Posted by Colin Peppard in Curbing Pollution , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
Infrastructurist brings us another excellent infographic from Martha Kang McGill today. The graphic shows gasoline consumption by state both overall and per capita. The statewide numbers are not terribly surprising - more populous states obviously use more gasoline. But the per...
Posted by Colin Peppard in Curbing Pollution , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming , U.S. Law and Policy
Today is Earth Day. With that in mind, the National Journal Transportation Experts Blog asked this week whether transportation projects need a sustainability rating system like LEED, which is used to evaluate buildings, or EPA's Energy Star program. Unfortunately, as I...
Posted by Colin Peppard in Curbing Pollution , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
Biking is one of the most efficient ways to get around. It's cheap, it's clean, and it's good exercise. Which is probably why Americans are biking more than ever. photo from BikePortland.org Unfortunately, cycling isn't always the easiest way to...
Posted by Colin Peppard in Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming , U.S. Law and Policy
...even so, I was asked to post the initial response to this week's question on the National Journal Transportation Experts' Blog. The question asks how the innovative TIGER program could inform federal transportation policy reform. (I drew from my two previous...
Posted by Colin Peppard in Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming , U.S. Law and Policy
Well, one of them anyway... Today, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced a big move toward putting transit on a more level playing field in federal transportation funding decisions, while encouraging communities to work to maximize the "livability" benefits of transit...
Posted by Colin Peppard in Curbing Pollution , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
To ring in the new year in true NRDC style, last week we released an assessment of the Obama administration's 2009 environmental record. Since then, fellow NRDC staff have been lighting up the Switchboard with a deeper look into key issues from they...
Posted by Colin Peppard in Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
It's been a rough year for Americans. Rough enough that many seem eager to let 2009 fade into the past before it's even over, with hope for a better 2010. Congress seems just as eager to do its part to move...
Posted by Colin Peppard in Solving Global Warming
Much has been made of the Department of Transportation's popular TIGER grant program. When I wrote about these innovative new grants, I concluded that the TIGER program's overwhelming popularity shows how a competitive, performance-based grant program can drive state and local investment patterns by highlighting certain...
Posted by Colin Peppard in Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming , U.S. Law and Policy
In a previous post, I asked why we don't consider the federal transportation bill a major energy bill. Leaving that question aside, on Friday, Senators John Kerry and Barbara Boxer introduced a bill that couldn't be mistaken for anything else:...
Posted by Colin Peppard in Curbing Pollution , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
It's sort of a joke that the federal government is overly-fond of its acronyms. Some are better than others, but there's one for just about every program in each of the federal agencies (which also each have acronyms). In Congress, staff can...
Posted by Colin Peppard in Curbing Pollution , Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
If there were legislation that directly impacted the source of nearly 70 percent of our oil consumption, wouldn't you call it energy policy? If there were a bill that covered almost 30 percent of our global warming pollution, would you call...
Posted by Colin Peppard in Curbing Pollution , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
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...
Posted by Colin Peppard in Curbing Pollution , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
Today, Tom Friedman writes in the New York Times about the politics of gas taxes and energy security. Coincidently, yesterday, Friedman played golf with Obama and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood yesterday. (I wonder what they talked about...) Friedman makes some good...
