States and urban areas will be required to set goals to reduce carbon emissions from cars and trucks on their roads under a new federal rule issued Wednesday, part of the Biden administration's efforts to link tens of billions of dollars in highway funding from the infrastructure law to its environmental priorities.
The rule, issued by the Federal Highway Administration, has the backing of environmentalists and some Democratic-led states, which say it's an important recognition of how funding road construction tends to encourage more driving and higher emissions. But the proposal has faced fierce opposition from many state transportation agencies, which argue they have limited options to meet their goals and dispute the federal government's legal authority to set a binding rule.
While the rule is final, it is likely to become embroiled in a battle pitting Republican lawmakers and conservative states against the Biden administration. Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gases in the United States, and the federal government has been trying to steer funding from the law toward projects such as transit lines, sidewalks and electric vehicle charging. But the highway administration has few tools to force states to spend money in ways Washington would like -- and even guidance from federal officials has met pushback.
Under the new rule, states will not incur a penalty if their emissions increase. The highway administration said the first targets must be set by Feb. 1.
Federal Highway Administrator Shailen Bhatt said he has been trying to depoliticize the issue of climate spending, adding that the rule is intended to help states prioritize their transportation dollars.
"This is not about red states or blue states," he said in an interview. "This is about climate impacts in every state in the United States. We're collectively experiencing these impacts."
The rule would do two things. First, it will require state transportation departments and planning agencies for urban areas to calculate emissions from vehicles on major routes using a formula based on gasoline and diesel sales data. Then the agencies would be required to set a target for reducing emissions over time. Progress would be measured every two years.
The biggest emissions reductions are expected to come from drivers switching to electric cars. Every state transportation department has developed plans to complete a nationwide network of chargers, aided by $5 billion from the infrastructure law -- a step aimed at reducing anxiety about not finding somewhere to plug in.
But decisions about other kinds of infrastructure investments could also affect emissions. Officials say shifting highway funds to pay for transit or bike and pedestrian routes could encourage people to opt for greener forms of transportation. Many experts argue that prioritizing existing roads rather than building new roads would have an environmental benefit because adding capacity tends to encourage driving.
A study by the Georgetown Climate Center shortly after the infrastructure law was passed in 2021 projected that focusing on maintenance and directing spending to transit would help reduce emissions more quickly, but expanding highways would slow environmental progress.
As the Federal Highway Administration weighed the new rule, many states' transportation departments pushed back, arguing that transit is not feasible in rural areas and that they have limited ability to dictate where people choose to live and work.
"While the proposed GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions performance metric can be readily calculated, the ability of state DOTs to directly affect GHG output is limited and will be hard to manage or influence," the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials wrote in comments on a draft version of the rule.
Despite the resistance, Bhatt, who previously led transportation departments in Colorado and Delaware, said attitudes are changing as the reality of climate change sets in. He said his agency has received more than $1 billion in requests this year for emergency repair funds for disasters linked to extreme weather.
"Because of all of the 1,000-year flood events that seem to be occurring on a very much more regular cadence, I think there's broader acceptance that climate change is impacting our weather and is impacting our infrastructure," he said.
The infrastructure law includes money to help states meet their targets, including $7.5 billion for electric vehicle charging, a $6.4 billion fund for emissions-reducing infrastructure and $5 billion for electric or low-emission buses.
While every state has pushed ahead with planning for the charging funds, the highway administration said several missed a deadline last week to submit strategies for reducing emissions. In many cases, states have used a provision in the infrastructure law to shift climate money to projects not necessarily intended to have an environmental benefit.
When federal officials previously tried to influence how states spend money -- issuing a guidance memo in late 2021 -- the result was months of fighting with Republican lawmakers and many state transportation officials. The Federal Highway Administration significantly rewrote the memo after a ruling by the Government Accountability Office left it vulnerable to a formal challenge in Congress.
The emissions rule is likely to face similar opposition. Federal officials argue they have the authority to issue the rule under existing powers in which the federal government can make states set targets for the performance of their road networks. Existing targets cover things such as the condition of roads and bridges, and the number of crashes.
But those measures are spelled out in law, and at a hearing this fall, Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.), chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, said lawmakers explicitly rejected including an emissions measure in the infrastructure law.
The new rule was proposed, Crawford said, "despite the department having no authority to impose such a requirement."
The Obama administration issued a similar rule in its final days, but it was repealed by the Trump administration partly because of what officials said were questions about its legality. Bhatt said that if the new version of the rule is challenged in court, he is confident it will be upheld.