The regional initiative is an important opportunity to achieve New York’s climate goals and transform the state’s transportation to be cleaner, healthier, and more equitable.
New York, NY – NY for TCI, a coalition of over 80 health, transportation, environment, business, and clean energy groups from across New York State, today welcomed the Cuomo Administration’s continued engagement on an ambitious regional initiative to provide better public transportation, more clean vehicles, and healthier communities. In a joint statement with other Eastern states, New York committed to continue discussing and developing the initiative, known as the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI), a bipartisan effort to address the nation’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions–the transportation sector. The initiative would do so by requiring oil companies that sell gasoline and diesel fuels to pay for the pollution they cause and investing those payments in healthy, equitable, sustainable, affordable, and accessible transportation for all New Yorkers.
Anne Reynolds, Executive Director of the Alliance for Clean Energy New York and a member of the Climate Action Council, said, “I think it is good news that New York will continue to be engaged in creating the multi-state Transportation and Climate Initiative. There is broad recognition that New York will need serious investment in public transit, electric vehicles, and charging infrastructure in order to meet our mobility and climate goals, especially in underserved communities. TCI will be an effective regional structure for making those investments, and it makes sense for New York to act in concert with other states in the region.”
New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) tasked the Climate Action Council with developing a plan by the end of 2022 to achieve economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions reductions of 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050. The transportation initiative would be a key part of this strategy by helping cut carbon pollution from transportation fuels at least 30 percent by 2032.
Importantly, the transportation initiative incorporates New York’s nation-leading commitments to climate justice and equity under the CLCPA, including commitments to invest at least 35 percent of funds under the transportation initiative in projects that benefit historically marginalized communities, such as environmental justice and low-income communities, and to work with state equity advisory boards, such as New York’s Climate Justice Working Group, to set investment priorities and implement the program.
