Transportation Funding Guidance
ENSURING WE SUPPORT EQUITABLE, ZERO-EMISSION TRANSPORTATION FUNDING
The world’s leading climate scientists just issued a report warning that time is running out to avert the worst harms of climate change. Drought, wildfires, torrential downpours, heat waves and other extreme weather is battering communities from Arizona to Michigan to Florida, wreaking havoc in rural communities, cities and everywhere between. Congress must pass a budget that makes significant, bold and ambitious investments that cut pollution, create jobs, address environmental injustice, and tackle the climate crisis.
The recommendations below support a smart and robust stimulus investment in the manufacturing and deployment of zero-emission vehicles, batteries, battery cells, and other advanced vehicle technology in the U.S. They also call for securing increased investments in transit operations. Advancing these investments, under sound labor and equity standards, is essential to securing and bringing back good jobs to communities across the nation and help U.S. companies compete in a global marketplace that is rapidly moving toward electrified transportation.
WHAT WE NEED
Clean Vehicle Tax Requests
Update the tax credit for light-duty electric vehicles or create a point-of-sale rebate that supports domestic assembly, domestic content, and high road labor standards and addresses equity through income or transaction caps or adders. Modifications to the tax credit should also remove the per-manufacturer cap and extend the credit for 10 years and be refundable.
Establish a refundable used EV credit to improve access to EVs for low- and moderate-income consumers.
Create a new purchase incentive for new zero-emission trucks to lower the upfront cost, accelerate the production and deployment of hundreds of thousands of zero-emission trucks nationwide, and help fleets of all sizes decarbonize. This incentive for eligible truck purchases should be structured as a point-of-sale rebate or as a tax credit. Making the incentive refundable and/or transferable will ensure that the credit can be utilized by fleets of all sizes.
Robustly fund, update, and target the 48C tax credit that supports small and medium sized business to retool to build clean energy and vehicle technology with at least $10 billion. The credit should be expanded to include the manufacture of light-, medium-, and heavy-duty plug-in electric and fuel cell vehicle components, charging infrastructure technology, and a full range of energy storage technologies vital to advanced vehicle propulsion. The credit should prioritize or set aside funding for projects that benefit low income and dislocated workers and deindustrialized, underinvested, and impacted communities. The updated tax credit should be made refundable or direct pay, if possible.
Provide long-term certainty that federal incentives for EV infrastructure will exist. Manufacturers and installers of charging equipment need certainty that incentives will be available, such as the alternative fuel infrastructure tax credit (30C). Increasing the cap on business investments will help support fast-charging stations for EVs and ensuring that each charging unit is eligible for the credit would be helpful for larger installations with multiple pieces of equipment for charging depots, as well as when there are more EVs on the roads. To address issues with tax liability, this credit should also be made refundable. Require certified training of electric vehicle supply equipment (EVITP training) and domestic manufacture of charging stations.
Fill gaps in the supply chains of economically critical clean technologies, such as electric vehicles and battery cells, through investment and production tax credits. These credits should target deindustrialized and disadvantaged communities, and ensure high-quality and good-paying jobs.