Views from the statehouse: Survey results from state legislative committee members

Abstract

We ask how statehouse lawmakers in the U.S. understand the connection between the energy transition in transportation and state resources for transport infrastructure and services. We administered a national-level survey of state legislators serving on state transportation committees to gauge perceptions of these key policy gatekeepers about the pressing transportation issues in their state, the policies likely to be legislated, and the extent to which likely policies address important issues. The delegation of investment and funding decisions to state governments make state legislatures a critical conduit for U.S. transportation policy, and committee actors can crucially shape early stages of the agenda setting process. As the transportation sector moves increasingly toward low carbon energy sources, transportation revenues—traditionally derived from taxes on gasoline—are eroded. We explore what policies state legislators could or would adopt to ensure that states, cities, and metro regions have the resources for maintaining and renewing aging transportation infrastructure and to connect transportation funding policy with energy and climate concerns. What level of interest do committee members have in pursuing such policies, and how do they weigh transportation decarbonization alongside competing objectives including environmental protection, economic development, and social equity, and against the perceived priorities of other actors in their orbit, including the committee on which they serve, the legislature as a whole, and constituents in their own district? Our survey results document the relative deprioritization of climate change and decarbonization as policy priorities, which stands in contrast to the relative urgency of these issues for federal and local transportation policymakers. Instead, we find legislators prioritize more short-term, practical issues, like needs to maintain infrastructure, tend to safety, and promote economic growth, as well to provide stable funding for these needs. Lawmakers see policy solutions centered on raising revenue, e.g. electric vehicle registration fees, as most viable. Legislators also believe, we find, that more abstract issues like climate change and decarbonization are of greater importance to themselves than to their constituents. This work informs public policy by collecting new and original data about lawmakers’ knowledge of and opinions about available legislative opportunities to facilitate the energy transition in transportation.