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infrastructure investment and jobs act
'Climate Time Bomb': Infrastructure Law Funds Highways Over Public Transit
"If we want to tackle congestion and the climate crisis, instead of offering platitudes, the next transportation bill needs to offer clean mobility options, like transit, car share, active modes, and electrification," said one analyst.
Feb 29, 2024
The law that the Biden administration has heralded as "a once-in-a-generation investment in America's infrastructure" that would help to "build a clean energy economy" has led to an explosion in state-level spending on highway expansion, leading one transportation advocacy group to project on Wednesday that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will result in more emissions from transport than if it hadn't passed.
The law, officially known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), gave state transportation officials discretion over how to spend money distributed by the $1.2 trillion package, but Transportation for America warned in a new analysis of 57,000 projects that the law has revealed itself to be a "climate time bomb," with more than half of the funds—about $70 billion—so far spent on resurfacing and expanding highways.
Only about $25 billion of the money dispersed to states has been spent on transit and passenger rail, even as Americans clamor for more public transportation options.
As Inequality.orgreported last week, a 2023 nationwide survey found that 71% of respondents believed the U.S. "should be shifting funding from highways to public transit," and 70% said such a shift would be better for people's "health, safety, and economy."
"Considering the billions of federal dollars already spent on highway expansion projects, it's going to take more than self-congratulation over the bill's historic funding to undo the environmental harms."
Just 18% said building more highways and highway lanes would reduce traffic, cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions—of which transportation is already the biggest source globally and in the United States.
Transportation for America found that unless states change course, highway expansions paid for by the IIJA will lead to more than 178 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 and will be only slightly offset by emissions-reducing measures in the law.
"While the IIJA could have been a win for the environment, across the country, states have instead used this once-in-a-generation level of funding to expand roadways the same way they've been doing for years," wrote Corrigan Salerno, a policy associate for the group. "Considering the billions of federal dollars already spent on highway expansion projects, it's going to take more than self-congratulation over the bill's historic funding to undo the environmental harms."
The group noted that the Biden administration advised states to prioritize highway repairs over expansion, but states including Texas and California have forged ahead with plans to increase congested roads' capacity for more vehicles.
"So much of the decision making falls to state departments of transportation," Mary Buchanan, research and policy manager at TransitCenter toldThe Guardian. "There are essentially 50 opportunities to get this right, I guess, or to potentially get it wrong, in terms of how money is being spent."
The analysis was released a day after an Indiana state House committee approved a bill delaying implementation of dedicated bus lanes in Indianapolis to "study the transportation option," with Republicans in favor of the bill saying the state needs to have an "overall conversation about road funding."
One Democratic lawmaker who has advocated for more public transit options in the city "broke into tears," according to local public broadcasting affiliate WFYI, as he called the decision "really, really, really bad public policy."
Indianapolis residents had testified for months against the bill, WFYI reported.
Salerno called on the Biden administration and the U.S. Congress to "explore every means available" to reduce transportation emissions.
"Congress needs to get real—the largest and most growing sector of emissions is transportation," Salerno wrote. "If we want to tackle congestion and the climate crisis, instead of offering platitudes, the next transportation bill needs to offer clean mobility options, like transit, car share, active modes, and electrification—not just the same strategies that got us in this position in the first place."
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The 5th National Climate Assessment Is a Call to Urgent Action
The congressionally mandated assessment finds that the climate crisis is already increasing the number of deaths, injuries, and illnesses in every region of the United States.
Nov 15, 2023
I’ve read dozens of harrowing stories about extreme heat this year, but there’s one I just can’t shake. Ramona and Monway Ison, who were in their 70s, died along with their dog Belle from heat-related causes the very night they were approved for a loan to fix their broken air conditioner. The A/C in their mobile home had been out for days during a brutal heatwave. But due to limited income, mobility issues, and a belief that they were used to the Texas heat, the couple stayed put—and perished as a result.
Heatwaves and other climate-fueled extremes are coming for us all, but they’re coming faster and harder for people with intersecting vulnerabilities like the Isons. That’s one of the main messages from the Fifth National Climate Assessment, released Tuesday by the Biden-Harris administration. The congressionally mandated assessment of the current and future risks of climate change finds that the climate crisis is already increasing the number of deaths, injuries, and illnesses in every region of the United States. Systematic racism, discrimination, and disinvestment are exacerbating these harms, particularly in low-income households, communities of color, and Indigenous communities.
For example, the report repeatedly invokes the threat of heat to workers—particularly farmworkers, who toil for long hours outdoors for little pay. Anyone who’s spent hours doing yard work or outdoor exercise has an inkling of how rough the heat can be. But regular exposure to high temperatures combined with insufficient access to food, drinking water, indoor cooling, and healthcare is a recipe for tragedy. Even workers who don’t die from heat face lost work hours and high healthcare costs.
Cutting emissions will help households like the Isons survive the summers of the future, but adaptation is needed to protect people now.
Lest you think farmworkers dying in the heat is a sad problem, but not your problem, think again. As the assessment states, “These effects on farmworker safety and productivity influence the broader economy through reduced agricultural output and higher food prices.”
So, what’s to be done?
One: We need to drastically reduce the pollution from fossil fuels that’s heating our climate up to dangerous levels. Although the United States still has a lot of work to do to meet its national commitments, historic investments through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 will help move us in the right direction.
Policies that cut climate-changing pollution—known as mitigation—also protect our health by cleaning up the air. In fact, the assessment finds that “The economic value of avoided hospitalizations and premature deaths from mitigation activities is larger than the cost of implementation.”
Two, and just as importantly: We need to reduce the risks of climate impacts that we’re already experiencing today and prepare for additional impacts in the future. This set of actions, known as climate adaptation, is admittedly complex and getting harder the warmer the world gets. Policymakers, funders, and the private sector have also moved far more slowly on adaptation than on mitigation.
But relying solely on mitigation is not an option. Per the assessment, “Even if greenhouse gas emissions fall substantially, the impacts of climate change will continue to intensify over the next decade.” Cutting emissions will help households like the Isons survive the summers of the future, but adaptation is needed to protect people now.
The National Climate Assessment offers multiple adaptation options to protect health, including:
- Making healthcare systems more resilient to climate shocks, such as hurricanes, mass casualty heatwaves, or wildfires.
- Enhancing surveillance of climate-related health harms, including infectious diseases and heat-related illnesses. As the old saying goes, you can’t manage what you can’t measure.
- Early warning systems to help people better understand smoke exposure. A warning system would have been particularly useful this summer, when Canadian wildfires created historically smoky conditions in cities like New York and Washington, D.C.
- Heat-related adaptation, including increased access to affordable, energy-efficient cooling and workplace heat protections.
However, none of these options are sufficient on their own. For example, the Isons would probably still be alive today if their A/C was repaired more quickly or if they had spent a few days with a neighbor. But we can’t air condition our way out of the growing threat of extreme heat, and instead need to rethink how entire neighborhoods and cities are laid out. Similarly, occupational heat standards are essential to protect the workers repairing our roads, delivering our packages, and growing our food. But heat standards will only get us so far without tackling the exploitative labor practices that force heat-vulnerable workers to choose their job over their lives.
In other words, adaptation will have to be nothing less than transformational. That will require upending the historic laws, policies, and practices that are putting Americans in harms’ way and keeping them from living their full, productive, joyful potential. And it requires getting started now.
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Marching for a World Free From Fossil Fuels
Not one new pipeline or drilling rig should needlessly threaten communities and our planet when we know that the end of the fossil fuel era is on the horizon.
Sep 16, 2023
The following is part of a series of opinion pieces Common Dreams is publishing in the lead-up to the March to End Fossil Fuels on Sunday, September 17 in New York City. Read the rest of the series and our complete coverage here.
This Sunday, I will join thousands of people in New York City for the biggest climate mobilization since before the pandemic, urging President Biden and other world leaders to act boldly to stop fossil fuel expansion and extraction.
Among those thousands demanding a just transition away from fossil fuels will be Sierra Club staff, members, and volunteers and allies from Michigan and Wisconsin, representing the years-long fight to shut down Line 5, an aging and deteriorating oil pipeline operating illegally in the Great Lakes and threatening the drinking water of 40 million people.
We will also be joined by representatives from Gulf Coast communities in Texas and Louisiana who already experience disproportionate harms from the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries and are now being put at even greater risk by the industry’s planned expansion of methane gas exports, with almost 30 new or expanded facilities proposed or under construction in the Gulf Coast region alone.
Watching these extreme weather events claim lives and destroy livelihoods is scary, and it is even scarier to think this summer could be just a preview of what’s to come if we don’t change course.
For far too long, these communities and many more have lived with the daily threat of toxic pollution, explosions, leaks, and spills from fossil fuel operations. And they’re not the only ones who suffer the consequences of the fossil fuel industry’s unchecked expansion. The unprecedented heatwaves and devastating wildfires, hurricanes, and floods that have faced communities across the country this summer have made it clearer than ever that we have no time to waste in ending our reliance on the dirty fossil fuels that are polluting our communities and driving the climate crisis.
Watching these extreme weather events claim lives and destroy livelihoods is scary, and it is even scarier to think this summer could be just a preview of what’s to come if we don’t change course. But here’s the good news: We already have the tools to avert the worst of the climate crisis and rapidly transition to a cleaner, more just, more prosperous future by going all-in on clean energy and winding down our use of dirty fuels like coal, oil, and gas.
In fact, the International Energy Agency, the world’s leading energy analysis and policy organization, is now projecting that we are “witnessing the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era” and that the world will hit peak demand for fossil fuels before 2030. According to the IEA, demand will decline earlier than many anticipated, in large part due to the rapid increase in clean energy.
That explosion in clean energy deployment has been accelerated by ambitious policy driven by the Biden administration through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest investments in our climate and clean energy in U.S. history. Collectively, these unprecedented investments will put us on a path to cutting climate pollution by 40% by 2030 while creating over 9 million family-sustaining jobs over the next decade. True to his commitment to do more to advance climate justice than any president before him, President Joe Biden has also taken action to block oil and gas drilling in landscapes sacred to Indigenous communities like the Greater Chaco region and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
But at the same time, the United States remains the biggest producer of oil and gas in the world, and major new fossil fuel projects like the fracked gas Mountain Valley Pipeline, the Willow oil project in Alaska, and gas export terminals on the Gulf Coast are still receiving federal approvals to move forward.
Not one new pipeline or drilling rig should needlessly threaten communities and our planet when we know that the end of the fossil fuel era is on the horizon. As communities across the country are ravaged by extreme weather and countless more are threatened by the daily threat of toxic fossil fuel pollution, we simply cannot afford to compromise or sacrifice any more to the fossil fuel industry.
President Biden has the power to break free from fossil fuels, and he should use it. We are coming together to urge him to stop federal approvals for new fossil fuel projects, phase out fossil fuel extraction in our public lands and waters, and do everything in his power to block dangerous, polluting projects like Line 5, Dakota Access Pipeline, and gas export facilities in the Gulf Coast and Alaska. By doing so, he will build on the important progress his administration has already made toward cutting climate pollution and advancing environmental justice.
We all deserve a world free from fossil fuels. This is a critical moment for our planet and for President Biden to lead the world toward a clean energy future. This weekend we will be in the streets urging him to seize it.
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