By allocating just 20 percent of its $150 billion transportation services budget to carriers that fuel their fleets with domestically produced natural gas, electricity, biofuels and other alternatives to diesel and gasoline, the US government could save the taxpayer up to $7 billion annually and about $25 billion by 2025, according to a report from nonprofit the American Clean Skies Foundation.
Oil Shift: The Case for Switching Federal Transportation Spending to Alternative Fuel Vehicles says that a gradual fuel shift, beginning in 2015, would also reduce oil imports by billions of gallons annually; cut greenhouse gas pollution by over 20 million metric tons a year; and stimulate the nationwide introduction of tens of thousands of new alternative fuel vehicles.
To realize the financial and environmental benefits described above, the ACSF report makes three main recommendations:
Emissions from light-, medium- and heavy-duty vehicles could drop by at least 40 percent on a per-mile basis by 2050, when compared to 2005 levels, the report says. But to reach a 50 percent reduction - the target the Energy Secretary asked the NPC to research - additional strategies beyond technology and infrastructure would be required, Advancing Technology for America's Transportation Future says.
The report says that there is a great deal of uncertainty regarding which individual fuel-vehicle systems will overcome technology hurdles to become economically and environmentally attractive by 2050. Therefore, government policies should be technology neutral while market dynamics drive commercialization, according to the NPC.
