Getting Back on Track - Climate Change & State Transportation Policy

With a comprehensive climate bill stalled at the federal level, many are turning to the states to make progress toward reducing carbon emissions. Are the states ready? To succeed, many sectors will need to reduce their carbon emissions. In Getting Back on Track, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) examines what states are doing to curb emissions caused by transportation. As such, it is the first report to compare state transportation policy as it affects greenhouse gas emissions and compare performance across the states.


State transportation policy has the potential to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions while also effectively meeting the nation's wide-ranging mobility needs. Few studies have specifically sought to evaluate how states' transportation policies impact greenhouse gas emissions. The NRDC evaluates how well state-level transportation decisions are aligned with efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by examining a selection of key transportation policies currently in place in the 50 states. The findings suggest that there is tremendous potential to make progress on reducing transportation-related carbon emissions. The recommendations in this report suggest ways states can improve their climate performance while meeting their mobility needs.

Evaluating States' Policies to Curb Emissions from the Transportation Sector


This analysis evaluates each state based on 17 policy and spending criteria that have been compared by expert analysis to achieve transportation sector greenhouse gas reductions. States can also implement these criteria independent of local or federal action and each criterion has successfully been adopted in one or more states. The selected evaluation criteria fall into three categories:
1. Infrastructure Policies
2. Investment Decisions
3. Touchstone Policies

The total score and individual Policy, Investment, and Touchstone subtotals for each state can be found in the table. To give additional context to these numbers, each state is further categorized into three scoring tiers as defined below:


Tier 1 (75 - 100):
Most alignment between transportation policy with climate change goals. These states are leading the way in setting transportation policies that support greenhouse gas emissions reduction. However, even these states must strive to do more to support a truly sustainable transportation system.

Tier 2 (25 - 74):
Some alignment between transportation policy and climate change goals. These states are taking some actions that will support greenhouse gas reduction goals, but there are many actions they are not taking. They must do more to get on the right track.

Tier 3 (0 - 24):
Limited or no alignment between transportation policy and climate change goals. Though these states' transportation policies may support climate change goals in some very limited ways, this is countered by many of their other policy choices. Most of the potential to reduce emissions through transportation strategies remains underutilized.

To view the entire article by NRDC and see where Pennsylvania ranks, click here.