Texas governor expands NGV grants
Texas governor Greg Abbott has signed a bill to expand the current grant programme for natural gas vehicles (NGVs) to include used models, his office reported on June 9.
The bill states that the pre-owned vehicles must be at least a model year 2017 or no more than six years older than the current model year.
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"This programme will be the first of its kind in the US," Susan Shifflett, president of the Texas Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance, commented. "It provides larger fleets with a marketplace for their retired natural gas vehicles while financially helping small business owners get into newer, clean burning natural gas vehicles."
"State legislators and Governor Abbott deserve strong praise for expanding the deployment of clean and affordable natural gas trucks and buses on Texas roads,” said Sherrie Merrow, director of state government affairs for NGVAmerica, added. “They know Texas’ air quality depends on getting the greatest number of older, polluting trucks off the roads and replaced with newer, cleaner technology as soon as possible."
Eddie Murray, director of business development at Freedom CNG, noted that "replacing these oldest, highest emitting trucks with pre-owned natural gas vehicles will reduce NOx emissions by up to 95% greater than the current federal standard." Natural gas is already used as a vehicle fuel by Amazon, UPS, Waste Management and many other fleet owners, Brett Barry, senior policy advisor at Clean Energy Fuels, added.
The US has some 176,000 NGVs on the road, the International Gas Union estimates in its 2021 LNG report.