The nation's top environmental, transportation, and housing
officials announced a new coordinated federal policy to advance
sustainable communities at a June 16 hearing before the Senate
Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson,
Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, and Housing and
Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said the three agencies have
formed an interagency “Partnership for Sustainable
Communities.”
The partnership builds on a joint effort between Transportation and
Housing and Urban Development announced in March.
With the addition of EPA, the new interagency partnership will
advance policies to improve access to affordable housing, provide more
transportation options, and lower transportation costs while also
protecting the environment in communities across the country.
“At EPA, our focus will be on encouraging smart growth
approaches to protect human health and the environment. This includes
using smart growth as a tool to combat climate change. Combined,
buildings and transportation contribute 63 percent of our nation's
greenhouse gas emissions. Smarter growth, combined with green building
techniques, can significantly reduce that number,” Jackson said
in her prepared statement.
Livability Principles
Jackson, LaHood, and Donovan told the banking committee that they
want to get past the “stovepipe” mentality that has
separated environmental, transportation, and housing policies in the
past and work together to implement a common set of “livability
principles.” Those principles include:
• developing
economical, reliable, and safe transportation choices to cut household
transportation costs, reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil,
improve air quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and promote
public health;
• expanding
location- and energy-efficient housing choices for people of all ages,
incomes, races, and ethnic groups to increase mobility and to reduce
the combined cost of housing and transportation;
• improving
economic competitiveness with reliable and timely access to
educational opportunities, employment centers, and other services for
workers as well as expanded business access to markets;
• targeted
federal funding using strategies such as transit-oriented, mixed-use
development and land recycling to increase community revitalization,
improve the efficiency of public works investments, and safeguard
rural landscapes;
• coordinating
policies and leveraging investments to increase the accountability and
effectiveness of government to plan for future growth, including
making smart energy choices such as locally generated renewable
energy; and
• investing
in healthy, safe, and walkable neighborhoods--rural, suburban, or
urban.
Donovan said the livability principles will serve as a
“playbook” for interagency coordination and promotion of
sustainable communities. He described efforts such as a housing
affordability index--including the cost of housing as well as the cost
of transportation--to help steer the market toward more sustainable
development options.
In some cases, federal agencies need to “get out of the
way” with new approaches such as coordination of federal
planning requirements for housing and transportation, he said.
LaHood said the partnership will help to promote the Transportation
Department's goal of more transportation options for all types of
communities, including rural, suburban, or urban areas. He said
communities must have a range of transportation options, including
walking, biking, and transit, in addition to cars.
The Transportation Department will work with Congress to ensure
these principles are embedded into federal policies, including the
next surface transportation bill, LaHood said.
According to Jackson, EPA will contribute to the sustainable
community goals through programs that help to improve air quality by
reducing vehicle miles traveled, promote smart growth, and provide
resources for water quality improvements. Jackson said EPA will
continue to promote revitalization of brownfields, which she called
“land recycling,” to help provide better housing and
transportation opportunities.
Bill for Coordinated Planning
Committee Chairman Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) said the
committee is drafting legislation that will “provide incentives
for regions to plan future growth in a coordinated way that reduces
congestion, generates good-paying jobs, meets our environmental and
energy goals, protects rural areas and green space, revitalizes our
Main Streets and urban centers, creates and preserves affordable
housing, and makes our communities better places to live, work, and
raise families.”
Dodd said the bill will establish a competitive grant program to
fund projects identified through planning efforts.
He also promised to work with the Senate Commerce Committee and
Environment and Public Works Committee to ensure that the next surface
transportation bill “helps to advance broad goals related to not
just transportation, but community development, economic growth,
energy, and the environment.”
More information on the interagency partnership is available on the
Web at
http://www.epa.gov/opei/ocmp/dced-partnership.html.
Written testimony and a video archive of the Senate Banking Committee
hearing may be accessed at
http://banking.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?fuseaction=hearings.
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Copyright 2009, The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.