The Center for American Progress (CAP) this week released a major report on how shifting heavy trucks from imported diesel to domestic natural gas would “reduce oil use, invest in American energy sources, increase our energy independence and national security, and slash air pollution.”
The report, which is titled, “Developing Natural Gas for Heavy Vehicles” says that “deployment of 3.5 million of these natural gas vehicles by 2035 would save at least 1.2 million barrels of oil per day compared to business as usual, which is more oil than we imported from Venezuela last year.”
It is also more oil than was imported from Saudi Arabia. CAP, which has a strong interest in the environment states that “natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel, producing less than half as much carbon pollution as coal for electricity and up to 25 percent less than oil for transportation. Natural gas is also domestically available in vast quantities.”
The report concludes by saying:
”The United States’ addiction to oil is a threat to our security and prosperity. Natural gas is a cleaner, cheaper, and domestically abundant fuel, and creating incentives to convert the nation’s heavy- and medium-duty truck and bus fleets to natural gas is essential to relying on homemade American energy, increasing our energy independence, and reducing air pollution.”
And urges Congressional action on the NAT GAS Act (H.R. 1835 and S. 1408):
”A program to encourage the conversion of heavy vehicles to run on natural gas should be included in any comprehensive clean energy and climate change bill.”
The entire Center for American Progress Report is available HERE.
— The Pickens Team