These States Have the Most Climate-Friendly Transportation
A report from the Natural Resources Defense Council looked at how states balanced transportation needs with climate and equity efforts
Downtown historic Bennington, VT lit at night with street lights and shop windows.
Peter Blottman Photography/Getty Images
CLIMATEWIRE | States on the East and West coasts are making better progress in cutting emissions from the transportation systems than the rest of the country.
That’s according to a report released Tuesday from the Natural Resources Defense Council. It highlighted those states’ efforts in areas such as smart growth policies and the construction of electric vehicle chargers.
“On average, states earned the greatest share of available points on the metric that evaluated their ratio of nonroadway-expansion spending relative to total highway spending, as well as on the metrics that assessed their smart growth policies and EV fast-charge count,” according to the report.
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The group’s research also found that states in the Southeast and Midwest lagged their coastal counterparts on most measures — although there were some surprises in states such as Oklahoma.
The latest report is the second time NRDC has conducted the study, and it comes as the new Trump administration pushes to eliminate federal support for climate action.
The findings, coupled with the federal retreat on climate policy, underscore the critical role that states play in shaping transportation systems — especially since states are largely in charge of building roads and other transit infrastructure, said Samantha Henningson, a senior transportation advocate at NRDC who worked on the report.
“It’s more important than ever for states to step forward and build a system that’s going to work for all of their residents,” Henningson said.
As part of the report, the states and the District of Columbia were evaluated on their progress on electrification, their use of mass transit and other alternatives such as bike lanes and sidewalks, and their progress on setting and meeting emissions-reduction goals.
Other metrics included how well each state addressed emissions from concrete and other building materials it uses, and how much they spent on maintaining versus expanding their roads and infrastructure.
Vermont scored the highest, followed by a cluster of states in New England, the mid-Atlantic and the West Coast. The top 10 in order: Vermont, California, Oregon, Washington state, Maryland, Colorado, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, Rhode Island and New York.
Texas, which has historically focused on freeways to the detriment of other forms of transportation, scored the lowest. The other bottom 10 states were largely in the Southeast and Midwest. Kansas was the second lowest behind Texas, followed by Arkansas, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Nebraska, Idaho, Louisiana and Kentucky.
At the same time, some Midwestern states got high marks for maintaining their systems, Henningson said. And Oklahoma performed well on one measure: reducing the number of vehicle miles traveled.
Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.