A key member of the U.S. Senate's trucking and surface transportation panels, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, has put forward a plan to improve the country's transportation grid with a focus on green-centric ideas and programs.

Provisions of the plan include reducing energy consumption, incorporating climate change science into transportation projects and making electric and energy efficient vehicles more available.

As reported in Transport Topics, the senator said, "Any deal on an infrastructure package must include measures to promote our clean-energy economy and mitigate the dangers posed by climate change."

Markey added that infrastructure money spent must be on assets that will withstand the impacts of climate change and keep communities safer including by improving mass evacuation routes.

"An infrastructure package can serve as a critical down payment on the action that we need to take to combat the climate crisis," stated Markey. "Making a clean and climate-resilient infrastructure vision a reality will require re-envisioning existing infrastructure programs and re-evaluating how we invest in those programs."