With its own strategic business interest at stake, Seal Beach, CA-based Clean Energy Fuels Inc. attempted to make the case Friday for American business supporting national legislation to help boost the use of natural gas as a transportation fuel. Clean Energy’s founder, T. Boone Pickens, is a big backer of the proposed legislation known as NAT GAS Act (see Daily GPI, April 21).

A list of more than 240 businesses supporting the legislation was released by Clean Energy with the emphasis on natural gas providing the only clean fuel alternative for heavy-duty vehicles and the promise that their widespread deployment would create thousands of new jobs and boost the economy.

NAT GAS Act (HR 1380) backers stressed the national security problems created by increasing U.S. dependence on foreign sources of oil for transportation. They argue that natural gas is “a viable, tested and domestic alternative.”

“In addition to powering light- and medium-duty vehicles, natural gas is the only domestic alternative to foreign oil today that can power heavy-duty vehicles, which use 2.6 million bbl/d,” a Clean Energy spokesperson said. “Moreover, natural gas can play an important role in bridging today’s needs with tomorrow’s new technologies.”

Clean energy’s list of backers includes mostly fleet operators, cities, public transit operators, utilities, energy stakeholders and natural gas transportation sector companies.

Noting that HR 1380 will allow his company to accelerate its already growing natural fueling business, the Clean Energy spokesperson said the broadening support for the federal legislation is the result of the prospect of “new manufacturing and new jobs, exactly what our nation needs in order to continue rebuilding our economy.”

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