While I-GO has had the keys to the iMiev, we’ve invited political leaders, funders and journalists out to I-GO’s office to see the car and take it for a spin. Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune transportation reporters Mary Wisniewski and Jon Hilkevitch recently wrote about I-GO and their impressions of the iMiev here and here.

I-GO is sharing the car with its members as well. I-G0 members are invited to check out the iMiev this Tuesday, July 27, from 5:30pm – 8pm at I-GO’s Wicker Park office. I-GO will offer discounted I-GO memberships at the event. Click here for more information.

CNT founded I-GO in 2002. As an environmentally driven non-profit, I-GO is working to catalyze a set of transportation innovations that make it feasible and desirable for Chicago residents to get around conveniently and economically without having to own a car. At the same time, I-GO membership helps reduce driving and cuts global warming emissions. Adding electric vehicles to its fleet makes the already-green I-GO that much greener.

The theory behind the bill is simple: Housing costs do not end when we sign our rent or mortgage checks. Where we live has other costs associated with getting around: to work, to school, to the grocery store. How much that costs depends on where we live and what options are available to move us from point A to point B.

Given that reality, a true measure of affordability must take into account housing and transportation costs. In 2006, CNT launched the H + T Affordability Index^SM, a web tool that gives a more accurate assessment of affordability by providing homeowners and policy makers the housing and transportation costs for a community.

Just as families need to have the best information before they choose where to live, our state policy makers should have the best information as they invest scarce public resources in housing. With the H + T Index tool signed into law, public officials in five key state agencies will now have the best available tool to guide their investment decisions toward those that will truly reduce the cost of living for working families.

This legislation also positions Illinois as a national leader, making it the first state to create legislation that links housing and transportation affordability to reduce the cost of living for our households. New national priorities that link transportation and housing affordability to the disbursement of federal funds will make Illinois well-positioned to compete for those dollars.

CNT views this as just the beginning. We will work with the five state agencies, including the Illinois Dept. of Transportation and the Illinois Housing Development Authority, to make certain the Housing + Transportation Affordability Index Act will help create better and more affordable housing and transportation well into the future.

Today’s news from Capitol Hill underscores why CNT’s work is more important than ever. Since the day CNT opened its doors more than 30 years ago, our philosophy is that change comes at the neighborhood level. And although it is crucial for the United States to implement a federal-level strategy to improve our energy system and reduce our global warming pollution, many of the actions required to meet any national climate goal will occur at the local level. That means every community can and should continue to move forward and do its part.

That’s why we at CNT focus on giving communities the tools and information they need to take action that improves and strengthens their communities and reduces their impact on the environment. For example:

• CNT directs cities on how best to monitor its emissions and create strategies to reduce them. CNT’s mitigation research for the Chicago Climate Action Plan serves as a guide for other communities to measure and strategically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. CNT Board Member Julia Parzen’s “Lessons Learned: Creating the Chicago Climate Action Plan” can help cities design their own climate action plan process that engages the whole community and creates real climate action.

• CNT brings energy efficiency retrofits for our building stock to scale. CNT’s multi-family building energy retrofits have created real dollar savings for building owners while reducing energy demand and cutting air pollution and global warming emissions.

• CNT created and continues to disseminate the Housing + Transportation Affordability Index (H+T^SM Index), a tool for policy makers and homeowners to assess the transportation costs of a particular community. The H+T Index provides a complete picture of housing affordability and encourages people to re-think where they live based on transportation costs. Urging homeowners and policy makers to broaden their definition of affordability promotes dense community development and helps reduce driving, cut auto pollution, and save people money.

• CNT launched I-GO Car Sharing, which provides a sustainable, convenient, cost-effective alternative to car ownership. I-GO’s 15,000 members cumulatively save an estimated $25 million each year on avoided costs to own, insure and repair a vehicle.

• CNT promotes wide-scale use of green infrastructure, which can reduce the energy and conventional man-made infrastructure needed to manage and treat stormwater, while helping communities adapt to the changing rainfall patterns caused by global warming. Green infrastructure can also reduce the urban heat island effect and the need for dirty electricity to cool buildings in summer.

Through all of these projects and more, CNT will continue to work to help communities sustainably address global climate change while creating cost savings for residents and businesses.

As it stands, most discussions of infrastructure investment do not include customer benefits anywhere near the beginning of the discussion. Because many smart grid investments need to rely on consumer benefits as well as system benefits for a strong business case, lack of a robust consumer-oriented strategy weakens the argument for smart grid investments.

Recently, CNT CEO Kathy Tholin took part in the Economist magazine‘s “Thought Leadership” panel, as part of a Smart Grid Tour, sponsored by Siemens. The tour has been visiting major U.S. cities like New Orleans, Chicago and Washington, D.C. to communicate trends in the industry and identify leaders around the country who have been working and putting together all facets necessary to address the creation of a smart grid electric system—from generation to transmission as well as distribution through consumption. The event in Chicago focused on how to build sustainable energy and smart grid platforms that work within cities like Chicago, with a focus on buildings as a major consumer of energy.

Kathy zeroed-in on the need for critical information in order to make the decisions about one’s energy use as a key factor in reducing demand. Comparing energy usage to transportation use, Kathy pointed out that consumers do not really know what they are spending on transportation, because they do not have the kind of information (or the access to it) to make better choices about their spending. And the same can be said for energy consumption; without the necessary baseline of information on usage, it’s difficult for consumers to be most effective in consuming less.

Smart grids have the potential to disseminate key information on usage and reduction and savings mechanisms more readily than current outdated technologies. CNT Energy is actively involved in exploring the consumer benefits that come from the implementation of smart grid technologies and in 2008, convened the Illinois Smart Grid Initiative to begin the stakeholder driven exploration of Smart Grid benefits for Illinois consumers. Currently CNT Energy is a participant in the Illinois Commerce Commission initiated Illinois Statewide Smart Grid Collaborative.

A key to CNT Energy’s interest in the smart grid is how smart metering can enable new options for consumers. These include new rate options as well as the development and implementation of new web-based and in-home technologies that can better manage energy use and reduce costs for consumers. The work of CNT Energy on residential real-time pricing in Illinois informs CNT Energy’s belief that providing consumers access to variable market-based pricing is a powerful and effective way to make the electric system more efficient and bring real economic benefits to consumers. With Illinois’ initiatives in this area now the largest deployment of residential real-time pricing in the country, they provide important models for other states and utilities.

For a commentary on CNT Energy’s view of getting smart rates right, see Anthony Star’s blog post on GE’s smart grid blog, another major participant in the private’s sector’s participation in driving smart grid innovation.

Abogo measures the money a typical household, living in a given neighborhood, would spend getting around– including car ownership, car use, and transit use. It also provides the carbon emissions associated with using a car. CNT developed Abogo so that individuals can now measure the true cost and impact of where they live in 337 metropolitan areas in the U.S., in the same way that planners and municipalities have been using the H + T Index to better understand the combined costs of housing and transportation at the regional level, for example.

CNT partnered with the Urban Land Institute and Center for Housing Policy in 2009 to develop the Terwilliger Housing + Transportation Calculators for Washington, D.C., Boston and San Francisco, where consumers can access up-to-date cost data to make informed housing decisions.

Over the next few months, CNT will be refining these tools to help individuals factor in transportation costs when considering how much it costs to live in a particular city. We’re working to calculate better estimates based on the way someone lives now—and to provide information that helps individuals and households make small changes in the way they get around—while saving money and helping to reduce climate impact at the same time.

TRY OUT THE NEW ABOGO TOOL!

As we further refine the calculator, we’re looking for impressions and ideas how to make it most useful. Feel free to send comments to abogo-info@cnt.org. We have also developed an API, so if you’re interested in getting transportation cost information on your website, see here.

This session, organized and co-hosted by the EPA and HUD, will focus on local and regional ideas and concerns about climate change impacts in the Great Lakes region, including impacts to urban infrastructure and the Great Lakes ecosystem.

There will be a live webcasts of the events available online.

Background

The White House Council on Environmental Quality provides the following background:

In 2009, the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration initiated the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, which includes representatives from more than 20 Federal Agencies. When the President signed the Executive Order on Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance, on October 5, 2009, he called on the Task Force to develop, within one year, Federal recommendations for adapting to climate change impacts both domestically and internationally.

On March 16, 2010, the Task Force released an interim report which outlines progress to date and recommends key components to include in a national strategy on climate change adaptation.

Meetings that already have been held include…

Oregon Regional Meeting: June 6, 2010 – Portland

* View the media advisory
* View the agenda
* Watch the video

Florida Regional Meeting: June 23, 2010 – Miami

* View the media advisory
* View the agenda
* Watch the video

Hawaii Regional Meeting: July 9, 2010 – Honolulu

* View the media advisory
* View the agenda
* Watch the video

The next two upcoming meetings…

Chicago, Illinois:

When:
Thursday, July 15
Media availability at 12:30 p.m. and public outreach meeting at 1 p.m.
Note: Please allow up to 30 minutes to get through security at the Metcalfe Federal Building.

Where:
Room 325, Metcalf Federal Building, 77 W. Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, IL

Who:

** Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality

** Ronald Sims, Deputy Secretary of the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

** Robert Verchick, Deputy Associate Administrator of the Office of Policy, Economics, and Innovation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency;

** Jo-Ellen Darcy, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works

** John Balbus, Senior Adviser for Public Health at the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

Denver, Colorado:

Organized by the United States Department of Agriculture and co-hosted by the American Farmland Trust and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Go here for more information, agenda updates, and to RSVP.

When:
Monday, July 19, 2010; 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Where:
Doubletree Hotel Denver
Grand Ballroom
3203 Quebec Street
Denver, Colorado 80207
More Information

Online Resources:

Climate Change Adaptation Task Force. Led by White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and including more than 20 Federal Agencies.

Integrating Valuation Methods to Recognize Green Infrastructure’s Multiple Benefits. Reviews current methods, tools and case studies of valuation of the economic and social benefits produced by green infrastructure practices, particularly as they are applied in urban settings.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Chicago: Emissions Inventories and Reduction Strategies for Chicago and its Metropolitan Region. A summary of the research methods and results CNT used to develop Chicago’s greenhouse gas inventory for the Chicago Climate Action Plan. NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Great Lakes Research.

Chicago’s Guide to Completing an Energy Efficiency & Conservation Strategy. The purpose of Chicago’s Guide is to help cities and counties to develop a long-term and sustainable energy efficiency and conservation plan and maximize the opportunity for cost savings, environmental benefits, financial leverage and economic development.

Summary Report: Chicago’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions: An Inventory, Forecast and Mitigation Analysis for Chicago and the Metropolitan Region. This research was part of a broader effort by the City to determine the local ramifications of climate change, for its citizens and for City operations. In addition to CNT’s work on emissions and mitigation strategies, the City engaged researchers to examine climate-change adaptation, economic impacts, and the effects of climate change on City departments.

Chicago’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions: An Inventory, Forecast and Mitigation Analysis for Chicago and the Metropolitan Region. Commissioned by the city to help create its recently released Climate Action Plan, CNT conducted the emissions and mitigation-strategies research to reach the city’s emission reduction target of 25% below 1990 levels by the year 2020.

The Presidential Climate Action Plan. Developed by a broad group of leaders from around the nation, the PCAP is the most comprehensive and detailed plan for national climate action yet presented to the presidential candidates and the American people. It consists of more than 100 proposed policies and programs covering more than a dozen critical areas of endeavor. More broadly, PCAP identifies how the 44th President and the Congress can help America find its path to a 21st Century economy that achieves three critical objectives: security, opportunity and stewardship.

CNT’s Climate news archive.

CNT Applauds Senators Udall and Whitehouse for Their Leadership on Clean Water Issues

[Chicago, IL] — The Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) is pleased to announce that Senator Udall (D. NM) and Senator Whitehouse (D. RI) have introduced the Green Infrastructure for Clean Water Act of 2010 (S. 3561) to the Senate.

Green infrastructure offers a 21st century approach to managing our nation’s stormwater. By replicating, restoring, and protecting the natural hydrology of the landscape, water is infiltrated where it falls, filtering out contaminants and reducing the volume of stormwater that overwhelms our water infrastructure systems. From the neighborhood scale rain barrel to a watershed scale system of green roofs, permeable pavements, and wetland restoration, green infrastructure has the flexibility and economic viability to protect and restore clean water supplies for communities.

“It’s time for Congress to move green infrastructure to center stage in our national water strategy,” said Jacky Grimshaw, Vice President for Policy at the Center for Neighborhood Technology in Chicago. “Green infrastructure creates healthier, more vital communities, protects clean water, saves energy, and helps to build green jobs. The Green Infrastructure for Clean Water Act will extend EPA’s partnership toward sustainable communities by expanding cost- and ecologically effective green infrastructure.”

“This legislation emphasizes the importance of green infrastructure as a cost-effective alternative to traditional hard infrastructure fixes. By establishing a precedent of green infrastructure solutions, this approach can become a new norm rather than just a demonstration,”said Katherine Baer, Senior Director, Clean Water Program at American Rivers.

This bill will increase research and development of innovative green infrastructure techniques, promote the use of green infrastructure in permitting and regulations within EPA, and provide incentive funding to communities to plan, develop, and install green infrastructure technologies.

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The U.S. Senate now is considering national Green Infrastructure policy, with introduction of the Green Infrastructure for Clean Water Act.  CNT and a broad national coalition worked vigorously for development of the “GI for Clean Water Act”, which is now introduced in both chambers.

The Act would fund the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to finance federal cost-share grants for planning and implementation of community Green Infrastructure, and would establish “centers of excellence” for GI training and research. The Act would also financially support states that develop Green Infrastructure Portfolio Standards—incremental targets for stormwater management that would increase the use of green infrastructure over time, similar to renewable energy portfolio standards that most states have adopted to reach renewable energy targets.

“It’s time for Congress to move Green Infrastructure to center stage in our national water strategy,” said Jacky Grimshaw, Vice President for Policy at CNT. “Green Infrastructure creates healthier, more vital communities, protects clean water, saves money and energy, and helps to create green jobs. The Green Infrastructure for Clean Water Act will extend EPA’s partnership toward sustainable communities by expanding cost- and ecologically effective green infrastructure.”

S. 3561, sponsored by Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, follows the introduction of similar legislation, H.R. 4202, in the U.S. House late last year. The House bill now has 40 sponsors from 20 states. CNT’s work with a coalition of conservation groups—National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA), the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), American Rivers, the American Public Works Association (APWA), the Water Environment Federation (WEF), Clean Water Action, and the Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution Control Administrators (ASIWPCA)—has helped garner strong support from members of the House—from California to Kentucky; Texas to Ohio.  We urge you to contact your Senators and encourage them to co-sponsor and support the Green Infrastructure for Clean Water Act today!

Call to Sustainable Stormwater Action in Illinois

While Congress considers the federal role in expanding green infrastructure nationally, Illinois is making a strong run at developing its own Green Infrastructure performance standards.

Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) Director Doug Scott announced a broad commitment to GI policy, funding, and long-term statewide action. In a letter to Governor Pat Quinn and the General Assembly, Scott set out his agency’s blueprint for making Green Infrastructure a mainstay of stormwater management programs across the state in the coming year.

Scott said Illinois’ commitment has 5 key elements, including plans to:

1. Develop statewide performance standards for stormwater management within 12 months,
2. Initiate a grant program to financially support communities’ implementation of GI projects,
3. Devise a GI portfolio standard that would set incremental, multi-year implementation targets for watersheds or counties,
4. Revise state revolving loan criteria to prioritize GI projects within water infrastructure financing, and
5. Work aggressively with communities and counties to educate officials and developers on the effective use of GI practices.

A recent study reviewed GI’s effectiveness and outlined how the state can develop gradually increasing targets to implement Green Infrastructure—both by watershed and by region. The study, “Using Green Infrastructure to Manage Urban Stormwater Quality: A Review of Selected Practices and State Programs” was developed by University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, CNT and the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant Program, under requirements of the Illinois Green Infrastructure for Clean Water Act.

Responding to the recommendations contained in that report, IEPA Director Scott wrote that, “IEPA is receptive to setting performance standards to retain stormwater runoff that would be applicable in urban and urbanizing areas statewide.”

“With Illinois and other states struggling financially, this is a critical time to capitalize on GI’s cost-saving, ecologically effective solutions,” said CNT Natural Resources Director, Steve Wise. “CNT is looking forward to working with IEPA to ensure that GI’s many benefits flow sooner and faster to Illinois communities, while water flows more slowly and cleanly to waterways through raingardens, bioswales, green roofs, native plants, green streets, trees, rainbarrels and cisterns, and permeable pavement. Completing the study on statewide GI policy is a big step, but turning the state’s pledges into action will be a bigger one.”

The combination of federal, state and local actions is key to successful GI expansion because states implement and regulate the federal Clean Water Act, and stormwater management happens at the municipal and local level. “When federal and state agencies are looking at performance based standards and establishing regional portfolio standard goals through which we can keep track of our progress in reducing runoff over time, the combined energy and momentum ensures that widespread implementation of Green Infrastructure will be successful,” Wise added.

Both state and federal programs would ultimately make more financial resources available for community Green Infrastructure projects. CNT encourages Illinois communities to prepare GI project plans for upcoming grant and loan opportunities, and to request that IEPA develop its GI priorities and programs as soon as possible.

For more information, please contact Steve Wise, CNT Natural Resources Director at 773-269-4042, swise@cnt.org or Hal Sprague, CNT Senior Policy Associate, at 773-269-4046, hal@cnt.org

(Photo courtesy of Morris K. Udall Foundation’s Flickr page)