Gov. Charlie Baker delivered his annual State of the Commonwealth speech in the House Chamber on Jan. 21, 2020. State House News Service Photo / Sam Doran

A new climate commitment Gov. Charlie Baker made in his State of the Commonwealth address Tuesday night earned a warm reception from Democratic legislative leaders on Tuesday night, but the governor’s pledge of $135 million in new funding for the MBTA did not knock House Speaker Robert DeLeo or Senate President Karen Spilka off their interest in pursuing new revenues for transportation.

The second-term governor did not propose any new revenues in his speech, nor did he draw a line in the sand on new taxes. With just over six months remaining of formal legislative business for the year, he instead nudged lawmakers to take up bills he’s filed on housing, transportation and health care.

On climate change, Baker said “time is not our friend” and touted a still-forming regional effort to reduce carbon emissions from transportation. He said he would commit the state to achieving the “ambitious” goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, a more aggressive track than the current target that the state reduce its emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

Key to this approach will be limiting emissions from transportation, which make up 40 percent of the state’s overall carbon emissions. Baker touted his administration’s still-developing cap-and-trade-based Transportation Climate Initiative, which would increase fuel prices at the wholesale level, as key to meeting the carbon neutrality goal.

DeLeo and Spilka said they supported Baker’s goal of net-zero emissions, and Spilka confirmed that the Senate climate bill to be rolled out Thursday will also reflect that goal. DeLeo said he too was supportive of trying to achieve net-zero emissions, and hoped to get a bill done this session.

Baker pitched his $18 billion bond bill for transportation and said the budget he intends to file on Wednesday will “include an increase of $135 million in operating funds for the T” to go towards safety and service work at the transit system. The MBTA spends over $1.6 billion annually on its operations.

He also called out transportation network companies like Uber and Lyft as entities that “clog our roads and operate with very little oversight,” and urged lawmakers to “act quickly” on a bill he filed that would impose new safety and data-collection regulations.

The governor did not, however, touch at all upon what is shaping up to be a difficult debate in the House this winter over how to raise additional money for transportation.

The speaker indicated that Baker’s speech didn’t dissuade him from embarking on a transportation revenue debate, which he has said the House hopes to do before taking up the annual budget this spring.

Rep. William “Smitty” Pignatelli, a Lenox Democrat, said he agreed with Baker that Massachusetts was in overall “good shape,” but thought the speech had “too much focus on the T and public transit in the Boston area, and not across the commonwealth.”

Baker also called on lawmakers to pass a measure that would make it easier for towns to pass zoning changes that enable more housing construction. The legislature’s Joint Committee on Housing approved the bill in late 2020 after significant delays but the powerful Ways and Means Committee, its next stop, has yet to take it up.