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An inventory of state approaches to clean and resilient transportation

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA -- AUGUST 8, 2011 -- Electric vehicle charging stations line the perimeter of San Francisco's City Hall.
Photo credit: Dan Schreiber / Shutterstock
Section I

Executive summary

Beginning in 2021 with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and then augmented by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the U.S. Congress adopted a more holistic and well-funded commitment to clean and resilient transportation. Central to that congressional commitment was a direct investment in the capacity of U.S. states to conduct climate-focused transportation planning and construct related projects. Put plainly, federal law induced and supported state action. 

Now, with a Republican trifecta in power in the federal government, those climate commitments are already under threat from a presidential executive order. What felt like a historic shift could be short-lived. As a result, stakeholders quickly need to understand exactly how the two new laws impact state transportation planning—and how states may respond if federal funding is discontinued. To answer both questions, we inventoried every state’s climate-focused transportation planning practices. 

The results are both promising and concerning. Aided by direct federal support, more states are now producing emissions mitigation and climate resilience plans. However, the historic record also suggests roughly half of these states may revert to less climate-focused planning if federal support recedes. The record is especially worrisome in the Southeastern and Great Plains states.  

Based on these findings, we believe Congress should continue to support climate-focused transportation programming. The planning laws worked; now is the time to fund states to follow-through on those plans. At the same time, states should not rely solely on federal support. Beyond continuing to plan and invest on their own, states would be wise to create a rainy-day capital account that could insure against any reductions in federal fiscal support. And with so much money being invested, states should find more ways to solicit public input on future transportation investments. 

Section II

Introduction

Over the past few decades, a clear scientific consensus has emerged around the urgent need for a cleaner and more resilient transportation system. The sector is now the country’s largest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, particularly due to increasing vehicle miles traveled. Changing weather patterns continue to pound the physical network with rising damages, increased closures, and knock-on costs for households and businesses. Transforming an economic sector this large—one whose public and private assets were valued at $11.1 trillion in 2023—will require significant foresight, planning, and coordination. 

States will need to take a leading role in such massive planning and investment efforts. Governors, legislators, and their colleagues already have the legal authority to regulate some vehicle emissions standards, the fuels powering their energy system, and the costs to purchase vehicles and access the network. States also manage emergency evacuation routes and work with the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to increase infrastructure resilience and make repairs after damage occurs, especially on the vast state-owned highway network. Just as importantly, states have experience in putting together long-term plans, including wide-ranging climate action plans.  

The concern is that not all states bring the same rigor or commitment to environmental-focused transportation planning, even when a majority of Americans support related policies. Some states focus more on reducing emissions, some more on resilience, and some are not especially focused on either. Such variability reflects a lack of national standards. Beyond decades-old laws around clean air and emergency response, the federal government had not required clean and resilient transportation planning or significant public input, and it certainly hadn’t tied major capital dollars to such environmental-focused planning. 

The past three years changed that situation. Together, the IIJA and IRA included four programs that prompted states to conduct climate-focused transportation planning and then offered significant federal funding to build related projects. While each program works a bit differently (and their total funding is only a small portion of what the federal government made available for public investment), together they create a more holistic national approach to clean and resilient transportation planning. The four programs are as follows: 

  • USDOT’s Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-Saving Transportation Formula Program—or PROTECT—commits $7.3 billion over five years for a mix of planning activities and qualified capital projects to make transportation more resilient to natural hazards, including bonuses for states that adopt a Resilience Improvement Plan. 
  • USDOT’s Carbon Reduction Program—or CRP—enables states to execute projects that reduce transportation emissions, namely carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from on-road vehicles. The law commits $6.4 billion over five years to states, although receipt requires a certified Carbon Reduction Strategy, and all spending must comply with certain geographic restrictions. 
  • USDOT’s National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program—or NEVI—helps states deploy electric vehicle charging infrastructure. States that submitted initial plans could access $5 billion to invest in state-designated corridors. 
  • The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Climate Pollution Reduction Grants—or CPRG—awarded $250 million for the creation of climate action plans that reduce emissions across six sectors (including transportation). States are eligible recipients. Entities that submitted plans were then eligible to compete for a slice of the $4.6 billion in implementation grants.  

Now, with a Republican-controlled Congress and President Donald Trump in office, the longevity of these programs has come into question. Already the Trump administration issued an executive order seeking an immediate pause on NEVI disbursements and potentially other clean transportation policies. If federal lawmakers choose to stop funding these programs, climate planning will revert solely to the political and cultural inclinations of each state’s lawmakers. In such a scenario, it’s important to know how states approach climate-related transportation planning beyond the IIJA and IRA’s new requirements.  

This report aims to explain where climate-related transportation planning is today and where it might be if federal planning standards and capital funding are discontinued or not. We inventory each state’s mitigation and resilience plans—including GHG emissions monitoring and use of public input—both prior to and following the passage of the IIJA and IRA. The patterns within that inventory underscore what a reversion to past climate planning could be like, while offering lessons for state and federal lawmakers who want to adopt a more durable commitment to clean and resilient transportation. 

Section III

Methodology

This report involved a detailed inventory of the climate-focused planning practices of departments of transportation (DOTs) in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. (henceforth referenced together as “states”). Based on a review of existing literature—including work by RMI, the National League of Cities, and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)—we generated a unique schema. This schema uses four categories—mitigation, resilience, GHG emissions measurement, and public input—to categorize state plans and their inputs, strategies, and desired outcomes. 

We then executed a detailed inventory of statewide and DOT-specific climate planning efforts. We relied strictly on publicly available materials and took states at their word. For example, a mitigation plan only needs to say that reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT) is one of its strategies for the state to receive credit. Our completed schema was then validated by expert interviews in nearly every state and adjusted accordingly. Despite our deference to state DOTs and experts, our research may not have uncovered all relevant plans and policies. We invite state DOTs and other stakeholders to submit those.  

Explore the interactive state scorecard

Box 1. The pressing need to build a clean and resilient transportation system

The country’s transportation network is the great enabler of the country’s economic and social ambitions. Each day, the vast network of modern infrastructure and vehicles facilitates over 1 billion person trips and moves $55 billion worth of goods—allowing every kind of activity, from visiting family and friends to shipping manufactured goods across state lines.  

Unfortunately, all that activity also comes at a significant environmental cost. Beyond the GHG emissions impacting the entire country, tires, brakes, and tailpipes leave a more localized environmental footprint as well by releasing particulate matter and other pollution that harms human health in a more direct vicinity, with impacts especially pronounced among historically disadvantaged groups. All the asphalt and concrete infrastructure designed to move vehicles also increases stormwater runoff, burdening water utilities and damaging natural areas if not safely managed. Building less climate-friendly infrastructure even leads to higher emissions through the manufacturing and construction process—what’s known as “embodied emissions.” 

Meanwhile, changing weather patterns continue to disrupt the operational stability of the country’s transportation system. The rising number of hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and extreme heatwaves can damage critical infrastructure, close facilities such as airports, and threaten vital evacuation routes. If climate instability continues to worsen, additional repairs of just the country’s roads and railways could exceed $100 billion per year by 2050—and those estimates don’t include knock-on effects such as lost economic output (e.g., due to disrupted supply chains) and health impacts. 

Cleaning and protecting the country’s transportation system, then, is an imperative for every community. As the country’s fifth Climate Assessment states: “A carbon-free, sustainable, and resilient transportation system would have co-benefits for human health, environmental justice, the natural environment, and economic development.” 

Section IV

Findings

Every state published a transportation mitigation plan in the past three years—a major improvement since the IIJA and IRA’s passage

There is no doubt: The IIJA and IRA have had a positive impact on nationwide planning to reduce transportation’s GHG emissions. Those two bills included three state-focused planning programs that each required states to submit mitigation plans if they wanted to be eligible for larger grants, whether those grants would support capital projects (CRP and NEVI) or broader implementation efforts (CPRG). 

Every state responded by submitting official plans to at least one program, with 44 states submitting plans to all three. NEVI received plans from all 50 states and Washington, D.C. By contrast, three states didn’t submit CRP plans (Alaska, Florida, and North Dakota), which meant those states relinquished a total of $443 million in guaranteed funding. Along with Florida, another four states (Iowa, Kentucky, South Dakota, and Wyoming) didn’t submit CPRG plans.  

These numbers represent a significant increase in how many states have published formal clean transportation plans apart from the two federal laws. Our inventory found only 31 states published a broad mitigation strategy for their transportation sector, which is akin to what CRP requires. Meanwhile, only 24 states published broader electrification strategies that included a transportation focus, which is akin to what CPRG and NEVI require. Generally, Northeastern and Pacific Coast states were the most likely to submit both mitigation and electrification plans—and it’s easy to spot similar patterns with other national climate maps. By contrast, states in the Southeast and Great Plains were far less likely to have adopted mitigation plans. 

With so many states using IIJA and IRA funding to expand their clean transportation planning, there’s reason to be optimistic that those new plans will motivate cleaner alternatives on the ground. Our inventory found all 31 states that drafted separate mitigation plans chose to prioritize both electrification projects such as charging infrastructure and VMT-reducing projects such as new bike lanes, safe streets, and public transportation within their mitigation plans. If that pattern holds, then it’s reasonable to expect both CRP funding and states’ own revenues will flow to more projects that promote lower transportation emissions.  

Nearly two-thirds of states are formally planning for climate resilience in transportation, but that still leaves 19 states with no resilience plans of any kind 

Resilience planning is beginning to take hold across the country, with 32 states having now published detailed plans to protect their transportation networks. These plans tend to focus on vulnerability assessments, with flooding the most common risk cited. In the most detailed of these plans—such as those of California, Minnesota, and North Carolina—the authors include recommendations for future actions by transportation-focused agencies, peer agencies, and legislatures.  

Just as importantly, an overwhelming number of these states are using their plans to inform broader agency priorities. We found that 31 of the 32 states declared that their resilience plans would inform project selections, while one other state noted it would incorporate its resilience plan into broader planning priorities. 

Among these 32 states, 17 are also one step closer to accessing significant fiscal advantages. New federal law under the PROTECT formula program offers lower matching rates for states that include a specific project in their Resilience Improvement Plan (a 7% reduction) or simply ensure their plan is “incorporated into” long-range transportation plans (a 3% reduction). Those 17 states have at least completed official Resilience Improvement Plans. Because these states had existing plans to draw upon or even adapt while developing their Resilience Improvement Plans, they were among the best-positioned to take advantage of tens of millions of dollars in savings via reduced federal matching rates.  

The concerning finding, however, is that 19 states have no resilience plan of any kind. Even with a significant uptick in extreme weather events and rising damages to transportation assets, these states continue to overlook the importance of studying risk exposures of their transportation networks. These 19 states are effectively choosing to pay higher rates for resilience-focused improvements, since they won’t qualify for federal bonuses, and they may be leaving 2% of PROTECT funding strictly offered for planning activities on the table entirely.  

There are some clear regional patterns across this data. Many Southeastern and Great Plains states did not create resilience plans. The absence of plans in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas is especially surprising, as those states face some of the highest risk exposures to changing climate conditions. By contrast, more Western states already facing higher drought conditions, wildfires, and other risks have taken a lead on resilience planning, as have a large portion of the Northeastern, Mid-Atlantic, and Great Lakes states.  

Regardless of each state’s current approach, it’s likely to take years to track exactly how much resilience planning is informing actual construction practices. The need to continue monitoring investments underscores a finding from our larger state inventory: The public needs transparent project selection data to better assess policy priorities and hold state officials accountable for any stated resilience ambitions. 

In the past, states that conducted both resilience and mitigation planning were far more likely to also measure GHG emissions 

As the country’s highest-emitting sector, there is no way to hit America’s emission targets without governments, industry, and households working together to adopt cleaner transportation behaviors and technologies. That’s the clear goal within state mitigation plans, including greater adoption of electric vehicles and reducing total miles traveled. Yet those plans are only one piece of the puzzle. States must also be willing to understand where transportation GHGs are currently being emitted—including by what modes—and use regular monitoring to compare progress against baselines. 

However, measuring GHG emissions has quickly become one of the more contentious issues in federal transportation policymaking. At the time of publication, there is ongoing litigation between the Federal Highway Administration—which seeks to use existing statutory authority to require state DOTs and metropolitan planning organizations to estimate GHG emissions from vehicles travelling on federal-aid highways and to set declining targets for future emissions—and 21 state attorneys general (plus Texas) contesting the rule. Regardless of how the courts eventually rule on the matter (or if the Trump administration decides to abandon the rule), analyzing past measurement efforts can help explain the two camps, including 15 states that have written in favor of the rule.

We inventoried whether states measured: 1) overall GHG emissions; and 2) emissions solely from the transportation sector. Overall, 26 states measured both, although Utah’s overall inventory was incomplete. Of these 26 states, 24 also created both mitigation and resilience plans to complement their emissions data. In other words, states taking the most comprehensive approach to climate-related transportation planning are also the most likely to measure GHG emissions. 

Still, that leaves about half of all states not measuring emissions at all. Not coincidentally, most of the states choosing not to measure GHG emissions are also part of the lawsuit challenging the Federal Highway Administration rule. These states are also predominantly led by Republican governors. Yet politics isn’t the sole explanation for the lack of GHG measurement; Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin all conducted resilience and mitigation planning, elected Democratic leadership, and still didn’t publish GHG emission levels. It could be a valuable research project to interrogate why certain states are choosing not to measure emissions. 

Very few states make it easy for the public to offer climate-related input 

Transportation planning has a long-standing tradition of using public input to inform an agency’s long-term goals, identify where the system may be falling short, and advance projects that will address both. Soliciting public input, then, is instrumental in bringing accountability to public governance of the transportation system. However, based on our inventory, too few states offer avenues for the public to participate in the climate-related transportation planning process.  

One of the most valuable ways officials can hear from the public is reporting critical infrastructure failures and other environmental risks in real time. With enormous numbers of daily travelers and freight operators using the system, agencies would be wise to tap all the extra people who have a sense of what may be ailing the system. However, only seven states use platforms that enable people to submit both general climate-related concerns or report vulnerable infrastructure; Washington, D.C., for example, lets its residents request “green infrastructure maintenance” on assets such as permeable pavements. Another eight states offer a method to report flooding or drainage issues, but not other concerns such as exposure to extreme heat. That leaves 36 states with no climate-specific public input platform at all. 

Another valuable input method is soliciting comments on long-term mitigation and resilience plans. Whether it’s holding public meetings across the state or hosting web-based commentary platforms, states should allow the general public to respond to the long-range plans agency staff craft. In this case, only 18 states solicited public input on both long-range mitigation and resilience plans, with another seven states receiving input on just one plan. 

The lack of input confirms a more generalized finding from our prior research into state transportation accountability, with most states failing to offer enough opportunities for the public to offer input.  

Section V

Implications and recommendations

The past three years may represent a turning point when it comes to climate-related transportation planning at the state level. Aided by direct federal funding support, more states are now producing emissions mitigation and climate resilience plans apart from federal law. While not all state plans include the same level of detail (some states simply repackage federal emissions data, for example, and some states still haven’t completed resilience plans), there is no doubt that recent federal legislation incentivized greater planning activity at the state level.  

Yet all that planning activity is exactly why the election of President Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress should concern industry stakeholders and the general public. If new federal leadership chooses to reduce or eliminate support for emissions-focused programs, the historic record suggests roughly half the states may revert to far less mitigation planning. The record is slightly better around resilience, but there are still many Southeastern and Great Plains states that are falling behind. 

That makes the next two years a critical time to justify exactly why climate-focused transportation planning is valuable. With partisan tensions high around climate-related issues, arguments in favor of mitigation and resilience should use politically agnostic frames and rely on unassailable data. Fortunately, with so many new plans published and capital projects funded, there is a growing pool of evidence to interrogate and present to lawmakers both in the federal government and state capitals. And with the IIJA expiring in late 2026 and 38 gubernatorial elections happening by that time, there is an unquestionable window to demonstrate progress. 

Based on the findings in this report, we recommend the following actions to support more clean and resilient transportation policies: 

Federally, Congress should work with USDOT to evaluate CRP, PROTECT, and NEVI. Adopting new formula programs isn’t a minor reform; such apportioned programs are meant to deliver long-term stability, giving their recipients—primarily states—years of steady funding to execute multiyear projects and programs. The new Congress and USDOT leadership owe it to the bill writers, funding recipients, and system users to develop a detailed account of what CRP, PROTECT, and NEVI deliver. That’s especially the case for capital projects, which should be compared to projects funded by more traditional programs. The evaluation should also include an analysis of the predicted effects of these projects on the stated goals of each program: reduction in transportation emissions and a more resilient transportation system, respectively. Congress positioned themselves well for this type of evaluation by requiring USDOT to develop performance measures tracking the effectiveness of PROTECT and NEVI projects. Though no analogous requirement exists for CRP, Congress could enact one. 

Those evaluations should then inform a multiyear extension of the CRP and PROTECT programs. Now that states have developed plans for these formula funds, Congress should give states time to deliver on their goals via reformed capital project selection and other modifications to their more traditional business practices. Infrastructure delivers on decades-long cycles; Congress needs to give these two programs space to show that they can help people and communities achieve better outcomes, especially relative to projects funded under more traditional programs. Since NEVI effectively delivers funding to the private owners of charging infrastructure (versus how CRP and PROTECT invest in publicly owned infrastructure), there’s reason to wait and see if the market would continue to benefit from public funding support. 

To complement the planning and capital funding, Congress should also require states to collect and publish data on the condition of locally owned major roadways, ideally by augmenting current planning dollars. As our previous research found, states are generally failing to monitor the conditions of their locally owned roads, which make up the majority of the system’s length. We can’t prepare the entire system for climate resilience until we know which assets are most vulnerable. States that collect, incorporate, and publish comprehensive conditions data will be better able to ensure resilience dollars are flowing to the most vulnerable portions of publicly owned systems.  

States need not wait for these federal reforms, either. For the tens of states that are either behind on their mitigation planning, resilience planning, or both, their state legislators can enact their own planning and investment requirements to ensure they protect the climate security of their residents and businesses. It’s worth remembering that states are the dominant fiscal agent within the transportation system; their own-source revenues are nearly as large as locally generated revenues, and they exhibit the largest control of total dollars. The authority and monies are there to adopt more pro-climate policies, and states such as Colorado and Minnesota have adopted laws that can serve as models.  

To enhance their planning efforts, state legislators should require their DOT colleagues to expand opportunities for meaningful public input. Constituents are an invaluable set of eyes and ears to support the professionals working within state DOTs and partner agencies. The people who regularly use the system are naturally suited to report where flooding is getting worse, the most difficult neighborhoods to evacuate from, or where air quality seems to be impacting public health. Soliciting more public input—and then including slots for public stakeholders to serve on executive planning committees—are easy and invaluable steps to serve the public’s best interests. 

Finally, states should prepare their budgets in 2026 and beyond to compensate for the potential loss of federal climate-related funding, ideally by using a climate-focused capital account as a rainy-day fund. While we believe Congress should continue funding CRP and PROTECT, the risk of funding cuts is tangible. If funding is reduced, there’s a real chance that each state DOT’s environmentally focused programs and projects will face a fiscal cliff. Such reductions are especially dangerous for multiyear projects that are underway and using federal funding. Legislators and agency leads may want to consider launching a rainy-day fund (or repurposing current capital accounts) to insure against those losses. States such as Maine and California can act as examples for peers nationwide. Even if Congress extends the program, the rainy-day funds can augment immediate funding or be held for other future climate threats. 

Section VI

Conclusion

Climate-focused transportation professionals are right to be concerned about Donald Trump’s reelection and the Republican Party assuming control of the U.S. Congress. Just as the IIJA and IRA initiated significant federal investments in clean and resilient transportation, the need to reauthorize the IIJA plus other rulemaking opportunities now gives Washington’s new leaders the chance to mothball early progress.  

We believe such a move would be a mistake, but there’s reason for optimism. Those new federal laws are already showing results through expanded state climate planning. With the opportunity to study what capital projects those programs deliver—plus the prospect of more households and businesses continuing to adopt electric vehicles—even a conservative Congress could be persuaded to keep funding for another legislative cycle. The key will be clear and convincing evidence. 

Yet if federal lawmakers turn their backs on cleaner transportation and physically secure assets, then states can fill the gap. Our inventory confirms that many are already taking a leading role, and there’s no reason they can’t continue to deliver a transportation system that’s built for new climate realities. Instead, there’s more pressure in those tens of states that are behind. If governors and legislators truly want to protect the economic and physical security of their constituents, adopting more climate-focused transportation planning is an obvious place to start. 

Interactive Data

State scorecard

The scorecard quantifies answers to each question in the Brookings inventory, using 1 for completeness, zero points for absence, and 0.5 points for anything in between. The questions in each category are weighted, meaning “1” and “4” are the maximum values for an individual category and the total score, respectively. These scores are only meant to enable consistent comparison among states, not as relative weights. For more information on the questions, categories, or data, please refer to the methodology and full dataset, which are available for download as appendices.

  • Acknowledgements and disclosures

    The authors thank the many individuals who provided thoughtful comments on an earlier draft, including James Bradbury, Joseph Kane, Stephanie Lotshaw, Chris McCahill, Chris Van Eyken, and Drew Veysey. The authors also would like to thank Michael Gaynor for editing, Alec Friedhoff for data interactive coding, Carie Muscatello for her web and print design, and the rest of the Brookings Metro communications team for their support. All remaining errors and omissions are the sole responsibility of the authors. 

    Brookings Metro would like to thank the Kresge Foundation for their generous support of this analysis. Brookings Metro is also grateful to the Metropolitan Council, a network of business, civic, and philanthropic leaders who are both financial and intellectual partners of the Program. 

  • Footnotes
    1. Beyond state-supported planning, three federal agencies—the Department of Energy, Department of Transportation, and Environmental Protection Agency—jointly produced the U.S. National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization, which takes a detailed look at what’s needed to reduce emissions from the sector. The Department of Transportation also published a storymap summarizing their resilience priorities. 
    2. While Resilience Improvement Plans are an optional component of the PROTECT program, they must meet the requirements defined in 23 U.S.C. Chapter 1 § 176(e)(2). According to a question and answer document published by the Federal Highway Administration, pre-existing plans or vulnerability assessments could be considered Resilience Improvement Plans, provided the statutory requirements are still met. 
    3. At time of publication, two states—Alaska and Florida—did not have Carbon Reduction Strategies certified by the Federal Highway Administration. Links to all strategies can be found here
    4. Technically, these plans are known as “Carbon Reduction Strategies.” 
    5. “Broad mitigation strategy” in this context meant either a plan focused exclusively on their transportation sector or a thorough, dedicated section within a broader statewide plan focused on reducing GHG emissions. 
    6. Broader electrification strategies include sector-wide “clean power” or “clean energy” plans with dedicated analysis or strategies for the adoption of electric and zero-emission vehicles or relevant infrastructure. 
    7. These data strictly assess plans drafted by states independent of federal requirements. The EPA’s CPRG rules did require public input when crafting climate action plans. 
    8. Research by Transportation for America presents one way to assess the climate-related outcomes of capital projects that are at least partially funded by federal dollars. 
    9. USDOT is required by law to monitor the effectiveness and impact of projects using PROTECT dollars. To that end, the Federal Highway Administration released proposed performance measures in spring 2024.

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