By Eric Miller, Staff Reporter This story appears in the Aug. 2 print edition of Transport Topics.
Senate Democrats introduced legislation last week that would provide truckers rebates of $64,000 for every natural-gas Class 8 truck put into service by 2013.
The bill would offer $3.8 billion in incentives, including rebates of lesser amounts to purchasers of smaller vehicles, and award $50,000 grants to those who open natural-gas refueling stations.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he planned to get the bill to a vote by the full Senate before the Aug. 9 summer recess.
But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) suggested that a serious energy bill cannot be passed before the Senate’s upcoming summer recess.
“All indications are that they don’t intend to have a real debate about one of the most important issues we face,” McConnell said in a statement. “Anybody who’s been around here for any period of time knows energy bills take at least a couple of weeks.”
The proposal was introduced on July 28, less than a week after supporters of Senate cap-and-trade legislation announced that they did not have the 60 votes needed to pass a comprehensive energy and climate change bill that would have required large stationary energy producers to pay for their carbon emissions.
“Many of us want to do a thorough, comprehensive bill that creates jobs, breaks our addiction to foreign oil and curbs pollution,” Reid told reporters at a July 22 news conference. “Unfortunately, at this time we don’t have a single Republican to work with in achieving this goal.”
Reid said the scaled-back energy bill he was introducing also would promote electric vehicles, ensure that BP pays for all costs related to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, increase spending on water and land conservation, and provide financial incentives for homeowners to make their homes more energy efficient.
Last month, Reid said offering incentives to replace diesel truck engines with those running on natural gas would go a long way toward reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.
Richard Moskowitz, vice president and regulatory affairs counsel for American Trucking Associations, said ATA strongly supports financial incentives to “remove the economic hurdles associated with using natural gas.”
“However, a comparably equipped natural-gas truck costs $75,000 to $90,000 more than its diesel counterpart,” Moskowitz said. “So a $64,000 incentive would still require the carrier to pay a significant premium on purchasing natural-gas trucks.”
In addition, Moskowitz said the construction of a liquid-natural-gas refueling station can cost “upwards of $800,000.”
“So, providing a $50,000 incentive to build these facilities is not likely to result in a significant number of these facilities being brought online,” he said. “The lack of refueling infrastructure is one of the largest hurdles that natural-gas vehicles face.”
