Blog | New State Transportation & Climate Planning Requirements Offer Models for GHG-conscious Investment

A trio of states build upon an emerging body of policies to align transportation investments with climate action planning, demonstrating opportunities for others to follow.

In recent months, three states — Hawaii, Minnesota, and Maryland — have established new requirements to align their transportation investments with state climate goals, adding to the list of promising transportation-focused actions among states with strong climate commitments, which GCC has written about previously. Although these new requirements have come about in different, sometimes novel, ways — through litigation, legislation, and executive order, respectively — the approaches to planning rely upon a set of familiar elements that are already being implemented in a handful of states, such as in Colorado. In each case, the policies require state departments of transportation (DOTs) and their planning partners to ensure that transportation projects support progress toward statutory greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction goals. In addition to the states that have already adopted climate-focused transportation planning requirements, even more have proposed similar policies, including Illinois and New York. 

These examples of climate leadership illustrate a growing recognition of the critical role of infrastructure investments in addressing the largest source of GHG emissions in the U.S. With new federal funding available for electric vehicles and charging infrastructure, state DOTs are helping to achieve national — and, in some cases, state-level — vehicle electrification goals. However, policies to accelerate the deployment of cleaner vehicles alone will not close the transportation climate pollution gap. Beyond electrification, DOTs also have a role to play in planning and investing in climate-smart infrastructure, along with programs that provide more transportation options and help to reduce the number of trips taken by personal vehicles.

Although the contexts and strategies for reducing transportation-related GHG emissions are different for each state, the new examples of planning-related policies from Hawaii, Minnesota, and Maryland can serve as models for other states to consider. 

Hawaii

In June, the State of Hawaii and its Department of Transportation (HDOT) agreed to a landmark settlement agreement with thirteen Hawaiian youth, resolving a two-year constitutional lawsuit and committing the state to take actions that will eliminate emissions from transportation by 2045. Hawaii, the nation’s most petroleum-dependent state, is already facing severe climate harms in the form of sea level rise, wildfires, threats to food security, biodiversity loss, and the loss of sacred land. The settlement in Navahine F. v. Hawai‘i Department of Transportation reaffirms Hawaiian citizens’ right to a clean and healthful environment, including the right to a “life-sustaining climate system,'' as well as the Hawaiian government’s obligation — enshrined in the state’s constitution — to preserve, protect, and maintain public trust resources and meet statutory mandates to reduce GHG emissions, including emissions from the transportation sector.

In the settlement, HDOT commits to develop a comprehensive, science-based plan to decarbonize ground transportation as well as inter-island air and sea transportation, in line with the state’s statutory targets. This includes establishing interim targets for VMT reductions, multimodal transportation options, vehicle electrification, and more. Furthermore, the settlement directs HDOT to ensure that transportation investments are aligned with decarbonization goals, requiring the development of a method to assess the GHG emissions and VMT impacts of projects that are included in statewide transportation plans, in addition to robust investments in electrification. Implementation of this agreement will remain under the jurisdiction of Hawaiian courts to ensure it is enforced.

The Navahine agreement was largely shaped by the unique legal context in Hawaii. However, it also demonstrates strong leadership from HDOT and the Governor’s office, who recognized the importance of decarbonizing transportation and were willing to work collaboratively with the plaintiffs to ensure that the state meets its climate goals.

Minnesota

While the Navahine settlement has garnered a lot of attention for its commitments to align transportation projects with the state’s climate mandate, it’s not the only state with new requirements. In May, the Minnesota legislature passed legislation with the same objective: ensuring that transportation investments are aligned with the state’s climate goals. The new law, H5247, expands the state’s transportation impact assessment framework — established by law in 2023 and discussed in a previous GCC blog post — which requires the state DOT and metropolitan regional planners to assess proposed transportation projects for conformance with VMT and GHG emissions reduction targets prior to making those projects eligible for funding. Projects that are not aligned with the state’s targets must be altered or offset with accompanying low-carbon transportation projects or programs, like bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, before they can be incorporated into transportation plans.

The amended impact assessment framework builds upon a set of recommendations from the state DOT’s Transportation GHG Emissions Impact Mitigation Working Group to improve consistency and allow greater flexibility to consider each project within the context of broader regional multimodal plans. Whereas the previous version of the framework would have only applied to highway capacity expansion projects, the new amendments expand the impact assessment requirements to include any set of highway and multimodal projects to be included in a transportation plan. The changes also allow for evaluation of portfolios of projects, rather than limiting consideration of impacts and mitigation to a project-by-project basis. A technical advisory committee, newly established by the same law, will ensure that impact assessment and mitigation processes are based on sound data and methodologies.

Actions in Minnesota to establish and then amend their innovative impact assessment framework demonstrate that revisions may be needed to address implementation challenges and find what works. Furthermore, each state has its own individual context that may require unique considerations.   

Maryland

Also in June of 2024, Maryland took its own approach to decarbonizing state transportation systems when Governor Wes Moore issued an executive order directing state agencies to take actions to achieve the GHG reductions targets set out in the Climate Solutions Now Act of 2022 and embodied in the state’s Climate Pollution Reduction Plan (CPRP). Governor Moore's order includes directions for Maryland’s Department of Transportation to establish specific VMT and GHG targets for the transportation sector and to develop a process for evaluating GHG emissions attributable to transportation projects as part of the statewide transportation plan. It also establishes an executive Subcabinet on Climate and implements time-based reporting requirements to ensure compliance with the order.

Maryland’s executive action highlights the importance of reliable methods for evaluating and prioritizing transportation investments within a whole-of-government approach to addressing climate change. Implementation of the state’s comprehensive CPRP and fulfillment of its climate goals depend upon reducing VMT and expanding transportation options. Governor Moore’s executive order is an important step to enable these strategies and accompanying emissions reductions from the transportation sector.  

Key Takeaways

These examples demonstrate that the paths to adoption and priorities behind policies to align transportation and climate goals can vary depending on individual state contexts. Although the Navahine settlement in Hawaii presents a novel model for committing states to climate action, it remains to be seen whether similar legal agreements will be applicable in other states. The political and legal contexts that lead to legislative or executive actions appear to be more common. 

Regardless of how the requirements come about, the importance of these policies and their underlying common approach to integrating climate and transportation planning is broadly applicable across states. States with clear climate commitments can learn from the policy models that are emerging in places like Hawaii, Minnesota, and Maryland. In particular, state policymakers and transportation decision makers can consider a few key elements that will be important to the success of these strategies:

1. Targets for transportation-sector GHG emissions and VMT: States with economy-wide GHG reduction goals can start by estimating the share of the state’s overall reductions that will be expected to come from the transportation sector. Sectoral emissions reductions can be further broken down by types of strategies, including electrification and other technology-driven strategies, to identify gaps that may need to be filled by VMT-reducing policies. These statewide targets may also be translated down to the regional or local level to assist with planning at various levels of government.

2. Quantitative evaluation of proposed projects for GHG and VMT impacts: Transparent and data-based methods to quantify emissions and travel impacts are necessary to understand how transportation decision making affects progress toward climate targets. Such assessments are especially valuable early in the transportation planning cycle, before projects are prioritized for funding. 

3. Requirements that selected transportation investments be consistent with planning targets: To align projects that are selected to receive funding with climate goals, policies can require that projects with significant GHG or VMT impacts are changed, offset, replaced, or abandoned. Transparency and accountability throughout the project identification and prioritization processes are important to ensure that planning requirements are met. 

*Ryan Levandowski is an Institute Associate at the Georgetown Climate Center; his work focuses on tracking and analysis of clean vehicles and climate change mitigation policy. Grant Black is a student at Georgetown University Law Center and a Research Assistant at Georgetown Climate Center.