CCE has been so pleased with the results thus far that it plans to target its heavy duty fleet for conversion/replacement to run on biomethane.
More on this story at roadtransport.com

Waste Management (WM) rolled out its 1000th natural gas powered refuse truck just a few days ago, celebrating with a ceremony at its Carson, California fleet yard. With this vehicle, a full third of WM’s fleet is now powered with biomethane. The clean biomethane fuel is being sourced from a landfill in Livermore, California.

1. Executive Order 13514 of October 5, 2009 requires that by December 31, 2015, 100% of light duty vehicles purchased by Federal fleets must be alternative fueled vehicles.
2. Federal fleets are required to determine actual vehicle needs and eliminate non-essential vehicles.
3. Agencies are required to determine and publish their vehicle inventory targets on the agency’s website within 180 days. They must also submit their plan to achieve fleet management goals by the deadline of Dec. 31, 2015.

This week’s  Presidential Memorandum isn’t just a “feel good” exercise; the Federal Government operates the largest light duty fleet in the US. Currently, military and other emergency vehicles are exempt from this order.

In 2009, Congress ultimately did not pass an Obama initiative to fight global warming, and similar legislation seems unlikely to regain priority for the administration any time soon. However, Obama has continued to press for stricter vehicle emission rules for light duty vehicles and trucks.

Read the full text of the memorandum at whitehouse.gov

The Bad News
Gone are all the tax credits for converting a vehicle to run on CNG. This includes conversion kits and re-powering heavy trucks and equipment.

The tax credit for purchasing the equipment for a fueling station has been reduced from 50% of the investment with a $50,000 cap down to 30% of the investment with a $30,000 cap

The tax credit for purchasing home refueling equipment for private use has been reduced to $1000.

The Good News
The Federal Excise Tax Rebate for the purchase of CNG as a motor vehicle fuel is back. At the end of each year a CNG fuel station owner will be able to file for a cash rebate of fifty-cents ($0.50) for each CNG gallon sold during the year. CNG is sold as “gasoline gallon equivalents” or gge. The intent of the law is to make the sales price of CNG more attractive as the station owners pass this saving on to their customers. In reality, the savings is only 31.7 cents per gallon because the CNG retailer still has to remit the Federal Road Use Tax called Federal Excise Tax. The Excise Tax has to be paid twice a month on every gallon sold except for CNG sold to cities, states, school systems, and some other non-profit organizations.

Read the rest of the commentary at firmgreen.com

Augusta, Georgia’s growing landfill, still barely a speck on the 1,200 acres it has to expand, has started producing more methane than it can sell. But rather than do the minimum of investing $7 million in equipment upgrades to meet EPA requirements, the Augusta Commission is leaning toward investing $20 million to go into the business of making pipeline-quality compressed natural gas.

Last week, a city committee agreed to the issue of $20 million in bonds to fund the project. It also agreed to require the city’s next waste hauler to use trucks that run on the fuel product, known as compressed natural gas. Read the full story…

We certainly appreciate Littlefair mentioning that biomethane reduces vehicle carbon emissions up to 88% on a well-to-wheels basis!

Click here to read the full letter
Click here to read the Exxon CEO interview

UPS has deployed 245 new delivery trucks powered by Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) to cities in Colorado and California, United States.

The new CNG trucks have been deployed over the past month to Denver (140) and to four cities in California: San Ramon (18), Fresno (16), West Los Angeles (59) and Ontario (12). The vehicles are part of UPS’s continued effort to reduce its emissions from the use of fossil fuels like gasoline and diesel and lower its carbon footprint.

UPS began deploying alternative fuel vehicles in the 1930s with a fleet of electric trucks that operated in New York City . Today, UPS operates one of the largest private fleets of alternative fuel vehicles in its industry, more than 1,900 in total with these additions. Since 2000, the company’s green fleet has traveled more than 165 million miles.

Bob Stoffel, UPS senior vice president of supply chain, strategy, engineering and sustainability, said that the greening of its fleet demonstrates the effectiveness of harnessing multiple technologies and applying the right vehicles to areas where they will provide the best advantage. He added that Compressed Natural Gas continues to be a sustainable technology for UPS’s fleet because natural gas is cost effective, clean-burning and abundant.

UPS, a member of the EPA Climate Leaders, first deployed CNG-powered delivery trucks in the 1980s. At the time, UPS purchased traditional gas- or diesel-driven vehicles and converted them to run on compressed gas. The 245 trucks deployed over the past month were built from scratch as CNG vehicles. They join more than 900 CNG vehicles already in use by UPS worldwide.

The CNG truck bodies are identical externally to the signature-brown trucks that comprise the UPS fleet. Marked with decals as CNG vehicles, the trucks are expected to yield a 15 percent emissions reduction over the cleanest diesel engines available in the market today. More information at: usagasvehicles.com

AT&T Plans to Deploy 8,000 NGVs

Natural gas vehicles are popular in markets around the world, with major automakers like Fiat and Volkswagen producing gaseous fuel vehicles to fit a variety of needs. Unfortunately for U.S. consumers, major automakers here have been absent from the light-duty natural gas vehicle market since the early 1990s. Today, the Honda NGX is the only production vehicle available stateside that operates on natural gas. Customers – mostly fleets operated by companies such as AT&T – opting for this alternative fuel must turn to specialty companies that can provide appropriate light-, medium-, and heavy-duty natural gas products for transit use ranging from shuttle buses and limousines to delivery vans and taxis.

AT&T announced their alternative fuel vehicle program in 2009. As part of AT&T’s program to deploy more than 15,000 alternative-fuel vehicles over the next five years – with some 8,000 of these expected to be natural gas – BAF Technologies has become a major part of this alternative fuel program.

BAF is the leading provider of natural gas vehicle systems and conversions in the United States. Recently acquired by Clean Energy Fuels (Nasdaq: CLNE), BAF is well positioned to churn out natural gas vehicles. Through AT&T, BAF is planning to convert a total of 1,850 Ford E-Series vans to compressed natural gas in 2010. This follows an initial conversion of 600 E-250 vans to natural gas as part of a 2009 contract with AT&T. BAF is also exploring additional conversions of other vehicle types, including Ford F-Series trucks, which could be made available through its national dealer network.
More information can be found at: BAFtechnologies.com and att.com