After the controversial Transportation Climate Initiative failed last year, legislative Democrats pivoted to a new vehicle for addressing the state’s carbon footprint and incentivizing electric vehicles and charging infrastructure.
The General Assembly’s Transportation Committee approved SB 4, which includes a number of financial incentives for electrifying business fleets, on a 23-11 vote March 24.
The bill expands Connecticut’s hydrogen and electric automobile rebate program, allowing municipalities, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and tribal entities to receive rebates to purchase or lease a new or used battery electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, or fuel cell electric vehicles.
Businesses are limited to no more than 10 rebates a year and no more than a total of 20 rebates unless the company operates fleets exclusively in an environmental justice community.
Vehicles eligible for a CHEAPR rebate must have a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $50,000 or less.
Fee Allocations
The CHEAPR program is funded through a fee on new motor vehicle sales and registration renewals.
The bill also makes long-needed adjustments to how the state appropriates the federal Clean Air Act fee.
The act, passed in 1990, required states to collect a $10 fee on registration forms to implement the its provisions.
Fee revenue initially went to a CAA account within the General Fund and was used to cover costs associated with implementing the provisions.
However, in 2009, the fee was redistributed to the General Fund and Special Transportation fund for other uses.
For example, the CAA fee could be used in the STF for paying debt service on bonds or employee payroll.
Voucher Program
SB 4 redistributes the fee to two new accounts: (1) a transportation-related greenhouse gasses account administered by the Department of Transportation; and (2) a federal CAA account administered by the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
CBIA supports this redistribution of the CAA fee as the $18-$23 million annual revenue will now be expended to improve air quality, reduce carbon emissions, and support environmentally-friendly transportation projects, all of which were intended targets under the act.
Section 14 of the bill allows DEEP to create a voucher program to support the deployment of EV Class 5 to Class 13 vehicles.
The section also allows DEEP to distribute vouchers for the installation of electric vehicle charging infrastructure for trucking companies that begin to electrify their fleets.
The voucher program will be funded by a $15 million appropriation to a new “medium and heavy duty vehicle voucher account” managed by DEEP.
Local and Regional Transit Districts
HB 5256 was originally crafted as a government-sponsored study of regional transit districts to make recommendations for consolidation, improving regional transportation options, and increasing efficiencies.
However, the bill, which the committee approved 22-13, was amended to remove the study and add new requirements for state subsidies to incentivize regionalization.
Specifically, the bill requires that transit districts that don’t have a population of 100,000 or more shall be subsidized no more than 90% of the district’s operating expenses and the subsidy will be reduced 5% annually until 2033 or until the population of the district is greater than 100,000.
After 2034, if a municipality that formed a transit district or that combined member municipalities included in a transit district do not meet population requirements, that…
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