Fact Sheet: U.S. National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization

What's in the Blueprint

In January 2023, the U.S. Department of Energy (U.S. DOE), Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) — collaborating under an interagency memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed September 2022 — released the U.S. National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization (“Blueprint”), a whole-of-government framework of strategies and actions to completely decarbonize the transportation sector by 2050. The Blueprint builds on and complements the Biden-Harris Administration’s Long-Term Strategy of the United States, which establishes an economywide goal of net-zero GHG emissions by 2050, with an interim goal of 50–52% reduction from 2005 levels by 2030.

The Blueprint is designed to serve as a reference for government agencies and other stakeholders to inform “future policymaking and research, development, demonstration, and deployment in the public and private sectors.” To that end, the Blueprint identifies three overarching strategies to fully decarbonize the transportation sector:

1. Increase convenience by implementing design solutions and land-use practices that prioritize access, mobility, and quality of life. 
2. Improve efficiency by enabling more efficient vehicles, transport modes, and systems.
3. Transition to clean options by deploying zero-emission technologies. 

The Blueprint also identifies and provides examples of a variety of actions that agencies and their partners can take to implement decarbonization strategies, including: 

1. Policy and Regulation
2. Infrastructure, Industrial Investments, and Financing
3. Research and Innovation
4. Data and Analytic Tools
5. Workforce Education and Training
6. Stakeholder Engagement and Public-Private Partnership

Each of the strategies and actions identified in the Blueprint are guided by the following principles:

• Implement Bold Actions to Achieve Measurable Results: Prioritize efforts that rapidly and measurably reduce GHG emissions and improve health outcomes.
• Embrace Creative Solutions Across the Transportation System: Evaluate a broad set of solutions to reduce emissions. 
• Ensure Safety, Equity, and Access: Prioritize safety, community engagement, consumer needs, accessibility, resiliency, quality of life, and economic opportunity, particularly in overburdened and underserved communities.
• Increase Collaboration: Leverage interagency expertise and expand partnerships with governments, private industry, community-based organizations, and other stakeholders.
• Establish U.S. Leadership: Position the U.S. as a global leader on clean transportation solutions, well-paying domestic jobs, energy independence and security, and sustainable domestic and international supply chains for clean transportation technologies.

What states should know

The Blueprint is ambitious, in line with federal and state climate targets

The Blueprint lays out the ambitious, science-based emissions reductions needed to achieve the targets established by the Long-Term Strategy of the United States — net zero GHG emissions economy wide by 2050, with an interim goal of 50–52% reduction from 2005 levels by 2030. This is also in line with the statutory and executive targets set by many states. This alignment suggests that there are many potential opportunities for state and local officials to search the Blueprint for strategies that are most ripe for climate action within each of their respective jurisdictions.

The Blueprint is far-reaching and cross-cutting, with critical roles for states

The federal agencies have adopted a broad scope to address the sources of transportation emissions across agencies, jurisdictions, and sectors of the economy. The blueprint reflects the range of policies and programs across modes that are needed to achieve deep emission reductions from transportation, including strategies for vehicle electrification, fuel decarbonization, and VMT reduction. Implementation of these strategies will require officials to leverage unique authorities, resources, and expertise across agencies, departments, and levels of government. 

States have key roles to play in implementing the strategies and achieving the emissions reductions identified in the Blueprint. For example, the federal agencies highlight the leadership role that states have played in advancing the EV market, including through ZEV mandates like the Advanced Clean Cars II and Advanced Clean Trucks rules. States also have considerable flexibility to decide how federal transportation dollars are invested, which has important effects on emissions reduction outcomes.

The Blueprint is guided by equity

Equity is incorporated throughout the Blueprint, including as a means of guiding the types of strategies and the methods of implementation across jurisdictions. This vision of equitable transportation decarbonization includes the coordination of land-use strategies to avoid displacement and promote access to safe and clean mobility options. States have a critical role in centering equity in new and existing transportation planning and investment decision making processes, a necessary step toward achieving equitable transportation systems, as well as the goals of states and the Justice40 initiative.

The Blueprint is a model for whole-of-government collaboration from which states can draw

The Blueprint, along with forthcoming agency action plans, represents the first federal effort to holistically decarbonize the transportation sector, including a framework of collaboration that includes sharing of best practices, research, policy ideas, and resources to align decision making across agencies. States officials can look to this interagency collaboration — as well as other cooperative federal efforts, like the combined U.S. DOE/DOT Joint Office of Energy and Transportation — as a potential model for coordinated transportation decarbonization.