The Obama administration and congressional Democratic leaders have made it clear they hope to pass sweeping climate-change legislation this year. These policies will have to address the transportation sector in order to make drastic cuts in emissions, said David Matsuda, acting assistant secretary for transportation policy at the U.S. Department of Transportation.

"The transportation sector is responsible for 30 percent of total U.S. emissions," Matsuda told representatives Tuesday at a hearing of the House Technology and Innovation Subcommittee.

Over the past three or four decades, a number of policies have decreased transportation's impact on the environment by phasing out lead-based additives to gasoline and increasing fuel-efficiency standards, including a 2007 law requiring fleet averages of 35 miles per gallon by 2020 for cars and light trucks.

But these advancements aren't enough, said Rep. David Wu, D-Ore., chair of the subcommittee.

"These changes were the low-hanging fruit," Wu said. "Today there's an opportunity to think more broadly about the impact of our transportation infrastructure on climate."

The way communities are structured, the availability of pubic transportation, the types of vehicles driven and the materials used to make the roads they travel on all impact the nation's carbon footprint, witnesses said Tuesday.

Some areas of the country have already married their transportation decisions with their climate concerns, including Portland, Ore., where transportation accounts for 40 percent of emissions.

In 1993, the city became the first in the country to adopt a comprehensive climate-change strategy. Since then, daily vehicle miles traveled within Portland have dropped 8 percent, compared with a national increase of 8 percent.

However, the city has a long way to go to meet its 2050 climate goals, said Catherine Ciarlo, Portland transportation director.

"We project we'll need to reduce vehicle miles driven by 68 percent per person below 1990 levels," Ciarlo said.

That won't happen unless the city can find out what's working and what's not, she said.

"Our ability to meet our climate goals will depend on new research tools," said Ciarlo, who's asking policymakers for money to fund pilot projects and develop research models.

Other witnesses also emphasized the need for more data, including Laurence Rilett, director of the Nebraska Transportation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

"We need models to identify whether the policies we are putting in place are doing what we want," Rilett said.

For instance, just because people ride their bikes more, he said, that doesn't mean emissions necessarily go down.

"I ride my bike to work, so I don't stop at the store on the way," Rilett said. "If I drove, I'd stop at the store on the way home (instead of making a separate trip). So is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

Having the research to make smart decisions is especially important now with the recent passage of a massive spending bill to stimulate the economy, said Steven Winkelman, director of transportation and adaptation programs at the Center for Clean Air Policy, a non-profit think tank that works on environmental issues.

"Congress is poised to spend $500 billion on transportation infrastructure," Winkelman said. "Asking the climate question about that investment presents a new challenge that transportation officials are not equipped to address."

When it comes to transportation and climate change, the focus usually falls on cars themselves and the need for new technologies, like electric vehicles. However, city planning is a more immediate and equally efficient way to cut carbon emissions, Winkelman said.

"Sidewalks are as sexy as hybrids," he said. "Residents of walkable neighborhoods emit less CO2 than those of car-dependent neighborhoods."

Installing mass-transit systems, encouraging biking, increasing telecommuting, building residences close to stores and other efforts to decrease transportation can save money in addition to cutting emissions, Winkelman said. The Sacramento area, for example, spent $4 million on smart-growth planning, he said, but saved money overall by decreasing the need for new infrastructure, all while cutting emissions by 14 percent.

That might work in cities, but rural areas don't have the same opportunities for carpool lanes or bike trails from neighborhoods to stores, said Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., the ranking member of the subcommittee.

"In rural areas, it's very difficult to provide all these choices, if not impossible," he said.

Looking to other countries could help the United States find solutions to this problem, Portland's Ciarlo said.

"In Switzerland, for example, all the villages are linked with buses and trains," she said.

Another potential area to cut emissions lies in the materials used to make transportation infrastructure itself. Of the 2.6 million miles of paved road in the United States, more than 94 percent is surfaced with asphalt, said Mike Acott, president of the National Asphalt Pavement Association, a trade organization for asphalt producers.

"We are on the brink of several breakthroughs in asphalt-pavement technology," Acott said Tuesday.

In particular, a new way to make the material, called warm mix, could use 20 percent less energy than the traditional method. Additional research is required, though, to determine the method's total carbon footprint, and Acott's organization is asking Congress to invest $10 million per year in a new federal asphalt-research program.

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