Dear Ben

I am pleased to provide you with our consensus final report.

I was able to address the concerns your raised regarding (1) clarifying the nature of purchased off-sets, and (2) making it clear that we are not necessarily requesting a new OFFICE be established for Sustainable Transportation, rather we would like to see a director of Sustainable Transportation appointed.

Regarding the specification of revised targets.  Our committee had extended discussions on this topic and our position is stated in the report as follows;

"Our committee recognizes that the 2015 goal of reducing carbon emissions by 30 percent relative to the 2008 baseline is unrealistic. Similar concerns can also be raised regarding the more distal targets.  It is the position of our committee that insufficient information is available to provide adjusted transportation emission targets at this point in time. Until such time as substantive decisions have been made regarding strategies to reduce carbon emissions and/or to allow the purchase of carbon offsets, it will be difficult to develop more specific data-based targets for transportation emissions."

We understand that you would have preferred to have new and explicit targets set for intervening years between 2015 and 2050 but it is the position of our committee that there is insufficient data to develop such predictions.  If you or other committees want to take up this task, we would not object.

Thank you for your help on this important and exciting project.

On behalf of the entire committee,

Sincerely

Wojtek