CONNECTICUT GOV. NED LAMONT dropped out on Tuesday, Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts called it quits on Thursday, and now Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee is pulling his state out of the transportation climate initiate.
According to press reports in Rhode Island, McKee decided to withdraw from the cap-and-invest program for automobile fuels for the same reason as Baker.
“The Transportation and Climate Initiative depends upon the involvement of at least three jurisdictions to go forward as a program,” McKee said in a statement. “Recent events in Connecticut and Massachusetts, however, have made clear that at least for the time being, Rhode Island must explore other options in clean transportation. We must be clear: Rhode Island is on the clock to combat climate change, and we must move forward with a bold initiative to meet net-zero. The Act on Climate law sets mandates, not goals, for the state to reduce greenhouse gases economy-wide. And we will have serious difficulty meeting the new law’s reduction mandates without a strong commitment and plan to reduce emissions from the transportation sector, which contributes nearly 40 percent of carbon emissions in our area.”
Like Baker, McKee’s statement indicated he intends to use federal and local funds to develop zero-emissions transportation options.
Lamont withdrew from the initiative because the political odds were way too high with gas prices hitting record levels heading into an election year next year.
In December 2020, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island were the only states of the original 12 that decided to launch the transportation climate initiative. They agreed to put a price on the carbon contained in vehicle fuels sold within their borders and leverage the revenues gained and the resulting higher price of gasoline to cut transportation emissions 26 percent by 2032.