Background
information
The Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure (Committee) will meet
on Tuesday, February 26, 2019, at 10 a.m. in
HVC-210, the Capitol Visitors Center, to
receive testimony related to “Examining How Federal Infrastructure
Policy Could Help Mitigate and Adapt to Climate Change.” The purpose of
this hearing is to examine the role the transportation sector plays in
global warming, understand the dual track approach of mitigation and
resiliency, and learn from individuals in the public and private sectors
whom have demonstrated pragmatic solutions for reducing carbon emissions
and building resilient infrastructure. The first panel will focus on
ways to mitigate the effects of climate change, by reducing carbon
emissions to reduce the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere. The Committee will hear from representatives of the
California Air Resources Board, Georgetown Climate Center, Stephen M.
Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, Electrification
Coalition, and Airlines for America. The second panel will address how
to make infrastructure more resilient and protect people,
infrastructure, and ecosystems from the impacts of climate change. The
Committee will hear from representatives of the Center for American
Progress, McWane Inc., Center for Strategic and International Studies,
and The Nature Conservancy.
BACKGROUND The United Nations
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that human
activities have caused approximately 1.0°C of global warming above
pre-industrial levels, and are likely to cause a 1.5°C increase between
2030 and 2052 if warming continues at the current rate. Impacts from
global warming are already apparent. 2 Unless we take action to quickly
reverse course, these trends will persist for centuries and will
continue to cause further long-term changes to the environment, such as
sea level rise, changing precipitation patterns, more acidic oceans, and
increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.
MITIGATION
The U.S. Transportation Sector’s Contribution to Global Warming
In 2017, the emissions from transportation accounted for about 28.7
percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, making it the largest
contributor of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Historically, electricity
generation has been the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions,
but the replacement of many coal plants with cheaper natural gas and
rising vehicle miles traveled (VMT) has recently pushed transportation
into the forefront as the largest contributor.
Within the U.S. transportation sector, passenger vehicles and freight
trucks added together account for 83 percent of greenhouse gas
emissions. Aviation contributes only 10 percent of emissions. Other
modes such as rail and shipping play a minor role.
Passenger Vehicles, Light-duty Vehicles, and Freight Truck Mitigation
There are three methods to reduce emissions from passenger vehicles and
trucks, which combined account for 83 percent of greenhouse gas
emissions, and a robust decline in emissions will require all three
methods.
1) Improved Vehicle Efficiency – Reducing the amount of fuel necessary
to move a vehicle will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Traditionally,
Congress has used CAFE standards to reduce
fuel consumption and related carbon emissions, although the current
Administration is considering changes to these standards with a final
rule pending. CAFE standards are within the
jurisdiction of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
2) Switch to Fuel with Less Carbon: Shifting away from fossil fuels and
towards electricity, fuel cells, biodiesel, and fossil fuels with less
carbon content than gasoline or diesel can reduce emissions. In the
current market place, electrification is viewed as the most plausible
replacement for fossil fuel and has the lowest carbon profile.
To find the impact of carbon reduction from switching to a hybrid or
electric car in your state see this link:
https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.html
3) Reduce Vehicle Miles Traveled. Reducing the number of miles driven
will reduce carbon emissions. Providing incentives for more efficient
travel planning, eliminating the need for some trips, and shifting to
more efficient modes will reduce vehicle miles traveled.
Aviation Mitigation
Aviation emissions come largely from commercial carrier jet fuel.
According to the IPCC, aviation represents
approximately 2 to 3 percent of the total annual global
CO2 emissions from human activities. While the
United States does not currently have standards for aircraft emissions
(generally or carbon dioxide specifically), the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) supports several emission-reduction programs and
the industry has taken on initiatives to reduce emissions.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a specialized UN
agency made up of 192 member states, is the primary international body
for regulating global aviation standards. In 2016,
ICAO reached an agreement on the (1) first
international carbon dioxide standards for newly built aircraft and (2)
first-of-its-kind carbon offsetting scheme known as the Carbon
Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA).
CORSIA is an emissions offsetting program
aimed at achieving carbon neutral growth after 2020 for operators that
fly internationally and produce more than 10,000 metric tons of annual
carbon dioxide emissions.
CORSIA has the support of the United States,
U.S. airline industry, and 73 other ICAO
member nations representing 75.96 percent of the international aviation
industry.
FAA Emission Reduction Programs and
Initiatives
1) CORSIA Implementation – To comply with the
recent ICAO agreements, the
FAA and the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) are required to develop regulations regarding aircraft design
standards, emissions data collection, and monitoring. In addition, the
agencies are tasked with implementing the new carbon offsetting system
for U.S aircraft operators. Unlike how the Clean Air Act sets standards
for other modes, here, the EPA must consult
with the FAA on developing any emissions
standards for aircraft, giving the FAA a
central role in creating and enforcing the new
ICAO environmental standards.
2) Continuous Lower Energy, Emissions and Noise (CLEEN) Program – The
CLEEN program is a collaboration between the
FAA and industry to drive the development of
new aircraft and engine technologies that increase fuel efficiency,
reduce emissions, decrease noise, and advance sustainable aviation
fuels. During the first iteration of CLEEN,
the FAA partnered with five companies and had
a total investment value of more than $250 million by end of the
original agreement in 2015. Through cost-sharing partnerships with
industry, CLEEN projects developed
technologies that reduce noise, emissions, and fuel burn. The second
iteration, CLEEN II, currently has the
FAA partnered with eight companies and is
scheduled to continue through 2020.
3) Voluntary Airport Low Emissions (VALE) Program – Through
participation in the Voluntary Airport Low Emissions (VALE) Program,
airports can use Airport Improvement Program (AIP) funds and Passenger
Facility Charge (PFC) revenue to finance low-emission vehicles,
refueling and recharging stations, gate electrification, and other
airport air quality improvements. Through September 2018, this program
funded 105 projects at 51 airports and is expected to reduce ozone
emissions by 1,192 tons per year over the next five years.
4) NextGen Implementation – The FAA continues
to develop and implement NextGen technologies and procedures to
modernize the air traffic control system. NextGen programs include
Performance-Based Navigation procedures (GPS-satellite based flight
paths) and Terminal Flight Data Manager (TFDM) deployment (a surface
management solution), which will reduce aircraft fuel burn and create a
more predictable and efficient flight and ground transportation system
at airports. The TFDM system alone is expected
to create 313 million gallons of fuel savings and reduce more than three
million metric tons of carbon emissions over the life of the system.
5) Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative (CAAFI) –
CAAFI is a coalition of airlines, aircraft and
engine manufacturers, energy producers, researchers, international
participants, and U.S. government agencies working to promote
alternative jet fuels for commercial aviation.
CAAFI has led efforts in research and
development, environmental assessment, fuel testing, and demonstration
and commercialization of alternative aviation fuels.
CAAFI efforts contributed to the creation of
testing protocols and new alternative fuel specifications that have
enabled approvals for aviation to use new fuels in commercial service.
According to the FAA, this is helping to pave
the way to large-scale production and use of these fuels. This
leadership has also helped make aviation a major target market for the
alternative fuels sector.
Commercial Aviation
U.S. airlines have increased fuel efficiency by more than 125 percent
between 1978 and 2017, and they have moved 28 percent more passengers
and cargo in 2016 than 2000, using 3 percent less fuel. This reflects
the industry’s interest in maximizing fuel efficiency, largely
attributed to the fact that fuel consistently ranks as their largest or
second largest expense. Furthermore, the U.S. airline industry has
committed to ICAO goals to increase fuel
efficiency and reduce its environmental footprint. These goals include
(1) achieving annual fuel efficiency improvement of 1.5 percent starting
in 2010, (2) achieving carbon neutral growth starting in 2020, and (3)
reducing net carbon dioxide emissions by 50 percent over 2005 levels by
2050.
To achieve these goals, airlines are investing in fleet design standards
with greater fuel efficiency, prioritizing the adoption of NextGen
technologies, and developing industry coalitions such as the
CAAFI to promote and deploy sustainable
aviation fuels within the commercial aviation industry.
Maritime Mitigation
The maritime industry is taking steps to mitigate its environmental
impacts. Overall, the maritime industry is responsible for approximately
2.6% of global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel
uses. However, the industry is working to reduce those emissions through
several means, including slow steaming, conversion to low sulfur fuels,
and the implementation of mandatory emission reductions in 2020. There
has been worldwide cooperation across the maritime industry to pursue
that goal.
RESILIENCY
The impacts of climate change such as rising sea levels and extreme
weather events can have a serious impact on our ports, airports, rail
lines, roads, bridges, tunnels, locks, canals/channels, waste water
systems, transit systems, pipelines, public buildings, and other
critical infrastructure. Climate trends affect the design of
transportation infrastructure, which is expensive and designed for long
life (typically 50 to 100 years). As climatic conditions shift, portions
of this infrastructure will increasingly be subject to climatic stresses
that will reduce the reliability and capacity of transportation systems
and other infrastructure.
Highways
Climate resiliency activities are eligible for Federal Highway
Administration (FHWA) funding, including vulnerability assessments and
design and construction of projects or features to protect assets from
damage associated with climate change. The Moving Ahead for Progress in
the 21st Century (MAP-21) Act (P.L. 112-141) required states to develop
risk-based asset management plans for the National Highway System and to
consider alternatives for facilities repeatedly needing repair or
replacement with federal funding. The Fixing America’s Surface
Transportation (FAST) Act (P.L. 114-94) added a new requirement for
states and metropolitan planning organizations consider projects and
strategies to “improve the resiliency and reliability of the
transportation system and reduce or mitigate stormwater impacts of
surface transportation” as part of their planning process.
Water Resources
The United States has over 95,000 miles of coastline and approximately
3.4 million square miles of ocean within its territorial sea. Some 53
percent of the total U.S. population lives on the 17 percent of the land
in the coastal zone, and these areas become more crowded every year.
Demands on coasts are increasing, and as coastal areas become more
developed, these communities are vulnerable to hurricanes, storm surges,
and flooding events. Similarly, inland communities are vulnerable to a
changing climate, especially communities that rely on rivers and
streams, and associated water resources infrastructure, for
transportation, water supply, power, and flood protection. For example,
in 2017, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Institute for Water Resources
released a report on the impacts of climate change to the Ohio River
Valley – home to more than 27 million people who live within this
204,000 square mile area. This report modeled how increasingly potent
storms could cause increased river levels and the likelihood of flooding
in low-lying areas; how more frequent and heavy droughts could reduce
river volumes in localized areas, adversely impacting navigation and
power generation that all rely on river flows; and the possible economic
losses from the potential events.
Water Resiliency Accomplishments
Through the biennial Water Resources Development Acts, the Committee has
taken initial steps to ensure that the impacts of climate change are
taken into account in the planning, design, and construction of water
resources development projects, such as flood risk reduction projects
and hurricane and storm damage reduction projects, as well as to promote
greater use of natural and nature-based infrastructure systems that seek
to mimic nature’s resiliency and reduce the effects of extreme weather
events, and seek to develop integrated water resources projects that
address multiple project purposes. Similarly, the Committee amended the
Clean Water Act in the Water Resources Reform and Development Act of
2014 (P.L. 113–121) to make projects increase the resiliency of
waterrelated infrastructure from the impacts of natural and man-made
disasters, including extreme weather events and sea-level rise.
FEMA Resiliency Accomplishments
In 2017, Executive Order 13690—the Federal Flood Risk Management
Standard (FFRMS), which amended the longstanding floodplain management
Executive Order 11988, was repealed. In 2018, Congress enacted language
in the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for
Fiscal Year 2019 (P.L. 115-232) to establish minimum flood mitigation
requirements for all military construction within the 100-year
floodplain.
The FFRMS was developed with significant
interagency coordination during the Obama Administration. It was
intended to assist in reducing the risk and cost of future flood
disasters by ensuring that Federal investments in and affecting
floodplains were constructed to better withstand the impacts of
flooding. The FY19 NDAA language (Sec.
2805(a)(4)) is a similar step toward resiliency—albeit limited to the
Department of Defense—requiring construction of non-mission critical
buildings to two feet above the base flood elevation (BFE) and
construction of mission-critical buildings to three feet above the
BFE.
Congress advanced two additional provisions to incentivize greater
resiliency for future projects receiving Federal funding via the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
First, in the Disaster Recovery Reform Act (DRRA) of 2018 (P.L.
115-254), the Committee authorized the National Public Infrastructure
Pre-Disaster Mitigation (PDM) fund which will be funded as a six percent
set aside from disaster expenses. This will be a more consistent stream
of funding for PDM, allowing for greater
investment in public infrastructure mitigation before a disaster.
Additionally, DRRA clarifies what may be
eligible for mitigation funding, ensuring Federal investments are cost
effective and reduce risk. Until enactment of
DRRA, PDM grants were inadequately and
inconsistently funded by annual and supplemental appropriations.
Second, in the Bipartisan Budget Act (BBA) of 2018 (P.L. 115-123),
Congress authorized the President to adjust the Federal cost share for
FEMA Public Assistance grants on a sliding
scale for States and Tribes that have invested in measures that increase
readiness for, and resilience from, a major disaster (Sec. 20606).
Maritime Resiliency
The U.S. Arctic, as defined in statute, encompasses U.S. territory north
of the Arctic Circle and along the Alaskan coast, including the Aleutian
Islands. Three Arctic seas – the Bering, the Chukchi, and the Beaufort –
border Alaska, and these seas have historically been frozen for more
than half the year. The U.S. Arctic Exclusive Economic Zone contains
568,000 square nautical miles (SNM), of which less than half is
considered by NOAA to be “navigationally
significant.” The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
has designated 38,000 SNM of the
navigationally significant areas as survey priority locations in the
Arctic and estimates that it could take up to 25 years to conduct modern
hydrographic surveys in the priority locations, if resources remain at
their current level.
Currently, most cargo ship traffic is not trans-Arctic; rather it is
regional, focusing on the transport of natural resources and general
cargo to and from widely dispersed communities. While there has been a
recent increase in shipping activity, that increase is more related to a
rise in commodity prices than with the melting of Arctic ice. However,
the January 2019 Arctic sea ice extent was the sixth smallest in the
41-year record, six percent below the 1981-2010 average. While all areas
of the Arctic are seeing increased vessel activity, the Northern Sea
Route along the Eurasian Arctic coast continues to account for the bulk
of Arctic shipping activity.
Numerous governmental and academic reports have identified
infrastructure and operational challenges to maritime transportation in
the U.S. Arctic, including limited satellite coverage and architecture
to support voice and data communications, the lack of a deep-draft port
(accommodating ships with a draft of up to 35 feet), hazardous weather
and ice conditions, and the lack of channel marking buoys and other
floating visual aids to navigation, which are not possible due to
continuously moving ice sheets. In order to ensure safe and efficient
maritime transportation in the region, it is necessary to conduct
surveys to improve nautical charts, improve communications capabilities,
improve weather forecasting and modeling, construct a deep-draft U.S.
Arctic port, and develop community and regional emergency response
networks in preparation for vessel and aircraft accidents and
environmental damage related to increased ship traffic and industry.
While climate change is causing the Arctic to become an emergent area,
it will not solely affect the polar regions. Rising sea level
projections mean that port infrastructure at all latitudes could be at
risk of inundation, higher storm surge, and loss of economic function
costing hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars to mitigate
threats or rebuild/relocate existing infrastructure.
Witnesses:
Panel 1:
- Dr. Daniel Sperling, Board Member, California Air Resources Board
- Ms. Vicki Arroyo, Executive Director, Georgetown Climate Center
- Professor Thomas P. Lyon, Stephen M. Ross School of Business,
University of Michigan
- Mr. Ben Prochazka, Vice President, Electrification Coalition
- Ms. Nancy Young, Vice President, Environmental Affairs, Arlines for
America
Panel II:
- Mr. Kevin DeGood, Director, Infrastructure Policy, Center for American
Progress
- Mr. James M. Proctor II, Senior Vice President & General Counsel,
McWane Inc.
- Dr. Whitley Saumweber, Director, Stephenson Ocean Security Project,
Center for Strategic & International Studies
- Lynn Scarlett, Vice President, Policy and Government Affairs, The
Nature Conservancy
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
HVC 210 Capitol Visitor Center
02/26/2019 at 10:00AM