1.31.24 - Clean Fuels concept aims at greening New York’s transportation system
' ALBANY — A big part of New York’s ambitious push to clean up greenhouses gases includes a cap and trade system, which would be a tax on the use of carbon in industry and other parts of the economy. Money from that would then go to help fund green energy development such as solar and wind farms.
That cap and trade or cap and invest system is being developed by policy makers. And now, environmentalists and climate activists want a similar program that would focus just on the transportation sector.
Under a so-called Clean Fuels initiative, a tax on traditional fuels such as diesel would be levied with proceeds helping to fund a transition toward alternatives such as renewable diesel, made from soy or corn oils, or even used cooking oil. Other options include hydrogen fuel cells, which offer early promise for trucks.
There’s already legislation proposed to create such a program, sponsored by Saratoga-area Democratic Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner and Brooklyn Democratic Sen. Kevin Parker.
A group of clean fuel activists gathered Tuesday to discuss such a program and to help raise support for the idea. “Transportation is something we really need to tackle,” said Julie Tighe, president of the New York League of Conservation Voters
Along with gas and oil to heat buildings and for industrial production, transportation — cars, trucks, buses, trains, planes and boats, are major contributors to greenhouses gases.
Thus, to meet the decarbonization goals set out by the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, New York is going to have to speed the shift to not just electric vehicles, but those powered by clean fuels as well.
California, Washington and Oregon, which all have cap and trade programs, also have Clean Fuel Programs, said Floyd Vergara, director of state governmental affairs for the Clean Fuels Alliance and a former regulator in California.
“It has been over-performing and exceeding expectations,” he said of the California Clean Fuels program, which he estimated has led to the substitution of millions of gallons of traditional diesel by cleaning burning alternatives.
And New York City has already shifted most of its massive municipal fleet — more than 20,000 police cars, garbage trucks and other vehicles — to alternative fuel, whether it is battery power or renewable diesel.
The challenge, all of the speakers agreed, was the kind of chicken-and-egg situation where more clean fuel producers are needed to make these fuels competitive with traditional diesel when it comes to cost.
Right now, for instance, renewable diesel runs 70 cents more per gallon that traditional diesel, said Keith Kerman, New York City’s chief fleet officer.
“It’s very hard to buy something that nobody sells,” he said. “There’s an enormous amount of interest in expanding this if there was a marketplace.”
That’s even true for aviation fuel.
Amelia DeLuca, chief sustainability officer at Delta Air Lines, said her company and other carriers want to use renewable aviation fuel but the dearth of such fuel currently makes it cost-prohibitive.
“The amount is scarce,” she said.
The most immediate challenge may be to get a Clean Fuels bill passed and then figure out how to pay for the initiative — that is how much to tax traditional fuels to help fund the transition.
The state Senate last year a Clean Fuels bill but it didn’t get through the Assembly, which is not unusual.
Part of the political calculation may be to put such a program in place that doesn’t impose too much of a cost on consumers. Lawmakers in past years, for instance, have blanched at some suggestions for how New York’s green energy transition will be funded, especially when it comes to pump prices.'