Biden Announces $300 Million for Green Transport

The Clean Cities Alternative Fuel and Advanced Technology Vehicles Pilot Program that will receive the $300 million is intended to speed the transformation of the U.S. vehicle fleet, help to reduce carbon emissions and to increase energy security by helping reduce U.S. dependence to foreign oil.

"For city and state governments across this country, every day is Earth Day thanks to the ambitious commitments they are making to green their vehicles and transit systems. Now it's time for Washington to help them deliver on those promises," said the vice president during a visit to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Carmen Turner Maintenance and Training Facility in Landover.

"From advanced battery cars to hybrid-electric city buses, we're going put Recovery Act dollars to work deploying cleaner, greener vehicles in cities and towns across the nation that will cut costs, reduce pollution and create the jobs that will drive our economic recovery," he said.

Vice President Joe Biden announces $300 million for Clean Cities. (Photo courtesy WMATA)

Metro plans to apply for $15 million of the Recovery Act funds to buy more hybrid-electric buses under the Clean Cities program announced by Vice President Biden.

"If awarded these funds, Metro would use the money to help buy 150 hybrid-electric buses, which are less polluting and burn 10 percent less fuel than our current diesel buses," said Metro General Manager John Catoe.

Catoe said the transit agency saves about a million gallons of fuel every year by using its 74 hybrid-electric buses.

The $300 million in funding will support at least 30 alternative fuels or advanced vehicles projects, which each requires a 50 percent participant cost share. Technologies eligible for funding include hybrid, plug-in electric hybrid, hydraulic hybrid, electric, fuel cell, and compressed natural gas vehicles.

In addition, projects can support refueling infrastructure for alternative fuels, including biofuels and natural gas. Other efforts eligible for funds include public awareness campaigns and training programs on alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles and infrastructure.

Biden was joined at the event by Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, who last year pledged to convert the entire Maryland Transit Administration bus fleet to hybrid-electric buses by 2014.

Earlier this year, the state of Maryland was able to accelerate purchase of the hybrid-electric buses with the help of Recovery Act funds and, as a member of the Clean Cities program, the state would be eligible to apply for additional funds needed to meet their goal through the pilot program announced today.

"Sustainability, particularly in terms of stabilizing and reversing Global Climate Change before it is too late, may very well prove to be the defining economic, environmental, and moral issue of our times," said Governor O'Malley.

"Here in Maryland, where the $610 million in transportation investments we're receiving from the Obama-Biden Administration are supporting an estimated 17,000 jobs, federal investments are helping us advance toward a goal we've set of transitioning a full 40 percent of our state vehicle purchases to alternative fuel or hybrid vehicles by 2010," the governor said.

The Vice President was also joined by United States Senator Ben Cardin and Congresswoman Donna Edwards, both Maryland Democrats.

"We are living in a critical time in our nation's history," said Senator Cardin. "We face an economic crisis, an energy security crisis, and a global climate crisis. The Recovery Act has already begun to put Americans to work undertaking the essential task of reducing our use of energy and our dependence on foreign oil, which will strengthen our economy and security."

Representative Edwards said, "These efforts will help spur economic development through job creation in Maryland and across the country, and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels."

Applicants to the Clean Cities Program must be state governments, local governments, or metropolitan transit authorities that partner with a designated Clean Cities coalition. Approximately 90 volunteer coalitions currently are involved, developing public-private partnerships to promote alternative fuels and advanced vehicles, fuel blends, fuel economy, hybrid vehicles, and idle reduction.

Clean Cities is a government-industry partnership led by the Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy that promotes the growth of alternative fuels and showcases the potential of advanced fuels and vehicles.

The existing program has helped put more than half a million alternative fuel vehicles on the road and played a role in the construction of thousands of alternative refueling stations.

The nation's first "biofuels corridor" is exemplifies the Clean Cities projects. Interstate 65, extending 886 miles between Gary, Indiana, and Mobile, Alabama, is the biofuels corridor, which was created as a $1.3 million federal project under the Clean Cities program.

In 2005, there were no biofuel stations along I-65. Today the corridor designation means that a driver is no more than 100 miles from a participating E85 retailer.

The funding made possible 31 E85 and five B20 fueling stations and one biodiesel blending facility located on the Indiana-Ohio border.

Matching funds for construction and conversion were provided by individual infrastructure owners.

E85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline for use in flexible fuel vehicles, and B20, a blend of 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent petroleum-based diesel for use in diesel vehicles, are fuels made with renewable agricultural products.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2009. All rights reserved.