Rubin a transportation expert at national conference

Jonathan Rubin, director of the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center and professor of economics, and chair of the Environment and Energy Section, U.S. Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, will be one of the experts presenting on transportation at the Washington, D.C. conference, U.S. Energy Policy in the 2016 Elections and Beyond: Incremental or Transformational? The April 26 event is sponsored by the Center for Strategic & international Studies. Joining Rubin in the session on transportation will be Dan Sperling, founding director of the Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis; James Corless, director of Transportation for America; Drew Kojak, executive director of the International Council on Clean Transportation.

The session will focus on transportation as a major driver of energy consumption and a source of air quality issues. New technologies and new approaches to transportation mean that the United States is in a unique position to rethink the policies and regulations affecting how, when, and where people and goods move.

What is the future of vehicle emissions and efficiency standards both in terms of stringency and method of testing? How are states and the federal government improving aging infrastructure? Where is the funding coming from and where can more be done? Should infrastructure dollars go to upgrading the existing platform or transforming it to accommodate the future vehicle fleet?

How will new vehicle technologies and ways of using vehicles change the transportation energy landscape and what issues does that raise for policymakers? What is the future technology platform for transportation? Electrification? Biofuels? All of the above?

From UMaine News