HARRISBURG — Standing before an array of natural-gas-powered vehicles, a group of state House Republicans introduced seven bills to entice transit groups to switch to those vehicles, saying the move would reduce air pollution and create thousands of jobs in Pennsylvania.
Billed as Marcellus Works, House Majority Whip Stan Saylor, a Republican representing the 94th Legislative District, said the package of legislation would “secure Pennsylvania’s energy future and create thousands of new jobs” by means of incentives for using natural-gas-powered vehicles, fueled primarily with gas from Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale.
“Extracting the natural gas represents only half of the job-creating potential,” Saylor said during a Wednesday press conference in Harrisburg. “Using this clean-burning and domestic resource will unlock the key to the other half. That is where our plan comes in.”
The plan would move $47.5 million from the oil and gas lease fund into tax credits, grants and loans for transit authorities, local governments and private businesses across the state.
Of the seven bill introduced, each by its own legislator, two of particular interest to Valley transit works are:
Saylor’s House Bill 1083, which looks to alleviate the cost of natural-gas vehicles through tax credits for private-fleet vehicles.
House Bill 1084, sponsored by Rep. Dan Moul, R-91, which proposes grants for smaller mass-transit agencies to cover the costs of natural-gas buses.
While the grant money is a good opportunity, “The problem right now is USTA doesn’t have a facility to do natural gas,” said Cindy Zerbe, administrator of the Union-Snyder Transportation Alliance, a public, nonprofit system that provides consolidated transportation for local human service agencies.
“I’m not saying I wouldn’t want to do this. We don’t have the facility at the time,” she said. “Certainly, if the opportunity arises that we can do some things like that, we would like to. It’s not feasible right now.”
A natural-gas vehicle runs on compressed natural gas. In the United States, the most common NGVs are mass-transit buses.
NGVs typically cost more than conventional vehicles, said Denise McCourt, communications director for NGVAmerica, a trade association for the industry. The payoff, she said, comes over time.
“You’re paying more for the vehicle and less for the fuel,” she said.
According to the website CNG Prices.com (www.cngprices.com), natural gas at PECO Energy in Eddystone, outside of Philadelphia, was going for the equivalent of $1 per gallon. Other prices in the Philadelphia area — there were no stations listed for the Central Susquehanna Valley — ranged from $1.99 to $2.30. A service station in State College was listed as no longer operational.
The Associated Press quoted David Spigelmyer, of Chesapeake Energy Corp., an Oklahoma City-based company, as saying compressed natural gas was going for the equivalent of $1.39 per gallon at a fueling station in Oklahoma last week.
“How long will it take to recoup the costs balanced against the vehicle’s use? In the United States, if you have a fleet of buses, you recoup costs faster simply because the vehicle is on the road so much more. The payback is faster,” McCourt said.
This factor is what has commercial businesses that use trucks looking at NGVs, she said, citing the refuse market in particular.
In this light, another part of the package that could benefit the Susquehanna Valley is House Bill 1088, sponsored by Rep. Tina Pickett, R-110, which would dedicate the Alternative Fuel Incentive Fund to provide grants to municipalities, schools and the private sector to buy natural-gas vehicles.
Larger mass-transit agencies would benefit from a revolving loan program to cover costs of NGVs. In fact, House Bill 1086, sponsored by Rep. Jim Marshall, R-14, would require “the Big Three” mass transit agencies — Philadelphia’s SEPTA, Pittsburgh’s PAT and Lehigh Valley’s LANTA — to make 25 percent of all new buses purchased in 2012-16 run on natural gas; 50 percent in 2017-21; 75 percent in 2021-26; and 100 percent in 2027.
Basically, filling a gasoline-powered vehicle and an NGV are sort of the same, McCourt said.
With gasoline, a vehicle doesn’t have a closed-loop system; with natural gas, which is compressed, you have a closed-loop system. Therefore, the gas is still sold by the gallon, but for natural gas, it’s a gallon equivalent. Diesel-gallon equivalents of natural gas also are available.
The biggest difference with natural gas as a fuel, McCourt said, is that as a domestic product in a domestic market, the price is more stable. With gasoline, the price is a foreign product sold in the global market, making for bigger price fluctuations.
Fueling stations could prove an issue for the Valley, however. House Bill 1087, sponsored by Rep. Gordon Denlinger, R-99, would create a natural gas corridor tax credit to encourage construction of natural-gas fueling stations along travel corridors, particularly Interstates 76, 78, 79, 80, 81 and 83.
“My concern is having a clean burning fueling network in place to support these vehicles,” said Jim Saylor, transportation director for SEDA-Council of Governments, based near Lewisburg.
It’s positive to use NGVs because they’re cleaner burning, and the Central Susquehanna Valley doesn’t have the emissions problems of larger urban areas, he said, “and we’d like to keep it that way.” However, fueling stations would have to be nearer than the interstates.
“That would be fine for northern Union County,” he said. “For Snyder County, I could see that being a problem.”
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