Managing Investment Revenues and Costs in the Transportation Climate Initiative Region

Twelve northeast and mid-Atlantic states and the District of Columbia are participating in the Transportation Climate Initiative (TCI), a regional transportation effort to coordinate investment in cleaner transportation and infrastructure. One expected element of the program is a price on carbon emissions from transportation to be implemented through emissions cap and trade. Emissions allowances would be distributed initially through an auction and subsequently could be traded in a secondary carbon market to ensure emissions reductions are achieved at the least possible cost. The auction could yield billions of dollars for investment to modernize transportation infrastructure.