HR 7 Insanity: Air Pollution Funds Would Pay for Highway Expansion

After the environmental disasters of the 60?s and 70?s helped catalyze the movement to clean up our air and water, Congress declared clean air a national priority in the 1970s and Republican President Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency. On the transportation side, in the transportation bill written in 1991, Congress created a new program called the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program (CMAQ), dedicated solely to helping communities deal with the negative side effects of over-reliance on major roads for rush-hour travel.

A provision in the House’s transportation bill (H.R. 7) upends that intention by opening that fund to construction of regular highway lanes.

The Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program gives states a small pot of funding to help provide other options, promote carpooling, or address other impacts of too many people driving alone at peak hour. Washington, D.C. used some CMAQ funds to kick-start their world class bike sharing program known as Capital Bikeshare, which helps people make short trips throughout the city and part of the region without having to get in a car, a bus or a train. Other cities have used it to fund new transit service in or adjacent to a congested corridor, add new high-occupancy vehicle lanes to provide an option that rewards carpooling on congested roads, or improve the flow of traffic with more intelligent transportation systems.