{"id":17953,"date":"2014-01-13T10:40:31","date_gmt":"2014-01-13T16:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=17953"},"modified":"2014-01-13T11:42:03","modified_gmt":"2014-01-13T17:42:03","slug":"oklahomas-slow-but-steady-transition-to-cng-powered-government-vehicles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2014\/01\/13\/oklahomas-slow-but-steady-transition-to-cng-powered-government-vehicles\/","title":{"rendered":"Oklahoma&#8217;s &#8216;Slow But Steady&#8217; Transition to CNG-Powered Government Vehicles"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_17956\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-17956\" alt=\"Gov. Mary Fallin at a March 2013 press conference in the parking lot of the capitol, which marked the delivery of CNG-powered Dodge Ram pickups for the state's fleet.\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2014\/01\/fallin-cng-truck-300x199.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Provided <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gov. Mary Fallin at a March 2013 press conference in the parking lot of the capitol, which marked the delivery of CNG-powered Dodge Ram pickups for the state&#39;s fleet.<\/p>\n<\/div><p>&#8220;Oklahomans talk a good game when it comes to compressed natural-gas powered vehicles,&#8221; the <em>Tulsa World<\/em>&#8216;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tulsaworld.com\/news\/local\/tulsa-state-making-slow-progress-on-cng-conversion\/article_c01b39b3-8337-5dbc-9681-1a454be0c40a.html\">Randy Krehbiel writes<\/a>.<\/p><p>Gov. Mary Fallin has been particularly aggressive in pursuing CNG vehicles, and joined with Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/joannmuller\/2012\/07\/16\/governors-press-detroit-to-make-natural-gas-vehicles\/\">a well-publicized effort<\/a> to pressure major car manufacturers to make more CNG-powered models.<\/p><p>So how much progress are Oklahoma governments making on converting fleets to CNG vehicles?<\/p><p>It&#8217;s been &#8220;slow and steady,&#8221; the <em>World<\/em> reports, but the number of CNG vehicles is still a &#8220;small fraction of the thousands of vehicles owned by the various state agencies.&#8221;<\/p><p><!--more--><\/p><p>According to the <em>World<\/em>, the state has 561 CNG-powered vehicles \u2014 which is less than 5 percent of the 11,500 or so vehicles in the state motor pool,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ok.gov\/DCS\/Fleet_Management\/FM_FAQs\/index.html\"> state data show<\/a>. More than 75 percent of the state&#8217;s fleet are gasoline or diesel-fueled models, while 19 percent \u2014 about 2,100 vehicles \u2014 are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fueleconomy.gov\/feg\/flextech.shtml\">flex-fuel models<\/a> designed to run on either gasoline or gasoline blends that contain up to 85 percent ethanol, the data show.<\/p><p>In Tulsa, less than 2 percent of the city&#8217;s vehicle fleet is CNG-fueled, Krehbiel&#8217;s numbers show.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett is also a CNG advocate, and Tulsa recently was recognized for having one of the 30 best &#8220;green fleets&#8221; in the country. Still, the city has only 41 CNG vehicles \u0097 and about 100 hybrids \u0097 out of a total fleet of nearly 2,500. Officials say more CNG cars and trucks are being added as practical, with delivery on several more expected in the next few months.<\/p><\/blockquote><p>But the percentage of CNG-powered vehicles is a lot higher at the Metropolitan Tulsa Transit Authority, which has 28 CNG-powered buses and 37 CNG-powered &#8220;minibusses,&#8221; the paper reports:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230; nearly half the buses and three-fourths of the vans are now fueled by CNG, thanks to almost $15 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grants.<\/p><p>&#8220;Within the next five years we expect to be almost completely CNG,&#8221; MTTA General Manager Bill Cartwright tells the paper.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Oklahomans talk a good game when it comes to compressed natural-gas powered vehicles,&#8221; the Tulsa World&#8216;s Randy Krehbiel writes.Gov. Mary Fallin has been particularly aggressive in pursuing CNG vehicles, and joined with Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper in a well-publicized effort to pressure major car manufacturers to make more CNG-powered models.So how much progress are Oklahoma [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":17956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[490],"tags":[522],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17953"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17953"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17960,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17953\/revisions\/17960"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}