A new report from the Brookings Institution has found that the Grand Rapids-Wyoming area's per capita carbon footprint--a measure of carbon emissions from highway transportation and residential energy consumption--decreased by 14.66% between 2000 and 2005.

However, while this is good news, the Grand Rapids-Wyoming area's numbers are still considerably higher than many larger urban areas. Grand Rapids-Wyoming residents had higher per capita carbon emissions than areas such as Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco. Grand Rapids-Wyoming residents had more per capita emissions from both highway transportation and residential energy.

The report says that in addition to state and local action, federal policy changes are needed to reduce carbon emissions in major metropolitan areas. The report calls policies that would:

* Promote more transportation choices to expand transit and compact development options

* Introduce more energy-efficient freight operations with regional freight planning

* Require home energy cost disclosure when selling and "on-bill" financing to stimulate and scale up energy-efficient retrofitting of residential housing

* Use federal housing policy to create incentives for energy- and location-efficient decisions

* Issue a metropolitan challenge to develop innovative solutions that integrate multiple policy areas