Climate Change

Victor Mendez, nominated by the White House to lead the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), spent more than an hour this morning with the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee -- but the most illuminating moment in the hearing came as the clock was running down.

Behind the scenes, we're hearing a lot of sustainable transportation advocates sounding alarms over California Senator Barbara Boxer these days. As chair of the Senate's Environment and Public Works committee, Boxer is going to play a critical role in this year's federal transportation funding effort. Environmentalists want to see transportation policies and funding formulas that encourage reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. But the highway lobby, AASHTO and the EPW committee's ranking Republican and vocal climate change denier, Senator James Inhofe, don't want anything get in the way of their pork-tastic federal highway projects. Environmentalists have come away from meetings and conversations with Boxer and her staff with the sinking sensation that she's going to cave to Inhofe and friends when it comes time to write the transportation bill.

The Municipal Art Society came out with a report yesterday urging New York State to start analyzing greenhouse gas emissions in its environmental review process (SEQRA). MAS argues that the policy could be adopted without changing existing laws, which raises an interesting question to ponder on this Earth Day afternoon: Would the State Senate's latest MTA funding plan pass muster if it were subject to an EIS that factors in climate change?

At the end of March, representatives Henry Waxman and Ed Markey introduced an ambitious federal climate bill. This is the real deal -- the legislative centerpiece of President Obama's effort to combat global warming. Transportation contributes about a third of all greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., so any climate bill will have to green the way we get around to be effective. On that score, however, the draft legislation has some glaring omissions.

Environmentally-conscious citizens of India aren't alone in their concern about the rollout of the Tata Nano, the "world's cheapest car." But in an op-ed piece for Forbes, Projjal Dutta, the director of sustainability initiatives for the MTA, writes that American critics should look to their own example if they expect developing nations to follow a more sustainable path.

"We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that's got to change."

How obsessed is Washington with gas prices? Acting on a Streetsblog post from last week, a reader wrote Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman urging him to support legislation that would bolster funding for Amtrak. In response, Lieberman's office sent a long, long form letter outlining the many ways the senator is -- you guessed it -- working to keep gasoline as accessible as possible.

This image comes courtesy of TrucksDeliver.org, not the Onion.

De Blasio, Jeffries, Gerson, Millman: Will they tarnish their environmental records by voting against pricing?