SB 5126 passed out of the Senate Ways and Means Committee last night, bringing one of the legislature’s most ambitious pieces of climate legislation ever considered one step closer to enactment. The bill creates a system referred to as “cap and invest” where funds generated from auctioning the rights or licenses to create carbon emissions will be invested into capital infrastructure. In the case of the current bill, this would equal between $272m and $551m per year dedicated to transportation infrastructure starting in FY 2023.

Legislation titled, “The Climate Commitment Act,” was heard in the Senate Energy, Environment & Technology Committee. The legislation, SB 5126, would establish a “cap and invest” program for greenhouse gas emissions in which emissions would be capped...