WASHINGTON — The U.S. Transportation Department on Thursday introduced it’s proposing to require that state transportation businesses set new targets for lowering tailpipe emissions on the nationwide freeway system.
The division’s Federal Highway Administration informed Reuters states could have flexibility “to set targets that work for their respective climate change policies and other policy priorities, so long as they are in line with the net-zero goals by 2050 set forth in this rule.”
President Joe Biden has set a U.S. goal of attaining a 50-52 % discount from 2005 ranges of economy-wide web greenhouse fuel air pollution in 2030 in a step towards reaching net-zero emissions economy-wide by no later than 2050.
States would even be required to report on their progress in assembly the targets beneath the proposed rule. Currently, state legal guidelines require 24 states and the District of Columbia to set targets and observe their greenhouse fuel emissions. Reuters reported the deliberate rule earlier.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg stated the “approach gives states the flexibility they need to set their own emission reduction targets.”
He famous {that a} $1 trillion infrastructure invoice permitted in November created a $6.4 billion Carbon Reduction Program to supply state and native funding to “develop carbon reduction strategies and fund a wide range of projects designed to reduce carbon emissions from on-road highway sources.”
The proposed rule faces opposition amid ongoing debates about how a lot energy businesses can wield over environmental rules with out congressional approvel.
U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., criticized the proposed rule and stated it lacks authorization from Congress.
In the infrastructure legislation enacted final yr, “Congress included provisions to address climate change and the resiliency of transportation infrastructure in a bipartisan way. This greenhouse gas performance measure announced was not part of that legislation,” she stated in a press release Thursday.
“Unfortunately, this action follows a common theme by both DOT and the administration, which is implementing partisan policy priorities they wish had been included in the bipartisan bill that the president signed into law.”
Source: www.autonews.com
