Roper: New Jersey environmental groups call TCI ‘racist,’ oppose climate pact

By Rob Roper

A leading New Jersey environmental group, Clean Water Action, came out with a strong statement urging that state’s governor to reject the Transportation Climate Initiative (TCI), a proposed multi-state pact that would raise the price of gasoline and diesel by 5-17 cents per gallon.

Among the group’s many complaints about the proposal is that it is “racist.”

Stated Maria Lopez Nuñez, deputy director, Organizing and Advocacy, Ironbound Community Corporation, “TCI to date has been tone deaf at best and racist at worst.”

Melissa Miles, executive director, NJ Environmental Justice Alliance, added, “TCI is a regressive gas tax wrapped in an unregulated market mechanism. There are more equitable ways to reduce emissions and generate revenue that don’t put frontline communities at risk.”

Amy Goldsmith, New Jersey state director, Clean Water Action, concluded, “The specific plan on the table in New Jersey isn’t good enough, and we don’t see any pathway that would make it good enough. That’s why we’re urging fellow advocates and Governor Murphy to say no to TCI in New Jersey.”

TCI is, indeed, a regressive tax that will harm low-income working people and rural drivers disproportionately. For these reasons TCI is also opposed in Vermont by the ACLU.

To see the New Jersey groups’ full list of objections to TCI, read their press release.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Beatrice Murch

2 thoughts on “Roper: New Jersey environmental groups call TCI ‘racist,’ oppose climate pact

  1. Captain Obvious here…..
    We wish Clean Water Action a successful outcome to their objections and hope they litigate!
    Politics makes strange bedfellows, but hey- if it gets the job done – why not!

  2. All this attention to things being called “Racist” as a means to then get what you want, kinda makes me laugh at the absurdity of it.

    There was a day when they feared everyone was a witch too- and how does that all look today?

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