Congressional Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Policy Forum (EXPO 2022): The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Transportation

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) and the House and Senate Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (REEE) Caucuses held the 25th Annual Congressional Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Policy Forum (EXPO 2022) on July 25, 2022. In the third panel, panelists discussed how the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will help make the transportation sector cleaner, including by providing funds for public transit and for the build-out of electric vehicle charging infrastructure. They also discussed the potential for renewable biofuels to help reduce emissions from hard-to-electrify vehicles and the importance of domestically-sourced energy.

• Karl Simon, Director, Transportation and Climate Division, Office of Transportation and Air Quality (OTAQ), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
• Genevieve Cullen, President, Electric Drive Transportation Association (EDTA)
• Chris Bliley, Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs, Growth Energy
• Art Guzzetti, Vice President – Mobility Initiatives and Public Policy, American Public Transportation Association (APTA)

Highlights

Karl Simon, Director, Transportation and Climate Division, Office of Transportation and Air Quality (OTAQ), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

• The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) (P.L. 117-58) provided the Department of Transportation with funding for the Clean School Bus Program and clean ports and supply chain efforts. The Department of Energy is making significant investments investigating the use of hydrogen as a fuel.
• The IIJA set aside $5 billion for the Clean School Bus Program; for perspective, a year ago, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) total budget was $11 billion. Congressional requirements for the program build on a successful past program that reduced diesel emissions.
• Priority communities for replacing school bus diesel engines include tribal and rural areas, as well as historically underserved school districts. Another priority is bringing technologies to cost parity.
• Implementing clean school bus engines is a process of replacing older diesel engines with new buses that may use propane, natural gas, electricity, hydrogen, or biofuels. This is a priority for air quality and environmental justice issues.
• The school bus rebate program began in May 2022 and closes August 19, 2022. There will be a grant program later in the fall of 2022 with two more funding streams to help provide support to school districts with different needs.

Genevieve Cullen, President, Electric Drive Transportation Association (EDTA)

• In 2010, there were two models of plug-in cars on the road. Now there are 70 different models at different price points. This equates to about 2.7 million cumulative plug-in vehicles. There has also been increased investment in charging infrastructure—there are now about 23,000 ports across the country.
• Between 2020 and 2021, the market grew over 100 percent year-over-year. This is about five percent of the market for new car sales. While this represents a robust and growing market and supply chain, the nation has some catching up to do to hit the Biden-Harris Administration’s goal of electric vehicles making up 50 percent of new car sales by 2030.
• Addressing transportation emissions is a crucial part of reaching air pollution and climate change goals. Electrification is a central piece of that strategy. Charging ports provide cleaner energy than the gasoline burned in the average gas-powered vehicle, and electric vehicles will continue to get cleaner as the grid does.
• The electric vehicle market is a rapidly growing global economic opportunity. The IIJA set aside $7.5 billion for electric vehicle charging infrastructure that will seed the market and accelerate private investment. As electric vehicles rise in popularity, the supply chain must also transition to support demand.

Chris Bliley, Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs, Growth Energy

• Biofuels will play an essential role in helping the United States reach net-zero emissions. The biofuel industry produced 15 billion gallons of fuel in 2021, with the capacity to produce up to 17.5 billion gallons of fuel yearly. Ethanol is in most gasoline at the pump today.
• The ethanol industry has committed more than one billion gallons of fuel to the aviation fuel marketplace, and is examining options to support marine vessels with biofuel.
• Having policy certainty will help support biofuel companies. The Renewable Fuel Standard has been in place for more than a decade, but it needs to be continued forward to support the biofuel industry. Tax and investment policies have been discussed in Congress, along with legislation around the production of next-generation fuels and low-carbon fuels.

Art Guzzetti, Vice President – Mobility Initiatives and Public Policy, American Public Transportation Association (APTA)

• The transportation sector has the most room for improvement in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as it is the leading producer of emissions in the United States.
• As demonstrated through the pandemic, transit workers are essential workers and will play an important role in the future of the public transportation sector.
• The key to successful public transit is giving the public good choices. Cars and road networks are good, but the public should not have to rely on automobile infrastructure for all transportation needs. Instead, the United States needs to shift to a balanced transportation system with energy-efficient choices.
• Public transportation and land use go hand-in-hand. Communities built with a strong public transportation system are inherently more energy efficient.
• The IIJA provides enough funds to make a difference—with the right choices, the bill can be transformational. Much of the U.S. public transit infrastructure needs to be repaired, and bus systems can be transitioned to use low- and no-emission buses. Discretionary grant programs can also be established to expand opportunities for greenhouse gas emission reduction programs.

Q&A

What are potential decarbonization benefits from IIJA provisions that are particularly exciting?

Simon

• The United States is making a transformational investment in clean energy sectors. Trendlines are positive in terms of market growth; the economic tipping point is about 20 to 30 percent of the market rather than 70 percent of the market.
• Providing choices to consumers is essential so that the transition to clean energy is not being driven by one specific policy or tax incentive, but rather by consumer demand and integration into the public’s day-to-day life.
• Electric school buses have facilitated a battery production industry. Investment is crucial for the bus sector at this stage because structure leads to market investment and certainty. Funding provided by the IIJA allows for consistent investment.

What can we do to make sure the IIJA is as impactful as possible?

Cullen

• Flexibility in the movement of money is crucial. Transportation and communities are diverse, and existing state and local programs are built to serve different drivers and communities.
• Seeding the market is also important. The Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program is one example. Supply chains follow markets to form economies of scale and lead to reductions in costs.

Bliley

• Infrastructure investments need to support multiple technologies so that biofuels can compete. There are at least 245 million vehicles on the road today that can use E15 (a mix of regular gasoline and up to 15 percent of plant-based ethanol), but only 2,500 locations where E15 can be pumped.
• Efficient engines that use high-octane, low-carbon, mid-level ethanol blends can significantly drive down greenhouse gas emissions. The Next Generation Fuels Act (H.R. 5089) would also help promote low-carbon, high-octane fuels.
• Giving people choices with infrastructure and key investments is important to the acceptance of new and emerging technologies.

Guzzetti

• On the rail side, the public transportation and passenger rail elements of the IIJA are a huge commitment to elevating the efficiency and functionality of the passenger rail network.
• There has been a remarkable shift to clean bus engines. In 1995, 95 percent of buses were diesel. In 2018, only 40 percent of buses were diesel. Moving forward, the percentages will only shrink as the nation commits to zero-emission vehicles.
• The transition of a bus fleet from diesel to electric comes with many challenges. Transit agencies must establish charging facilities, power deals with electric utilities, fleets of buses, operations plants, and worker training. The IIJA will help facilitate transition plans for agencies.

Are there provisions in the IIJA that will increase electric vehicle charging from onsite renewable generation? How does the transportation sector work with the other sectors of the economy, like construction, generation, and agriculture?

Bliley

• In many markets, particularly on the West Coast, there are low-carbon fuel standards, where the transportation sector is required to reduce the carbon intensity of the fuel they are using.
• Biofuel largely comes from agriculture. Practices like cover crops and precision agriculture, along with the power sector using renewable electricity, work in conjunction with biofuel production to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
• The biofuel industry works with automobile makers to investigate engine efficiency. Using a high-octane fuel in conjunction with a more efficient engine can significantly increase engine efficiency while keeping emissions low.

Cullen

• Electric vehicles have a plethora of fueling and charging needs. The industry has benefited from investments in energy storage and grid resilience that highlight the value of creating charging facilities served by distributed generation of renewable energy and battery storage.
• Utilities work with industry developers and truck-stop operators to design solutions that serve customers.

Guzzetti

• Electric transportation cannot be implemented without a robust resilience plan to supplement transit needs when the power goes out. A good example is the state of New Jersey, which has invested in microgrids and alternative power to be functional in the event of energy concerns.

Simon

• The school bus production sector is interested in technology solutions for charging. This can provide solutions for rural districts that may be looking for a significant number of electric buses but are prohibited by the cost of running power lines and charging stations.

What is your vision for the transportation sector in 2030?

Cullen

• While the current transit conversation is dominated by the passenger vehicle market, the sector also needs to address the medium- and heavy-duty vehicle markets. Investments made now will transform the commercial market.
• The number of models of electric passenger vehicles will continue to grow significantly. Because the number of retail and government purchasers will increase, there will be an enormous investment in the electric vehicle supply chain, which should speed up adoption both domestically and globally.

Bliley

• There is room for a lot of different new and emerging technologies as the nation moves toward zero greenhouse gas emissions, but there are also technologies that can be used immediately to curb emissions, like biofuel. E15 is available today and can be used by anyone with a car produced in 2001 or later.
• If everyone used E15 to fuel automobiles, emissions would be reduced by the equivalent of 41 million cars. Furthermore, there are 21 million flex-fuel vehicles that can use E85, and, if they did use this fuel, it would drive emissions down even further.

Guzzetti

• Transportation and transportation policy are ever-evolving. Travel patterns and travel behavior are not settled, and the future of transportation will rely on providing the public with good choices. Ideally, public transit would serve the public with frequent, reliable, and comfortable service.

Simon

• 2030 is not that far from now, especially in the transportation space. Production cycle designers are already designing models for 2025 and 2026. As such, 2030 is both a good check-in point and target point for significant advancement in moving towards net-zero emissions.
• Each sector of the transportation industry (e.g., aviation, marine construction equipment, highway transportation) can be transformed. Seeing significant progress is important for the country, the job market, and public acceptance of clean vehicles.
• There must be an emphasis on consumers. The best legislation will not matter if the policy does not motivate significant consumer uptake of changes in the transportation sector.

What are some of the major advancements on the horizon in the transportation sector that give you the most optimism about the ability to decarbonize the sector?

Guzzetti

• Commitment. Transit agencies are determined to make their own operations more sustainable, which incentivizes regions to embrace a form of transportation that is already clean and efficient.

Bliley

• Diversification. Higher biofuel blends are important moving forward. Using biofuels in hard-to-electrify sectors is an opportunity. Right now, beyond transportation, biorefineries are producing animal feed, biochemicals, bioplastics, and more.

Cullen

• In technology development, batteries are cheaper and perform better. Charging technology is rapidly evolving––three years ago, a fast charge meant 150 kilowatts, but now it means 350 kilowatts. This transforms how electric vehicles can serve the needs of consumers and will build consumer demand.

Simon

• The development of battery technology unlocks many doors to electrifying transportation. The amount of industry competition also means the sector is in a golden age of policy and technology innovation that will facilitate a decarbonized future.

Compiled by Nathan Lee and edited for clarity and length. This is not a transcript.