The Americans for Transportation Mobility (ATM) coalition, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, will hold a press conference at noon today to call for quick renewal of our federal transportation program. As part of this, ATM supports a gas tax increase to grow the size of the 6-year federal transportation program from $286 billion to somewhere in the neighborhood of $450-$500 billion (as journalist Michael Grunwald noted after the last transportation bill passed, the coalition's acronym is probably not accidental...).

Yesterday, the New York Times' Tom Friedman proposed a gas tax hike as well, to help reduce oil consumption. As an outspoken opponent of action on climate change, the Chamber and Friedman might seem like strange bedfellows.  But each only get half of the transportation policy equation right.

On one hand, ATM's call for greater investment in the transportation system should be heeded. Compared to other wealthy nations, the U.S. invests relatively little in transportation, as a percentage of GDP. On the other hand, America can't afford to ignore Friedman's call to arms on energy and climate security. 

Fortunately, we can accomplish both, if we take the chorus of calls to reform our transportation policy seriously. A federal commission, the state departments of transportation, and several respected transportation policy groups, including the Bipartisan Policy Center, and Transportation for America, have each noted that our transportation policy must be fundamentally reformed. If we fail to see such reform, any increased investment in our broken transportation program would be throwing good money after bad.

The connection between energy, climate, and transportation is obvious. Of the 20 million barrels of oil America consumes each day, more than two-thirds of is used to fuel our cars and trucks. As Friedman has argued for years, meeting this demand for oil leaves America dependent on other nations, making us less secure. Meanwhile, our oil-fueled transportation system accounts for nearly a third of our total global warming pollution.

To get to both halves of the transportation policy equation, we need to increase investment in transportation in a way that also promotes our energy and climate security. A comprehensive new study sponsored by NRDC, Moving Cooler, shows exactly how we can cut oil use and greenhouse gases from while investing in transportation to benefit our communities, enhance efficient mobility and increase convenience. (See our Moving Cooler factsheet)

The report finds that we could cut transportation emissions up to 24 percent by 2050 and reduce oil use by 1.81 million barrels a day by 2050-more than we now import from Saudi Arabia each day. What's more, as a result of the policies studies in Moving Cooler, consumers would save an average of $72 billion annually--nearly twice what the federal government spends on transportation each year.

Meanwhile, we'd be investing billions more in clean transportation: public transit and livable communities to make travel more convenient; freight rail and intermodal facilities to move goods more efficiently; intelligent transportation systems and other road improvements to provide congestion relief.

Less congestion, more convenience. Less pollution, more performance.

Until we have a smarter transportation program that delivers for our communities, our economy, and our energy and climate security, maybe Friedman's proposal for investing gas tax revenue - deficit reduction, health care, and tax credits - isn't such a bad idea.  At least we might be getting our money's worth...