce carbon emissions from the combustion of transportation fuels, and invest proceeds from the program into low-carbon and more resilient transportation infrastructure.

Today’s statement , endorsed by Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., describes the goals of such a program, including reducing climate changing pollution, creating economic opportunity, and improving transportation equity for currently underserved and overburdened populations. It also sets a goal of completing the policy design process within one year, after which each jurisdiction will decide whether to adopt and implement the policy.

All the participating jurisdictions are members of the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI), a regional collaboration of Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states and the District of Columbia that seeks to improve transportation, develop the clean energy economy, and reduce carbon emissions from the transportation sector. The work of TCI is facilitated by the Georgetown Climate Center.

Earlier this year, TCI jurisdictions hosted a series of six regional listening sessions that informed today’s statement.

Read the full joint statement.

Statements from state leadership are included below. This page will be updated as more statements are released. Read here for statements of support from businesses, organizations, and other stakeholders.

Statements from State Leadership:

CONNECTICUT

Rob Klee, Commissioner, Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection

“With the approximately 40% of our greenhouse gas emissions coming from the transportation sector, we must accelerate our transition to a low-carbon transportation future. By signing onto the TCI commitment, Connecticut and the region are taking an important step forward to help protect the health and safety of our residents. Over the next year we will work closely with our regional partners to design a proposal that can be adopted by our states and implemented regionally. I am confident this will put us on a path to not only decarbonize our transportation networks, but significantly improve them as well.”