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Climate and Energy Legislation
participate in a multi agency, interdisciplinary, climate adaptation research program. This program would engage both the transportation and climate research communities, with research priorities determined by the information and modeling needs of decision-makers at state and local transportation agencies. This research should include development of advanced climate modeling and integrated climate data and projections, infrastructure and system design standards to improve resilience of transportation in the face of climate change, and risk analysis tools geared towards integrating climate projections with transpor tation planning needs.
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Authorize DOT participation in the National Climate Services program. In parallel with the above recommendation, authorize U.S. DOT funding to support transportation aspects of the National Climate Services data and information clearinghouse recommended by NOAA’s Science Advisory Board.
Authorize and fund DOT participation in an interagency infrastructure mapping initiative. This initiative would develop and make available consistent GIS data for the entire national transportation network and facilities, with a focus on data elements needed for assessing climate vulnerability, such as facility elevation data from LiDAR mapping technology and updates of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) floodplain maps in light of projected climate change.
Require climate adaptation to be addressed in the transportation planning and project development processes, including: Making changes to the transportation planning factors, supporting longer planning timeframes, providing guid ance on the incorporation of quantitative and qualitative climate considera tions and how to address uncertainty. In addition, the planning process should require the maintenance of nationally standardized data sources and modeling techniques for transportation cli mate adaptation planning and for input to project development.
Authorize formulation of a national policy and systematic approach to climate adapta tion for the nation’s transportation infrastructure. This should include establishing procedures for transportation risk assessment and adaptation implementation, and developing a process for inventorying and identifying transportation facilities that are vulnerable to climate change. It should authorize the U.S. DOT to lead an ongoing program for reevaluation of design standards for federally-funded infrastructure investments as progress is made in understanding future climate conditions and the options available for addressing them.
Program and Funding Recommendations
Authorize capital and planning funding support to enhance transportation resil iency, including funding states to conduct inventories of their transportation assets and locations that are vulnerable to climate change. Most impor tantly it should make infrastructure climate adaptation an eligible expense under the core highway and transit programs, based on a comprehensive system inventory and risk assessment.
Climate and Energy Legislation
There is continued support in the Administration and Congress for a combined energy and climate bill. The House of Representatives passed H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, by a narrow margin in June 2009. Although it contains a “Subtitle E — Adapting to Climate Change,” there is concern that adaptation issues, including transportation components, will get lost in the broader debate about cap-and-trade, carbon pricing, and the potential economic impact of these
