Just in time for Valentine’s Day, House Republicans are rushing ahead with a “transportation” bill only Big Oil could love.

Once upon a time the Bridge to Nowhere came to represent the most wasteful spending and earmarks in transportation.  While earmarks targeting federal dollars for specific projects are gone, the House republicans have bested the bridge to nowhere with a so-called transportation bill that is good for Big Oil.

The bill mixes terrible transportation policy with Big Oil’s wish list: opening fragile and protected areas like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic coast to drilling, as well as pushing through the tar sands pipeline President Obama has already rejected.

Big Oil gets the right to drill and bad transportation policy ensures Americans get less public transit, less biking and walking infrastructure, and fewer safe routes to school for our kids. In short, the bill is a five-year recipe for driving more and using more oil.

The opposition amassing to the House’s “American Energy and Infrastructure Act” (H.R. 7) is growing and comes from all directions.

Last week Rep. Corrine Brown (D-FL) had this say about just one portion of the bill:

“I’ve been in transportation 10 years in the Florida House and close to 20 here, and it was truly the worst bill I’ve ever seen. The piece that we (Transportation and Infrastructure Committee) passed at 3 o’clock this morning out of the transportation committee is the worst bill I have seen in the 30 years I’ve been elected.”

Opposition crosses party lines, with Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio), a longtime ally of House Speaker John Boehner, opposing the measure in its current form and saying, “It’s his bill.” House Republicans in urban areas don’t want to see critical transit funding cut.

The New York Times does a nice job of summing up “A Terrible Transportation Bill.” In short, by the time three House committees had done their work, HR 7:

• Pushes money to highways while gutting investment in transportation options.

• Jeopardizes future funding for public transportation by ending dedicating funding for transit out of the Highway Trust Fund where transit receives a portion of gas tax revenues (transit funding has been part of the Highway Trust Fund since President Reagan was in the White House);

• Uses Big Oil’s wish list as one of the ways to pay for transit and other programs (money the Congressional Budget Office says is not up to the task);

• Eliminates dedicated funding for options like walking, biking, and programs like Safe Routes to Schools that helps kids bike and walk to school safely, and takes an ax to Amtrak funding; and

• Allows states to ram through projects without environmental review or public input.

Sierra Club joined more than 600 groups from across the country to oppose the provision that ended dedicated funding for transit. Last Spring nearly 70,000 Americans sent a simple message to the House and Senate:

“America needs a transportation system that ends our dependence on oil, cuts pollution, and provides clean, efficient, and affordable transportation options while putting the country back to work.”

Join us in taking action to help kill this bill. Call your Representative today. Just dial:  877-573-7693. The message is simple: Oppose HR 7 and get back to work on a transportation bill that will help end our dependence on oil, cut pollution, and provide clean, efficient, and affordable transportation options while putting the country back to work.  If you can’t call, send an email!

Click here to watch Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune’s testimony supporting clean cars.

After a week of public hearings in Detroit, Philadelphia and San Francisco, we can safely say that cleaner, more efficient cars and trucks are a popular commodity.

More than 500 people, including concerned citizens, public health officials, veterans, small business owners, environmentalists and consumer advocates, came out to testify in support of the Obama administration’s proposal to strengthen fuel efficiency and carbon pollution standards for cars and light trucks.

Thanks to these standards from the U.S. EPA and National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA), the average new car you’ll see on the lot in 2025 will get 54.5 mpg and spew 35% less carbon pollution than the models in 2016.  That’s a big deal – and a big win for American families.

So just how broad is public support for these proposed standards?  Very!  Poll after poll has shown that Americans overwhelmingly support better fuel efficiency.  But this support is more than just a checked box on a survey – it’s real stories from real people.

When I testified in Detroit last Tuesday, I was inspired by the near-unanimous support for 54.5 mpg cars from the more than 100 people who came out to give their reasons for supporting clean cars.  Nearly everyone from the United Auto Workers’ President and members to local citizens concerned about air pollution from smog and climate disruption voiced united support for the standards.

It was great to have the hearing kicked off by Michigan Congressman John Dingell, who praised the standards and said “I am pleased that EPA and NHTSA are joining together to reach out and listen to what the American people have to say.”  The Go60 mpg coalition, which the Sierra Club is a part of, was featured in the New York Times’ piece on the hearing.

In Philadelphia last Thursday, we saw record turnout for an EPA hearing with more than 150 people coming out to stand up for clean cars including Sierra Club President Robin Mann.  There were so many moving testimonies – including Retired Lieutenant General Richard Zilmer, who spoke about his first hand experience with the dangers of depending on a fuel supply line in Iraq, and Colleen Kennedy, a local resident with serious health conditions that have been exacerbated by smog pollution from cars.

Finally on Tuesday of this week, EPA and NHTSA held their last public hearing in San Francisco where Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune testified and called these standards the “biggest single step we’ve ever taken to move beyond oil and tackle climate disruption.”  Check out the rest of his testimony here.

The lone voice of opposition at all three hearings:  the National Automotive Dealers Association (NADA).  Yet with several individual dealers coming out to testify in support of the standards, even the industry publication Automotive News knows that NADA needs to stop exaggerating the costs and underselling the benefits of the standards.

The Sierra Club live-tweeted each hearing from @SierraClubLive.  Here are some of the highlights:

• @SierraClubLive NADA rep claiming that car buyers don’t look at mpg. Yet 3/4’s of Americans support strong #cleancars standards: bit.ly/xpL2sT
• @SierraClubLive Chevy dealer Thiel: “We’re going to go on with this until 2025 and I’ll tell ya what, we’re ready for it!” #cleancars
• @SierraClubLive Big shout out to the Raging Grannies for telling us to clean up our cars in song at #Detroit hearing! #cleancars
• @SierraClubLive For a sense of the ratio of those supporting vs opposing #cleancars standards today, see the score from Brady vs Tebow last wkd
• @SierraClubLive Robin Mann: “The planet is screaming and the time has come for us to stop turning a deaf ear.” #cleancars #beyondoil
• @SierraClubLive Rabbi Waskow: “I call it global scorching. Warming is too pleasant.” #cleancars #CleanAir #Philly
• @SierraClubLive .@Sierra_Club volunteer Bryan Crenshaw shows a picture of his son. 54.5 mpg is about our kid’s future. #cleancars pic.twitter.com/2jeOt5C0
• @SierraClubLive Local City Council Pres. Jeanette MacNeille: “For me as an asthmatic, #cleancars mean less trips to the emergency rm”pic.twitter.com/XRlzhu86
• @SierraClubLive Wow, amazing defense of the role of @EPAgov & #cleancars from Colleen Kennedy who has a serious heart condition.pic.twitter.com/Su93ArSf
• @SierraClubLive #cleancars are incredibly popular! Support vs opposition at today’s #Philly hearing about 100 to 1. NADA took its toys & went home
• @SierraClubLive Brune: As a father of two young kids, I’m relieved to know that the cars they’ll drive in the years to come will use less oil. #cleancars

These hearings were not the only opportunity the public has to voice support for strong new clean cars standards.  You can send your comments until February13th.  Don’t wait — help us show how broad and deep support is for clean cars!

And, if you enjoyed reading these tweets from the clean cars hearings, follow @SierraClubLive and you can check out yesterday’s live updates from the DC Auto Show.  After years of saying they couldn’t make new cars or trucks that use less oil, it was clear from the showroom floor that the auto industry is in a race to do just that.

(Click image to enlarge)

With gas prices still hurting Americans at the pump and threatening to climb higher, it’s time to start building better, more efficient cars that guzzle less gas.

Just weeks ago, President Obama proposed strengthening fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks to 54.5 mpg by 2025, building on the standards that he has already put in place for cars sold this year through 2016.  These means the average American family buying a car in 2025 will save $4,400 on gas over the car’s lifetime, even after paying for fuel-saving technology.  I was pleased to celebrate this and the other benefits of the proposed standards in November and received many comments.

The graphic above shows the benefits of these standards – and we encourage you to share it with your friends and family.

Now it is time to share your comments with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation.  Hundreds of Americans will be testifying at EPA’s and DOT’s public hearings over the next two weeks in support of these proposed fuel efficiency and carbon pollution standards that would mean significant savings at the pump, cleaner air, more jobs and better vehicle choices for American families.

The hearings are January 17th in Detroit, January 19th in Philadelphia, and January 24th in San Francisco. If you can be at any of them, RSVP here.

I will be at the hearing in Detroit to urge Obama administration officials to keep these proposed standards strong.  We recognize how vital they are to our freedom and security, because our current oil addiction puts our troops at risk around the world and our families’ health at risk at home.  We also know how important these standards are to curbing the pollution that is causing global warming.

These standards enjoy overwhelming support from three-quarters of all Americans and 13 major auto manufacturers, including Detroit’s “Big Three”, have signed letters of commitment supporting strong standards.

It’s not hard to see why fuel efficient cars are so popular.  Instead of draining our economy by sending nearly $1 billion a day overseas for oil we can keep money in Americans’ pockets, which will create 484,000 jobs economy-wide by 2030, including 43,000 in the auto industry.  On top of that, we’ll be using 1.5 million fewer barrels of oil per day in 2030, the same amount we imported from Saudi Arabia and Iraq combined last year.  That’s a big deal, and it would cut carbon pollution in 2030 by the amount equal to shutting down 72 coal-fired power plants for a year.

These standards should not be partisan or controversial.  Saving the average American family thousands of dollars on gas, cutting pollution and revitalizing the American auto industry as an engine of economic growth should be benefits we can all get behind.

This is the biggest single step that any U.S. President has taken to break America’s addiction to oil.  President Obama should keep doing the right thing and finalize these strong standards this summer. Join us at one of the three public hearings this month, or send in your comment supporting these standards right now.

Last month we welcomed the significant step the Obama administration took to slash pollution and oil consumption by putting new cars on a path to higher efficiency and emitting less climate-altering carbon pollution. 

Ensuring today’s and tomorrow’s technologies are put to work to reduce how much oil it takes to travel a mile is critical, but we won’t move beyond oil if we continue to drive at a rate of nearly three trillion miles per year.  Even cleaner cars will get stuck in traffic, consume oil (unless they’re electric!), waste time, and pollute.

This week, Sierra Club’s Virginia Chapter released its visions for a 21st Century Green Transportation plan for Virginia (PDF). This vision tackles that other side of the equation – reducing how many miles Virginians drive no matter what they are driving. 

The chapter released its vision while Virginia Governor McDonnell is holding a transportation conference with the theme of “Gateway to the World.” The Chapter notes that the governor’s plan is to “spend billions in borrowed money building major, unneeded and destructive roadways. A better title might be ‘Highways to more Gridlock.’”

The chapter’s report lays out a vision for a smarter, cleaner transportation and more livable communities for the Commonwealth:

We envision Virginia’s residents enjoying a healthy, vibrant and prosperous quality of life, living in communities where they work, learn, shop and enjoy recreations and cultural amenities without depending on the automobile and the fossil fuel it burns. Be they urban, suburban, or rural, their communities will be attractive with open and green spaces. They will be pedestrian and bicycle friendly with internally connected streets. And they will be connected to other communities by transit systems, passenger and freight rail, bicycle paths, and uncongested roads.

The problem is that building more highways and making existing highways wider is driving Virginia’s transportation future. Using nicknames like “McDonnell’s Folly” (a new four lane highway), the “Zombie” Route 29 Western Bypass, A Can Opener to the Countryside and a new “Truckway,” the Sierra Club’s Virginia chapter highlights the Bad and Unnecessary projects being pushed now in McDonnell’s plan and suggests alternative to each of these projects that will increasing transportation choices.

According the chapter, the old transportation planning ways of building more roads and widening highways didn’t work: “It only led to more sprawl, and more congested roads and some of the worst traffic in the country.

“Virginia needs to focus more on moving people and goods, and less on moving more cars and more trucks,” said Roger Diedrich, Smart Growth and Transportation Chair. “We cannot simply drive our way out of congestion. We need to make smart investments in more public transit, and bicycle and pedestrian friendly communities. In addition, transportation planning and community planning need to be closely coordinated.”

This is a vision every state can embrace! 

(Click image to enlarge)

Today, the Obama administration took a step that will result in significant savings at the pump for American families, reduce life-threatening carbon pollution, and provide Americans with better and more fuel efficient vehicle choices moving forward.

The administration officially proposed strengthening fuel efficiency and pollution standards for passenger cars and trucks to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. The newly proposed standards also reduce carbon emissions to 163 grams per mile in 2025.

Today’s announcement also builds on a historic step taken last year to raise vehicle efficiency to 35.5 mpg in 2016 and begin reducing tailpipe carbon pollution levels.

Together, these historic standards will:

• Save Americans more than $3,500 at the pump over the life of an average vehicle, even after paying for new technology.
• Reduce oil consumption by 1.5 million barrels per day in 2030 – the same amount we imported from Saudi Arabia and Iraq combined in 2010.
• Keep 280 million metric tons of carbon pollution out of the air in 2030, equivalent to shutting down 72 coal-fired power plants for a year.
• Create 484,000 jobs economy-wide by 2030, including 43,000 in the auto industry.

You can download the graphic at the top with all this information right here.

We applaud these steps toward moving our nation beyond oil. These are great moves by the Obama Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency to use the Clean Air Act in order to protect public health as well.

Americans have spoken – they overwhelmingly support strong car standards. More than 74% of Americans support a fuel efficiency standard of at least 60 mpg by 2025 according to a poll conducted by the Mellman Group.  A majority of Americans are also willing to pay more up front for fuel saving technology that will save money over time.

The auto industry is on our side as well: thirteen major auto manufacturers have signed letters of commitment in support of the new standards. One major reason they support the standards is because it’s a fleet-wide average, not a one-size-fits-all number. The standards require vehicles to improve relative to their size, meaning automakers will be improving all vehicles and consumers will have a full range of choices from highly efficient cars to improved, but less efficient trucks.

And 108 House Representatives also support the new standards, having all signed a letter to the President saying as much:

The framework agreement brought together automotive manufacturers, labor, the environmental community, and government agencies.  Industry groups such as the National Association of Manufacturers praised the agreement as a ‘positive step.’  As a result, automakers will enjoy regulatory certainty, which will help them design and build the advanced technology vehicles of the future and compete in an increasingly global marketplace.  The agreement protects American jobs and consumers, and as such was a remarkable achievement.

Two important points, though, as we applaud these standards from the Obama administration:

1. Loopholes and Industry Giveaways Matter– The strength of the final standards will determine whether we get all of the benefits promised.  Loopholes, credits and flexibilities can undermine the stringency of vehicle standards. For example, we strongly support electric vehicles, but treating too many EVs as having no emissions (ignoring the carbon pollution from electricity) can erode pollution reductions. It is critical that these standards maintain their integrity in order to deliver consumer savings and cut our addiction to oil.

2. 54.5mpg Isn’t Actually What Consumers Will See On Dealer Lots in 2025– Both the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) use an arcane set of 1970’s test procedures to set standards and measure compliance.  These tests assume drivers will average 48 mph on the highway, drive in perfect 75 degree weather, and never turn on their A/C.  Therefore, the cars that consumers buy at the dealership in 2025 will actually average between 37-40 mpg, which is still nearly double today’s window sticker average of 22.5 mpg.

The Obama administration will finalize the standards next summer. In the meantime, we will push for strong final standards with no loopholes. Americans deserve better cars that go farther on a tank of gas and spew less pollution into the air. Let’s finalize standards that will save consumers money, create jobs, and move our nation beyond oil.

This past summer, many of our transportation activists sent editorials in to their local papers talking about their challenges in getting from here to there. Discussing problems with high gas prices, to low mile-per-gallon vehicles, to inadequate public transportation, these activists used their personal stories to demand better transportation options in the U.S.

Transportation consumes more than 70% of the 557 million gallons of oil used daily in the U.S. This of course is good for Big Oil, which “piled up $32.6 billion in profits over the third quarter of 2011, pushing their good fortunes for the year to over $101 billion,” but very bad for our national security, our climate and our pocketbooks.

In a new report entitled “Ensuring America’s Freedom of Movement,” the CNA Military Advisory Board that makes a compelling case for an overhaul of how we move us and our stuff. The report notes that 80% of our fuel is used for transportation.

An impressive list of retired military states that “[w]e are held hostage to price fixing by a cartel that includes actors who would do our nation harm, and we are too often called upon to risk the lives of our sons and daughters to protect fragile oil supplies from this very cartel.”

While focused on alternative fuels the report recognizes that there are “many ways to get from here to there” and that “the nation needs to look at situations such as individuals commuting alone for 20 miles or more, and consider the multiple economic, social and environmental costs of such a trip.”

Further the report puts smart transportation policies in a national security perspective:

Our collective security can be strengthened by individual actions. We can carpool, combine trips, take public transportation, [we'd add walking and biking-- AM] reconsider whether some trips are necessary, examine how and where we work – each of these steps offers a chance to cut our oil use. These adjustments may seem, to many, like substantial lifestyle changes or difficult economic choices – we see them as steps that make America more secure.

The report also notes that federal policy can play a role in shaping the transportation decisions we make and have. The nation’s transportation program should play a central role in ensuring that the “many ways to get from here to there” are not increasingly oil-dependent ways, but rather increasingly by transit and rail, along with walking and biking and livable communities.

It is well past time for a new national transportation policy. The current broke and broken policy has been been extended 8 times (over 761 days).  Senator Boxer, Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, is set to take the first step in moving forward with a new transportation policy for the next two years.

While we wait to see this new proposal, here are our priorities for a transportation bill. The bill should:

• Set a national goal to reduce oil consumption from transportation.

• Reform transportation planning to consider impacts on oil consumption, air pollution, and local land use.

• Increase investment in transportation choices and encourage innovation.

Increasing funding for clean and efficient transportation modes and encouraging innovative strategies that can increase system efficiency are critical to delivering reductions in oil.

Americans need better transportation options and federal policy is a key to meeting that need. Investment in a 21st century transportation system that reduces our addiction to oil can save Americans money on their commutes, reduce our dependence on oil, creates jobs, and cut climate-disrupting pollution.  Let’s hope a new federal transportation policy delivers.

GM was in some hot water after publishing this ad in a college newspaper (that quickly went viral).

(ad courtesy of BikePortland.org)

With a tag line of “Stop pedaling – start driving,” the ad attempted to ‘dis’ biking.  The companion ad went after walking.

What drove GM to even consider ads that would urge students to stop pedaling and start driving?  We know they sell cars. We even know that, thanks to a bailout with tax payer dollars GM is still GM, and thanks to the Obama Administration, their cars will use less and less oil and spew out less global warming pollution.

Maybe GM has figured out that reality does suck if you are trying to market cars to a generation that might be thinking about better transportation options.  Oil-free transportation is a winner. (Giant Bikes showed as much in their response to the GM ad).

GM has since apologized for the ad via twitter and elsewhere and withdrew it.

GM clearly hit a raw nerve trying to pedal oil addiction to a generation that may be more interested in being oil-free.  But maybe this is why GM ran the ads in the first place. Check out this tidbit from Streetsblog:

We’re facing a profound generational shift and, according to Martin: “The dynamic is aligning with transit big time.”

Gen Y is inclined to transit, too. “Gen Y is much less car centric than other generations,” Martin pointed out. Compared to their elders, folks born between 1982 and 1994 are less eager to get a drivers license, less inclined to purchase a car and less likely to view automobile ownership as a right of passage to adulthood. Some would argue the trend is based on economic need, the result of student loan debt and a tough job market. “I think it’s deeper than that,” Martin said. “Gen Y is hyper connected. They are literally digital natives… Eighty-eight percent want to live in urban settings because they can be hyper-connected.” Gen Y isn’t looking for a dream home; they’re looking for a dream lifestyle and that includes walkable, bikeable, transit-oriented neighborhoods.

I am sure GM has done its own market research.  Walking and biking are in and neighborhoods with shopping, restaurants and other attractions are in.  Bike shares are taking off in DC, Boston, Chicago and other cities.  Car shares make it easier to get a car when you need it (and choices of cars to drive). Having the latest smartphone or tablet is much less expensive than a car and much more fun anyway.

Maybe we should take GM’s ads as a sign that walking and biking are winning.  Now is time for the transportation dollars to follow.

Anyone feel like saving more than $44 billion? Or saving 23 billion gallons of oil? Today the Sierra Club, as part of the Go 60mpg Coalition, announced both the national and state household, oil and pollution savings from raising fuel efficiency standards for new cars and light trucks to 54.5 mpg and setting a carbon pollution standard of 163 grams per mile in 2025.

And that’s how good it gets: These standards, which will be proposed in November by the Obama Administration, will save Americans more than $44 billion in 2030 alone, save 23 billion gallons of oil in 2030 and reduce heat-trapping carbon pollution by 280 million metric tons.

These carbon pollution savings are the equivalent of having 40 million fewer vehicles on the road in that year.  If you prefer to think about shutting down dirty coal fired power plants, it’s equivalent to shutting down 72 of them for a year.

We announced this data today at a press conference at a Rhode Island Chevy dealership with a dealer who believes that more fuel efficient cars including the new Volt will be the key to helping his dealership thrive. Not only do these standards keep money in our pockets, but it also bodes well for the car dealers who are watching the fuel efficient cars fly off their lots.

Our colleagues at the Union of Concerned Scientists and Natural Resources Defense Council broke down the oil, dollar and pollution savings state-by-state.  You can check out how much you would save with these standards, but here’s a taste.

Rhode Islanders, for example, would keep $148 million dollars in the ecnomy rather than spending it on oil.  Each household would save a net of $330 per year (here net means that the savings account for the cost of fuel saving technology that is on a new car).  To top it off, Rhode Islanders would save 76 million gallons of gasoline and help keep 900 million metric tons of global warming pollution out of the atmosphere.

As noted above these standards are not final – but promise great benefits.  We’re calling on the Obama administration to avoid including loopholes and industry giveaways in the standards that would undermine consumer savings and pollution reductions.

Cars and trucks that use less gas are a win-win for our economy and our environment. The Obama administration’s new fuel efficiency standards ensure 15 years of continuous progress to help save Americans money at the gas pump, create jobs, curb life-threatening pollution, and help move our country beyond oil.

Perhaps it is only in DC that you can catch a snippet like this of a conversation between two people walking down the sidewalk:

“I am not against spending on infrastructure,” one says to the other.  “But we need to get rid of all of the regulations.”

This being DC, these two could be lobbyists or Congressional staffers to just two folks who just love to talk infrastructure and hate on regulations.

I, however, happened to be fresh from the morning’s Moving Planet event in Fairfax, VA where the Sierra Club’s Virginia Chapter, Smart Growth America, Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling, Labors’ International Union of North America, and 350.org called on Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell to provide freedom of travel through funding transportation choices other than roads.

Attendees want funding for increased public transit, bike lanes, and sidewalks in order to help reduce congestion, reduce carbon pollution and move Northern Virginia beyond oil.

The event made clear that we can build infrastructure, but making it work and safe for all remains a challenge. In Northern Virginia, where congested roads are largely responsible for helping drive the Washington, DC, area to number one on the list of the most congested areas in the annual Texas Transportation Institute’s (TTI) mobility ranking.

Streetsblog points out that the TTI study is autocentric, focused on how fast a car can move down the road, not how much time a commuter could save by taking transit. And Streetsblog notes that solutions like bringing housing, transportation choices, jobs, and shopping closer together only gets a “shout out”:

Maybe your city is dense and friendly to pedestrians and bikes, so that it’s easy to glide past the automobile gridlock on your short commute to work. Or maybe transit provides an excellent and affordable alternative to traffic jams. None of that matters to TTI….TTI doesn’t bother to figure out how much time is saved if one avoids that congestion by taking transit, but they do examine how much time transit riders save drivers by taking vehicles off the road.

If there were no transit, the country’s drivers would be facing an additional 796 million hours of traffic delay. “Operational treatments” like ramp metering, traffic light timing, and removing crashed vehicles from the road have become much more effective in the last 20 years but still don’t come close to the savings provided by transit, saving about 40 percent as much as transit in terms of hours of delays, fuel, and costs.

These solutions got more than a shout out at Moving Planet – it was the point of the event.  And importantly, achieving the goals with better public transportation is creating jobs! Here are quotes from the Sierra Club’s press release for the event:

“As citizens we demand smarter solutions to transportation but we cannot get them unless we speak up.  And we as policy makers need you to lead us to the right solutions.”  Delegate Mark L. Keam, Virginia House of Delegates, 35th District.

“We should not be made dependent on our cars.  Most citizens express unqualified support for more transit, but it seems to be stalled at all levels of government.” Roger Diedrich, Transportation Chair, Sierra Club-Virginia Chapter.

“When we’re young or older we can’t or shouldn’t drive, we need choices in transportation.  Some folks; young, older and in between like to walk or bike to get around, they need to infrastructure to support these choices.”  Susan Stillman, bike rider and walker, Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling.

“Every community and every citizen deserves jobs, shops, schools, housing and transportation choices within easy reach. By joining together, the citizens of northern Virginia will demonstrate their commitment to creating great communities, supporting a thriving economy and protecting the environment.” Elisa Ortiz, Smart Growth America.

“Phase I of Dulles Rail has created thousands of new green jobs for construction and craft workers in Northern VA and the DC metro region. Not only are these jobs providing healthcare and a family-supporting wage, but the fruits of their labor will improve our air quality and help alleviate traffic by taking cars off the road. Most importantly, the project is on time and on budget and is an economic engine for the region at a time when new jobs are scarce.” Josh Collins, Labors’ International Union of North America.

The event speakers made clear – we need smart infrastructure to cut through traffic gridlock, create jobs, improve our everyday lives and move us beyond oil.

Here’s some good news – it seems that we are using 157,000 less barrels of gasoline every day this year as compared to last year.  And here’s the bad news: we are poised to spend a record $491 billion on gasoline this year.

There are many reasons why we are using less and paying more, though essentially, it boils down to the fact that globally, oil prices are up.  However, one way we can use less oil and actually not pay more is – drum roll – by biking and walking.

Biking and walking currently account for 12% of our trips, yet we spend less than 2% of federal transportation funding on infrastructure to make these trips safer or add the paths, trails, sidewalks and crosswalks we need.  Investments in walking and biking, under the federal program called Transportation Enhancements, help give people safe, clean, and convenient travel options that allow us to get around without Big Oil.

So, this year, while we are draining our bank accounts to spend $491 billion on gasoline (which keeps Big Oil happy) we’re investing only a tiny amount on safe walking and biking through our national transportation policy.  And it turns out, spending on biking and walking infrastructure actually helps create more jobs than spending on roads and highways!

Yet, one Senator is ready to hold up an entire bill about federal transportation spending over the small portion of funds in the bill dedicated to safe walking and biking.

Senator Coburn (R-OK) has tried to block dedicated funding for biking and walking before (and lost).  From Alaska to Tennessee, our members are weighing in with their Senators – letting them know about biking paths that have improved their neighborhoods and helped people get out of their cars.

Senator Coburn’s threat to hold up transportation spending over funding for walking and biking will unfold over the next 24 hours, but the fight to increase our transportation choices will continue in force on September 24 with Moving Planet actions across the country all sending the same strong message – it is time to move beyond fossil fuels — including gasoline.

Join us build the momentum we need to show that Americans want transportation choices and livable communities where walking and biking are safe.  Find out how you can get involved – plan your own event or sign up for an event near you – and join us on September 24th to get the planet moving beyond fossil fuels.