Minnesota forces transportation planners to take climate change seriously

In this episode, Minnesota State Representative Larry Kraft
shares about the state’s ambitious, progressive transportation
policy, which includes climate accountability measures that no
other state has implemented.


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transcript)


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transcript)


Text transcript:


David Roberts


In 2022, Democrats narrowly won a trifecta in Minnesota — House,
Senate, and governor — whereupon they launched into an absolute
frenzy of activity, passing bills on everything from abortion to
paid leave to gun control to free school lunch to clean energy.
Vanity Fair called it a “tour de force for progressive
legislation.”


I covered the state’s new clean-energy law on a previous pod, but
I also wanted to take a closer look at the big transportation
bill that was signed in May. It passed somewhat under the radar,
but it’s got some very cool stuff in it.


One key feature is that it requires both state and municipal
transportation-planning agencies to take the state’s climate
goals into account when assessing new projects — to hold
themselves accountable to those goals. As obvious as that may
seem, it’s not something any other state has done.


To discuss the significance of this and some other provisions of
the bill, I contacted one of its primary authors, first-term
state Representative Larry Kraft (D). We talked about what these
changes mean for transportation planners, the kinds of
transportation projects that can reduce emissions, the new money
the state will raise for public transit, and the state’s new
e-bike incentive (!).


By the way, if you enjoy this conversation, you should know that
Kraft co-hosts a podcast of his own, on climate policy in small
and mid-sized cities. It’s called City Climate Corner, with
co-host Abby Finis. Check it out.


All right, then, with no further ado, Representative Larry Kraft
of Minnesota. Welcome to Volts. Thank you so much for coming.


Larry Kraft


Oh, my gosh. Thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be
here.


David Roberts


This is cool. You are a freshman legislator. You entered the
Minnesota legislature in 2022, last year. It's sort of hilarious
to me: You slipstreamed into the most exciting and productive
legislative session for Democrats in living memory that I'm aware
of. Like, I hope, you know, on some level, this is not what
politics is normally like, Larry.


Larry Kraft


Yeah, I have good timing. And I tell you, I hear that. And what I
tell people is, you know "I'm sure you're right. But at this
point, it's all I know. So let's keep going."


David Roberts


Yeah, you just go in and you start passing bills, changing things
right and left, wow. The Minnesota success story, I think people
have heard a lot about it by now. There's more bills than you can
shake a stick at, more progress, just a wild amount of progress.
But let's focus on transportation. So Minnesota is similar to
many other states in that transportation has become the largest
source of greenhouse gases in the state. I think it's 25% —


Larry Kraft


Yeah, 25, 27%.


David Roberts


— in Minnesota. So this is sort of my overall impression:
Especially at the state level, is there's been this sort of,
like, parallel tracks going for a while now of on the one side,
happy climate talk, which ends up mostly focused on the easy
stuff, which is electricity, right? And then transportation over
here on this other track just expanding, getting more and more
carbon intensive willy nilly, and the twain have not really met.
So this is like what's happening in Minnesota, really. To my
mind, maybe Colorado got there a little bit ahead of you. But
really what's happening in Minnesota is the first time that
people grappling with climate change really are taking on
transportation in a serious way.


So let's start by just talking about what kind of targets are on
the books in Minnesota now, prior to this transportation bill.
Let's just talk about sort of like, what targets have been set in
terms of greenhouse gases and in terms of VMT, vehicle miles
traveled.


Larry Kraft


Right. So in 2007, Minnesota passed. Actually, it was a
bipartisan bill on climate that set state goals as 80% emission
reductions, greenhouse gas emissions reductions by 2050, and then
set some interim targets. In this last session, we updated that
to be net zero by 2050. And then on the transportation side,
there's been folks that have been working on this for a few years
and set a vehicle miles traveled reduction goal of 20% reduction
per capita by 2050 and 14% by 2040.


David Roberts


Are those targets, are these sort of aspirational things, or are
those binding in some way? Are those statutorily binding?


Larry Kraft


They were not statutorily binding. It was in a climate action
framework that the governor initiated that the VMT target
started. But I think what we did this session was to give some
teeth behind them and some mechanism to actually achieve them.


David Roberts


Right. So before we get to that, let's talk a little bit about
RMI. Rocky Mountain Institute did a big study basically looking
at what would happen for Minnesota were it to hit those VMT
goals, what would be the sort of economic effect, say a little
bit about those conclusions and how it came to those conclusions,
like why those things would happen.


Larry Kraft


RMI came and did a presentation about what was going on in
Colorado early in our session. And then we're doing the analysis
on Minnesota. But what they said was, if we could hit the vehicle
mile travel goal of 20% reduction per capita by 2050, it would
save Minnesotans $91 billion. And that was from a mix of things
like just number one, not needing to drive as much and the cost
of cars being $10,000 - $11,000 per year. Saving money there, but
also a lot on the health side by the fact that you'd see a
reduction in air pollution and the savings that would come from
that and then also just from not as many people dying on the
roads would be a significant savings.


David Roberts


So $91 billion cumulatively for the state, which I think I saw,
RMI broke it down. It's like $3 something billion a year, which
is not a small thing in a state the size of Minnesota.


Larry Kraft


No, it is not.


David Roberts


So this is a worthy goal. So you passed this big transportation
bill. It has a bunch of stuff in it, a lot of things. But what I
found most intriguing is the requirements it puts on
transportation planning agencies. So explain to us what the
Minnesota Department of Transportation has to do now that it
didn't have to do before this bill passed. What is the new
regime?


Larry Kraft


Right. So it starts by saying that MnDOT — MnDOT is how we refer
to it — has to set greenhouse gas emission reduction goals
statewide, commensurate with the overall state goals, and then
has to split them out regionally in a way that makes sense. And
specifically that means in certain areas of the state, more
metropolitan, there's going to be a bigger opportunity to reduce
emissions and VMT than there may be in some greater Minnesota
areas. So it has to start by doing that. And then what it has to
do is look at if there are new projects on its system that were
to increase capacity or increase VMT and emissions, that it then
will have to offset them in some other way.


David Roberts


Yeah, I want to get to that. But it also puts this same
obligation on municipal planning organizations, does it not? So
at the state level and then also at the municipal level.


Larry Kraft


It requires for the metropolitan regional planning organizations,
especially in the Twin Cities area, which is the seven-county
area around Minneapolis and St. Paul, it's about 55% of our
population. So yes, it does that there. And then the other piece
of it is for the metropolitan area, that organization has to
incorporate those targets into its regional plan such that cities
that are part of the region have to incorporate the climate
targets as well as the VMT and greenhouse gas emissions reduction
targets and transportation into their comprehensive plans.


David Roberts


So it's kind of a fractal thing here. The Minnesota Department of
Transportation has to plan around these emission goals and then,
at the smaller level, the municipal organizations do. And
specifically, the Twin Cities Metropolitan Council has to
incorporate that in its city planning.


Larry Kraft


Correct.


David Roberts


It's kind of funny. Like these states pass these greenhouse gas
targets, which you would just assume, well, of course, the
transportation agencies have to take those into account too.
Like, why wouldn't they? But as far as I know, this is the first
— I mean, this goes beyond even what Colorado did, I think,
doesn't it? I mean, are you aware of another state that has
formalized this kind of thing for its transportation planners?


Larry Kraft


Not in the same way that we have. I think there are pieces of it
and we certainly learned a lot from Colorado. We talked to them
and we modeled the way we were starting from a lot of things that
they were doing. But we definitely really thought about there was
a piece of this that was transportation focused on MnDOT and the
fact that you have to address land use to really get at long-term
transportation emissions reductions. And so there was another
part of the bill and initially started as two separate bills, but
the other part was very focused on land use and how do we
incorporate that? And then, they came together.


David Roberts


Interesting. And the land use stuff is mostly down at the
regional and municipal level, right? I mean, that's where most of
those decisions are made.


Larry Kraft


Correct.


David Roberts


And now those decisions have to be made with greenhouse gas goals
in mind.


Larry Kraft


Yes.


David Roberts


It seems to me on some intuitive level that if you have a project
that is going to expand highway capacity, it is almost by
definition going to increase greenhouse gases and vehicle miles
traveled, is it not? And so if the state goal is fairly rapid
reduction in greenhouse gases in VMTs, it looks like the
implication is you just need to stop building new highway
additions. I assume that's not what's going to happen. So how
does that work out? How do you do an addition to highway capacity
that doesn't increase VMT or GHGs?


Larry Kraft


So the interesting thing is in working through some of the
objections on this with the city and county engineers, they
analyze some previous projects and sometimes you have a project
where you're maybe expanding capacity, but it eliminates a lot of
congestion that has flowed over onto other roads. So the GHG
emissions might in some cases not be negative or might not be all
that negative. VMT is a little bit of a different story. So what
the bill provides then is that if there are increases from
induced demand or whatever, that they then have a prescribed set
of things that they can do to offset that.


Ideally first within the project themselves, maybe it's by adding
more transit, maybe it's by adding some micromobility or some
bicycle pedestrian infrastructure, but there's a set of things
that can be done to offset any induced demand increase.


David Roberts


Let me pause on this induced demand question, because this is one
of the sort of long-running issues in transportation. One of the
long-running controversies is that the Greens are always yelling
that these state departments of transportation make these
completely unrealistic calculations. Like if we add another lane
to this highway, it will ease congestion and everyone will flow
faster. And then inevitably what happens is you add the lane,
more traffic comes to fill up the lane, congestion remains as bad
or worse than ever. This repeats over and over and over again. So
who's going to be sort of in charge of the analysis, I guess is
what I'm asking?


Who is making the calculation about whether and how much a
project will reduce or increase those metrics?


Larry Kraft


That is the responsibility of the Department of Transportation.
That said, they do have to publish the results of the analysis on
any project on their website, so there's a transparency that's
required within it.


David Roberts


And so people can check. Are they cognizant of this induced
demand thing? Would you say that they're relatively progressive
in the way they do these calculations? Because state departments
of transportation vary very widely across the country.


Larry Kraft


Yeah, well, I will say that I think they are and they were a
willing partner as we created this legislation.


David Roberts


They're not going crazy in opposition? That's another thing I was
going to ask about. This seems like this would be exactly the
kind of thing they hate. What was their sort of disposition
around it?


Larry Kraft


You know, because there had been work done over the past several
years in Minnesota on this stuff. A few years ago, they brought
in someone by the name of Tim Sexton who's the Assistant
Commissioner of Sustainability Planning and Program Management.
So I don't know how many DOTs have someone with that title, but
he's explicitly focused on this kind of area. So they kind of
knew that something like this might be coming and had thought
through and were prepared to have good discussions on it.


David Roberts


Interesting. So the party that is proposing the expansion of the
highway is the party that will be responsible for offsetting its
emissions. So, who is that party? Is that generally a private
developer? Is that the state? Or, who exactly is the person or
entity in charge of these expansions?


Larry Kraft


This is one of the things we had to work through in that it
happens in different ways. Sometimes it is the DOT themselves
that's doing it, but often it may be a regional planning
organization or a city or a county where the funding is coming
through. So they're responsible for thinking through what happens
with their project. And the way this works is ideally you would
find a way to offset it within the project itself. But if they
can't for some reason it is possible then to offset any increases
in a series of other ways of looking at things in areas that are
more challenged from an environmental justice perspective or
elsewhere within the region. Or even if not, they can look
statewide.


David Roberts


Hmm. So if I'm I don't know a city in Minnesota and I'm proposing
to widen the highway coming into the city, so I submit that
project to the state DOT, state DOT, analyzes it and says "this
will in fact increase greenhouse gas emissions and VMT." So I,
the city planner, then first look at the project itself and try
to figure out how to do it more lightly. Or then I look around at
other things I could do in my city. And then if worse comes to
worse, I look around statewide and I'd find projects that what
reduce VMT and greenhouse gases.


Larry Kraft


Exactly.


Larry Kraft


There is an interlinking process that's specified, and so it
looks at things that you can do locally, but if not, you can
connect with other projects or other actions elsewhere within the
state that would reduce emissions. So, maybe you can't reduce
emissions where you are, but maybe there's something else you can
interlink with that is where transit is being added or where
additional pedestrian or bicycle infrastructure is being added in
another project. And so you can interlink the projects.


David Roberts


And so, what are these offsets like? What are the sorts of things
if I'm the city planner and I'm trying to offset the increases
from my highway widening, what are the kinds of things that are
on the table here?


Larry Kraft


Right, so there are nine of them listed right now. One is a
transit expansion. Another is transit service improvements,
active transportation infrastructure, micromobility
infrastructure like shared vehicle services, transportation
demand management like van pool or shared vehicle programs,
parking management, changing production of parking requirements,
parking cost adjustments, land use could be residential or other
density increases, mixed-use development, transit-oriented
development, Infrastructure improvements related to traffic
operations like roundabouts or reduced conflict intersections.
And then also one for natural systems in the area such as prairie
restoration, reforestation, urban green space. So those are the
things that are envisioned right now.


David Roberts


Interesting. And all of those are sort of within a city's power
because I'm just sort of imagining these sort of cross
jurisdictional. I mean, one of the big problems with
transportation policies, I'm sure you're aware, is it crosses
over so many overlapping jurisdictions and overlapping areas of
control. I'm just wondering if it's always going to be in an
individual city's power to make all these other changes, is it
going to have to collaborate with other agencies or other levels
of government?


Larry Kraft


Yeah, so in many cases they will have to. And as we work through
this, this is a process that happens quite a bit today of
coordination across regions. But one of the requests from the
city and county engineers and the Department of Transportation
was to create a working group, which has started meeting, to
figure out in more detail how impact mitigation can happen, how
there can be a trading between different projects. So one of the
things we did in the legislation was create this working group
that's meeting now and will come back with recommendations on how
to implement this in specific by the end of the year.


David Roberts


And it will be the state DOT that is also responsible for
assessing those mitigations and putting a number on them, sort of
quantifying them?


Larry Kraft


Yep.


David Roberts


The reductions have to outweigh — this is another question I had:
When you say the project has to be in line with the state goals,
you could read that a couple of ways. One, you could just say,
"well, it can't increase greenhouse gases and VMTs." It has to
reduce them. But to be in line with the state's goals, the
state's goals require relatively rapid reduction. So, is there a
case where a project will have to mitigate more than all of its
increases?


Do you know what I mean? How much does it have to decrease them,
or does it just have to come in negative at all?


Larry Kraft


Well, I think the way we worded it was such that the projects had
to be consistent with MnDOT meeting its goals. So that does
envision some level of reduction, not just offsetting. So the
portfolio of projects that are being done have to be meeting
these reduction goals. So there is some level of emissions
reductions that would be envisioned in that.


David Roberts


And one thing I didn't hear among the list of mitigation actions
was anything about EVs, just getting more EVs on the road. How do
you see that? I mean, obviously that's not going to do anything
for VMTs, right? It will do something for greenhouse gases. How
do you see EVs fitting into all this? Are they going to be one of
the tools in the toolbox of the sort of city that's contemplating
something like this, or do you want to keep that separate?


Larry Kraft


Well, initially we had kept that separate. It's possible that
this working group can come and say, hey, look, we'd like to
include it for X reason, but I think EV is super important and we
need to hit that hard as well. But part of the reason for this is
that the transition to EVs won't happen fast enough in order to
reduce emissions to where we need to. And so VMT is really
important to do that as well. Additionally, by getting at VMT
reduction, we make the transition to electrification easier and
faster.


David Roberts


Yes.


Larry Kraft


So we're keeping that separate to focus this on the
infrastructure I would say. But you know, we'll see if someone
proposes a unique way to incorporate it.


David Roberts


Minnesota, though, has separate EV policies, though, right?


Larry Kraft


Yes, we know.


David Roberts


At this point, I'm repeating myself a little bit, but I just want
to underline that it is a little wild that this is the first time
a state has told its Department of Transportation: "No, we're
really serious about those goals we passed. We really mean it.
Act on them, take them seriously." You're the first state to do
this. You said you worked with MnDOT productively. Have you
gotten feedback from the city level, the municipal level? I'm
sort of curious what city level policymakers think of this,
because in some sense, it's going to be mostly cities where this
plays out.


It's mostly cities where these mitigation actions are going to be
taking place, adding bike lanes and whatnot. Have you gotten
feedback from the municipal level?


Larry Kraft


Yeah, I would say cities and counties. So, yes, as we worked
through this legislation, there was a lot of interaction at the
city and county level on the traffic planning side, met a lot
with city and county engineers, and one of their biggest concerns
was how would this impact projects that they were working on?


David Roberts


Currently working on?


Larry Kraft


Currently work on. Like, "Oh, my gosh, I'm doing route X Y and
you're going to make me stop." So one of the things that we did
is said, "No, look, it's not reasonable for us — with an
engineer, if you've got something planned out, the last thing you
want to do is throw them a wrench midway or close to the end of
the project." So we dealt with that by saying, "Look, this is
going to start in February of 2025 for anything that's not in an
advanced stage of design. So you have time to think about it, you
have time to plan it into your process."


David Roberts


Right.


Larry Kraft


Another issue that was raised quite a bit was around safety and
was pushed a lot to say, "Hey, we should exempt projects if they
were being done just for safety reasons." And after some thought,
I really pushed back pretty strongly against that because that
would be putting safety against greenhouse gas or vehicle miles
traveled reductions. Like, you can do one or the other, but you
can't do both together. And that's just not true. We have to do
both. And in fact, in many ways, doing vehicle mile traveled
reductions will increase safety. It's been shown to do that.


So the real thought was, look, just as safety is one of the
foundational things that you must do in transportation planning,
we're elevating these greenhouse gas VMT climate considerations
to be at a similar level. So when you plan a project, it has to
be done with safety as well as with climate considerations. They
also came back about the Mitigation Working group. That was a
thing that they worked on with MnDOT, proposed back to me that we
could really use time and a group to think of exactly how this is
going to work and exactly how the trading across projects would
work.


David Roberts


It's a lot of devils in those details, I would imagine.


Larry Kraft


Right. And also, not something necessarily that from a legislator
that I could go in and say, "Boy, this is how it needs to work."
It was obvious that when they came up with this idea, it was a
really good idea. So we put that in.


David Roberts


I could see this going a lot of different ways. The whole
discussion about offsets generally is, I think, there's a lot of
suspicion about offsets, and this is a different kind of offset,
a different context. But some of the problems still seem to
apply, which is, are all the entities proposing projects going to
be flooding to the same cheapest, lowest hanging fruit offsets?
Which I'm not sure what those would be. Maybe just like a car
sharing program or a van sharing program, just the easiest. Do
you think this is actually going to sink its teeth deep enough to
get big projects in the works, like big new light rail or serious
density or serious rezoning?


Do you think this is going to prompt the kind of big bold things
that need to happen at the city level to really change the
transportation landscape?


Larry Kraft


That's a great question. I do think it will change the way people
think about transportation projects. I remember one of the
meetings I had with the city and county engineers and they said,
"You know, we can't really do this well unless we deal with land
use." I'm like, "Absolutely." Now, that said, you kind of made it
sound these big, huge projects. I do think at the same time, this
year we put a lot of money behind our mouth here in that we
created a new sales tax within the metro area that's going to
generate $440 million for transit and then ramp up from there per
year.


David Roberts


That's in the Twin Cities area.


Larry Kraft


Yes.


David Roberts


Tell me a little bit about that tax, because a new tax is
obviously a big thing, controversial. How did that come about?
Was this just looking for revenue sources for transit?


Larry Kraft


The transportation committee — and this was in the house led by
chair Frank Hornstein — was looking at the full transportation
needs across the state. And we had been, I would say,
underfunding transportation for a number of years. So there was a
big gap and there was a number of mechanisms, fees and things we
used to close the gap. And for transit, especially in the seven
county metro area, was a three-quarter cent sales tax, of which
most of that goes to transit. And so that was the key way of
addressing the money we need on an ongoing basis for transit.


David Roberts


Well, a sales tax, as I'm sure you're aware, is one of the most
regressive forms of tax. Were there other kinds of taxes
discussed? More progressive taxes? Like, I live in Washington, in
Seattle, where we don't even have income taxes, and so we end up
funding everything with sales taxes. And this is a source of
great angst for our local progressives, because on the one hand,
you want to do good things, but on the other hand, you don't want
to crank up the financial pressure on the poorest people to do
them. So did you hash through those issues?


Larry Kraft


There were a lot of things that were looked at. This was the one
that was doable. And I will say I totally agree that in general,
sales taxes are regressive, but so is lack of transit.


David Roberts


Yeah, it's true.


Larry Kraft


Really regressive. We heard a story of one math teacher, middle
school math teacher, whose car broke down and used to take 20
minutes, half an hour to get to work and then in transit was
taking an hour and a half to 2 hours. So that is incredibly
regressive. And so it's certainly an issue, we think, with where
this money is being directed, that it makes sense and maybe for
where we're at overcomes the regressive nature of the tax.


David Roberts


And is this tax money devoted to transit by law or is there room,
fuzziness in there?


Larry Kraft


It's devoted by law.


David Roberts


So this all goes to transit.


Larry Kraft


Just to clarify that the three-quarter cent sales tax, I think it
was five-eights of it go to transit. And then the remaining one
eight, I think, is for roads and bridges in the area.


David Roberts


So most of it for transit.


Larry Kraft


Yep.


David Roberts


And for those of us who don't have the pleasure of living in
Minnesota, what's the transit situation now? You got the Twin
Cities area, is your big metro area. Is there light rail? Are
there subways? Are we talking about mostly buses here? Like, what
is this money going to be going to?


Larry Kraft


It's a combination. There is light rail that's expanding, and
there's buses and a lot of new bus rapid transit.


David Roberts


And isn't there somewhere in the bill a big long distance
passenger rail line, am I making that up?


Larry Kraft


No. No, you're not. There is. Looking at a passenger rail line
from Minnesota to Duluth. Duluth is about two and a half hours to
the north of us, right on Lake Superior. So there's a line there.
And then it's also investigating a line that would go from
Minneapolis up to Fargo-Moorhead area.


David Roberts


Interesting. Are those high-speed or are they just normal Amtrak
rail?


Larry Kraft


They're not high-speed in the sense I mean, the one to Duluth, I
think the top speed would be around 90 miles an hour or so. 90 -
100 miles an hour.


David Roberts


Not like French or Amsterdam.


Larry Kraft


No. Or the Japanese bullet trains. Not that fast, but still
pretty good.


David Roberts


Okay. See, aside from this new requirement on transportation
planning agencies, which is a novel thing in the world, as far as
I'm aware, there's a bunch of other stuff in this transportation
bill, as you say, there's a new sales tax which is devoted mostly
to transit. What are some of the other, I mean, this thing is a
bit of a transportation Christmas tree. There's all sorts of
delights in there. What are some of the other pieces that are
worth sharing?


Larry Kraft


The other pieces to this is that we connect to the metropolitan
area. So within the metropolitan area, the Metropolitan Council,
which is our regional planning organization, needs to take the
targets developed by MnDOT and build them into their regional
climate action plan, and then those become guidelines for each
city's comprehensive plan the next time they do comprehensive
plans. And that will happen in the 2026 to 2028 timeframe for
comprehensive plans for cities that go through 2050.


David Roberts


Interesting.


Larry Kraft


So they will have to now build in climate considerations as well
as land use transportation to match the things that MnDOT has put
together.


David Roberts


And that's new?


Larry Kraft


That is new.


David Roberts


I meant to ask this before, and we were talking about mitigation
measures, but I would assume that zoning changes qualify here as
mitigation measures. Or do we know that yet? Has that remained to
be seen?


Larry Kraft


Well, there's certainly specifics to be worked out, but that
would fall under the land use mitigation action. So yes.


David Roberts


Yeah, because I know there's been a lot of good work in the
Minneapolis area on this stuff already.


Larry Kraft


Yes, Minneapolis has done some land use changes in their 2040
comprehensive plan.


David Roberts


And there's some money for bike and pedestrian infrastructure.
What's that look like? How does that play out?


Larry Kraft


Yes, there's a bunch of money for active transportation, grants
and the like. And then there's also a new program for e-bikes, a
rebate program for e-bikes.


David Roberts


Everybody's favorite. How big, what's that look like?


Larry Kraft


I think it's 2-3 million a year for the next couple of years, and
then we'll see how that goes. And I imagine — It's interesting,
it's one of the things I get asked about the most is, "Hey,
when's the e-bike credit available?"


David Roberts


People are fascinated by this whole subject.


Larry Kraft


So we'll see; that might run out quickly.


David Roberts


And that's just like point of sale rebates type of thing. And I
know Colorado piled some of its own EV rebates on top of the
federal EV rebates. Have you guys done that at all?


Larry Kraft


We did. That was not in a transportation bill. The EV rebates
were in our energy bill. And we put rebates in for new vehicles,
I think $2500, and used $600. And we kind of matched the federal
guidelines to what kind of vehicles they would apply to. So for
the new vehicles, it's anything under $55,000 in sales price and
for the used, anything under $25,000.


David Roberts


Interesting. What about equity? Obviously when transportation,
energy or transportation honestly, equity is hovering around that
discussion, it's inevitably the most vulnerable and the poorest
communities that suffer the most from transportation pollution
tend to have the least access to transportation choices, et
cetera, et cetera. What sorts of things are built into this bill
to address the equity question?


Larry Kraft


That was a really key part of this. And when we look at the
mitigation aspects for mitigating an increase in emissions if
it's not doable within the project itself, the first place that a
project is expected to look is within an area that's been
impacted by environmental justice issues in the past. And maybe
that's living close to a highway and subject to higher degrees of
air pollution or lack of access to transit or anything that folks
have been impacted on an environmental justice perspective. So
that's the first place that folks are supposed to look for
mitigation. And after that then you go to other areas within the
region and statewide. So we tried to build that in the plan right
up front.


David Roberts


You know, I threw this out on Twitter. One question I got a lot
of which I think is on the mind of anyone who has been involved
in these sorts of programs, which is: What about accountability?
So say I'm proposing a highway widening project. MnDOT runs the
numbers, tells me it's going to increase VMT. And so I'm looking
around for mitigation measures. I spend a bunch of money on, I
don't know, a vanshare program in a low income community. And
then, you know, "based on our projections that will reduce VMTs X
amount, you're clear to go build your project."


Is someone following up to see if the program, the vanshare
program, actually does reduce VMTs? In other words, is this all
prospective, or is there some follow up here to ensure that these
targets are actually being met?


Larry Kraft


Well, that's a great question. And as this is not yet
implemented, we have some thinking to do on how that happens. But
because this is an overall goal for MnDOT overall and many of the
mitigation actions are around greenhouse gas emissions and VMT
within their network, I think there's somewhat of a built in
tracking mechanism built in that they have to keep looking at
that. But as we get to some other mitigation actions that maybe
go outside of that, I don't think yet we have in the legislation,
about how do we make sure that that happens and follows through?
It's something that is worth thinking about as we implement this
in the coming years.


David Roberts


Yeah, and I was wondering the same thing. You tell a city to
account for these things, but what happens if the city doesn't?
Is there a stick here if either MnDOT or the sort of municipal
organizations don't do this or don't do it well, is there a
penalty?


Larry Kraft


Not currently in the legislation here. But some of these
processes that are being worked —like with I talked about that
the cities would have to build in things into their comprehensive
plans. That's an existing process. One of the things that we
tried to do with this is build it into an existing process that
folks were used to working, and where there's some back and forth
that happens in accountability in multiple cycles of the
processes. So that's the hope with it. We'll have to see, as this
gets implemented if there's other sticks and things that are
needed.


David Roberts


Yeah, and I was also wondering if there are and maybe this is
something to think about in the future, too, if there are carrots
for municipal regions or counties that go beyond what's targeted,
sort of above and beyond what's expected based on these goals,
are there inducements to exceed these targets?


Larry Kraft


Yeah, that's a great question, and I always prefer carrots to
sticks. So though sometimes you need both of them. I think one of
the things that the working group has said is: "Look, we're going
down this path and we think we might want to ask you to provide
more money to be able to do some of these mitigations." And I've
told them: "Look, I'm open to kind of revisit this and propose
some things as we figure out how this is going to be
implemented." So I think it's likely that something like that
will happen, but we'll see.


David Roberts


Let me ask you then about the politics of all this. Kind of
famously, Democrats won a trifecta in Minnesota in 2022 and are
going hog wild doing stuff which is just so counter to the norm
in US politics that everyone's sort of, like, staring with their
jaw open. But specifically on transportation, as you were forming
this bill, is this just a Democrat versus Republican thing? Is
there any more nuance to it than that? Did you get any Republican
help? Were there any unexpected allies or was there any
opposition from within what you think of as your coalition? Like,
how did the politics shape out?


Larry Kraft


Yeah, well, the other thing I want to point out is this
legislation we're talking about got rolled into this broader
transportation bill.


David Roberts


Right.


Larry Kraft


So there's a lot of politics about the broader bill as well. But
on the stuff that I was working on, I don't think I got much in
the way of Republican support for it. That said, my approach was
to meet with everyone that had an objection and listen carefully
to it and incorporate what made sense. And that worked out very
well in terms of, I think, making the bill and legislation
better. And so at the end of the day, while I might not have
gotten any Republican support, I think the opposition wasn't as
strong as it might have been.


David Roberts


Yeah, because you would think, like, the stereotype would be that
Republican is rural, rural areas hate all this and will fight it.
I don't know if that's what you found?


Larry Kraft


To a certain extent. But the way we address that is by saying,
first of all, that in many ways they were right, that it's harder
to reduce VMT in a greater Minnesota area than it is in a metro
area. So then, the instruction for MnDOT was to set targets
appropriately, recognizing that you may need to get more
reductions from metro areas than rural areas. Another thing that
was raised was, "Look, when we do a highway expansion or a grade
separation, it may pull a bunch of traffic that previously was on
more local roads." So what we said was: "Look, it's not VMT on a
certain road, but it is on the network."


So we're able to say: "Look, that's a good point. You want to
look at the network overall so that we properly take into account
stuff." They raised objections and where it made sense and made
the bill better, I incorporated them.


David Roberts


But you wouldn't characterize the opposition to this, to your
piece in particular, as something that the statewide GOP sort of
rallied around, freaking out about. I imagine they had so much to
freak out about this past year. Maybe you escaped some of the
worst of it.


Larry Kraft


There was certainly some opposition, but I think we dealt with it
in an intelligent way. And, yeah, there was a lot of other things
they were freaked out about. So maybe this got less freaking out
than it might have in a non-trifecta year like this.


David Roberts


It would be so fascinating to see what, if anything, comes up in
the implementation of it. Right? It's so hard to predict. It's
kind of a new thing. It would be really interesting to see what
sorts of issues arise. Let me ask you about something that's sort
of outside of this, and maybe you won't have anything to say
about it, but I feel like it's germane to this discussion at
least. So Minneapolis is increasingly beloved of the national
urbanism community. It's doing all sorts of great things with
zoning and transit, etc. And it had this really bold plan for
2040, this really bold vision for 2040, which involved
transforming zoning across the city.


Lots of infill, lots of density, etc. Really like a green
urbanist's vision thing. Everyone loved it in my world. Along
come some local NIMBYs forming groups with "environmental" in
their name, sued the thing, and now a judge has put a stop to it,
sued it specifically, saying it will be bad for the environment.
And the judge stopped it specifically on the grounds that it will
be bad for the environment, thus causing everyone in my world to
want to tear their hair out. I wonder if you just have any
comment on that situation in general, how you think that's going
to play out, what you thought of that judge's ruling, and how you
think that's going to play out.


Larry Kraft


Well, in terms of how it's going to play out, I don't know that I
can have my crystal ball that accurate on it. But I will say I
think that the objections to it are incredibly short-sighted. And
so I hope —


David Roberts


You don't think casting a shadow on a neighboring building is
sufficient damage to the environment to warrant stopping the
whole thing?


Larry Kraft


And, you know, the things that Minneapolis is trying to do — and
by the way, I would like to try to do some of those on a state
level. I really appreciate that you did an episode with Jessica
Bateman in Washington, you know, we want to look to do things
like that in Minnesota. So that's one thing. I think we can do
things at a state level. But to object to what Minneapolis is
doing on an environmental basis when what they're doing is really
beneficial to the environment long term and to climate action
just strikes me as really short-sighted. And it does feel like
NIMBYism.


David Roberts


And this sort of gets at my broader question, which is once the
rubber hits the road, once these municipal organizations are
really told, like, "No, you can't expand that highway unless you
do some other stuff, unless you do some rezoning or bike lanes or
whatever," are you worried about local NIMBY opposition? Like,
everybody in my world is worried about this. All the kinds of
changes you're talking about to mitigate GHGs and VMTs all
frequently face this sort of opposition. Do you lose sleep over
that?


Larry Kraft


Well, I certainly worry about it, but I will say the kicking off
of this implementation group that got going was really
encouraging to me because there were folks in there that had some
real objections to it. But they put those aside and said,
"Alright, let's figure out how to make this work." And I think
with engineers and with planning stuff, if you give enough runway
and say, "Look, these are the boundary conditions with which you
have to work with," they can do it. And I'm really convinced that
they can. The problem comes in when you change those boundary
conditions on them at the last minute.


But if you can say, "Look, this is what you need to plan for the
next 20 years, this is how you need to think," then they will
build that into their approach. So my hope is that through this
implementation group, the issues will come up, but we'll figure
out the right kind of planning structure and implementation
structure to make these trade-offs and then it will just start
working.


David Roberts


I mean, it's one thing to have a plan. It's another thing to
stick to your plan when you confront a room full of elderly
people in matching T-shirts screaming at you, that's a different
kind of thing.


Larry Kraft


I tell you when I started this process and folks would come with
objections, I'd say, "Look, I'm really open to listening to all
and working them in, but we have to start from the perspective
that the Earth doesn't negotiate with us. We have to get to this
point. So let's talk about how let's talk about if you have
changes to make this better or to deal with objections that I
haven't thought about because you're the experts. But as long as
we still are getting to that end goal, that's a good discussion
to have."


David Roberts


Okay, well, by way of wrapping up, this is, I feel like a huge
piece of the overlap of greenhouse gas policy, of decarbonization
policy and transportation policy. That sort of Venn diagram that
overlap has been notably and lamentably empty or close to empty
for a long time. So this strikes me as a huge step, just telling
the transportation side of government, "No, we're serious about
this. You really got to do this." So this seems like an awesome
foundation. What is next for transportation policy, do you think,
in terms of greening and decarbonization, for instance, just to
toss an idea out there, is there a low carbon fuel standard along
the lines of what we have now up and down the West Coast? Is that
on the table or what else are you looking to next?


Larry Kraft


Yeah, so a low carbon fuel standard is on the table. There's
quite a healthy discussion going on in Minnesota about that, and
it sometimes does divide the progressive community with just
concerns about overly incentivizing ethanol.


David Roberts


Right. Yes.


Larry Kraft


So that's when we're going to be going through, I think, a lot
more transportation on EVs and electrification and this tie-in
with land use. So, I do think housing policy is part of this too.
Right. The stuff that Jessica Bateman did in Washington.


David Roberts


Yes!


Larry Kraft


So we have a significant housing deficit in Minnesota. We have to
build a lot more homes, especially middle housing, but we need to
build them in the right places and we need to build them in the
right way. So to really get at transportation, not only do you
have to electrify, but you have to think about these land use
issues. So, I think the intersections there will happen.


David Roberts


How this is wildly out of your area, but just as a final note for
those of us who are not intimately familiar with Minnesota
politics, how secure would you say this trifecta is versus y'all
having a feeling like, "Man, we got to get everything done real
quick, real quick like." What's the sort of midterm future of
Minnesota politics?


Larry Kraft


Yeah, that's a great question. Let me also say on the politics
side of this, one of the reasons this got done I'm a freshman,
right? But it was the support of leadership. So the Chair of the
House and the Chair of the Senate Transportation Committees,
Representative Frank Hornstein and Senator Scott Dibble
recognized the importance of this and were really strongly behind
it. Now on our trifecta, Minnesota is a fairly evenly split
state. We're purple, probably with a little bit more of a blue
hue, but in the House we have a 70 to 64 majority, which is three
seats.


And in the Senate there's a one seat majority.


David Roberts


Yeah.


Larry Kraft


So it's close next year, only the House is up for reelection. So
whether we have a trifecta for the next two years after that will
be dependent on the House results. I think we're going to be able
to keep it. I think the way we governed are improving Minnesotans
lives, so I think we'll be able to keep it. But we have work to
do. I will also say that as I look at this means two things for
me who's very focused on climate work is I do want to get
everything I can possibly get done next session because I know we
have a trifecta then.


But another reason is climate sort of demands a level of urgency.
So I'm pushing for stuff to get done as quickly as possible. But
I think we can keep our trifecta at least for another two years
and then beyond that, 2026, we'll see.


David Roberts


Well, it sure would be nice if getting in office and doing a
bunch of things that tangibly improve the lives of your
constituents translated into political advantage. I don't know if
we still live in a world where that simple equation holds
anymore, but it sure would be nice. Well, thanks so much for
coming on and walking us through. This is really I think this is
sort of a little bit of a dark horse story, an untold story. What
a big deal is to have this. It sounds procedural, but it's
crucial. So thanks for coming on and walking us through it.


Larry Kraft


Oh, thank you so much for having me. Really enjoyed it.


David Roberts


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