Increasingly, compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles are becoming more widely available to consumers and businesses across our region and the nation. In fact, lawmakers in Pennsylvania are working to broaden CNG’s availability — read more about those efforts here. CNG-powered vehicles provide consumers with important savings, as well as fewer emissions. And best of all, these vehicles are powered by homegrown energy. In fact, a recent Progressive Policy Institute study determines that “The economic, environmental, and energy security benefits [of CNG] would be enormous” for our nation.
At the same time, and as laid out in a recent New York Times op-ed by British energy law professor Alan Riley, “Shale gas offers the means to vastly increase the supply of fossil fuels for transportation, which will cut into the rising demand for oil — fueled in part by China’s economic growth — that has dominated energy policy making over the last decade.” So the more natural gas that is safely produced and used to power our vehicles and electricity demands has the potential to stabilize and perhaps drive down oil (and therefore gasoline) prices.
