Land is key ingredient missing from US ‘Green New Deal’: experts

Amid the rollout of a high-profile climate proposal in the US Congress, some are warning that a major gap exists around urban land policy.

The wide-ranging “Green New Deal” proposal includes a focus on electrifying vehicle fleets, but it doesn’t talk about how to get Americans to drive less in the long term. Transportation is the largest contributor to US greenhouse gas emissions, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

“At some point we need to acknowledge we need to drive less, and the only way to do that is to make things closer together, so people can accomplish more of their daily needs without getting into a car,” Jenny Schuetz said.

Schuetz is a fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at think tank Brookings Institution.

“So that means taxing driving but also changing land-use plans to put things closer together – that’s really essential if we want to make a dent” in emissions, said Schuetz, referring to the proximity between housing, jobs and services.

Yet, the new resolution “doesn’t have anything about land use,” she said.

The framework is a non-binding resolution that has received widespread public attention — and the co-sponsorship of five Democrats seeking the presidency in 2020, among dozens of others.

It is a formal attempt by lawmakers to define potential legislation to create big government-led investments in clean energy and infrastructure to transition the US economy away from fossil fuels within a decade.

But land use is not part of the deal. “It is absolutely a gap within the Green New Deal,” said Greg Carlock, Green New Deal research director for Data for Progress, who produced a report in September that has influenced the framework.

He said the federal government has a key role to play in both guiding and pushing stronger climate action, especially from local governments – which, noted Schuetz, control the vast majority of zoning decisions.

“The federal government had a role in incentivizing sprawl and car-oriented transportation, and now we need to look at how we can change those incentive structures,” Carlock said.