Advocates, New York Officials and Business Leaders Address Racial and Environmental Justice issues in the South Bronx

(Energy Vision) New Funding Offered for Clean Truck Technology and Fuels to Reduce Diesel Exhaust’s Impacts on Bronx Air Quality and Respiratory Illness -- At a webinar this week sponsored by the non-profit Energy Vision, the NYC
Department of Transportation and Empire Clean Cities, New York State Senator Alessandra Biaggi, WE ACT for Environmental Justice’s Cecil Corbin-Mark, City officials and business leaders addressed the environmental injustice of bad air quality and attendant respiratory health problems in the South Bronx arising from truck traffic and diesel exhaust.

They also discussed remedies, including clean truck technologies and fuels that can replace diesel, such as renewable natural gas (RNG) made from organic waste, which virtually eliminates health-damaging pollutants and is the lowest carbon fuel available today. And they reviewed new funding and financing programs to help fleets transition away from diesel, such as the just-launched NYC Clean Trucks program, and Clean Energy Fuel’s Zero Now program.

In addition to public funding sources, Clean Energy, the leading provider of natural gas fuel for transportation launched its Zero Now program to provide financing to help fleet owners convert to renewable natural gas. “The company is offering up to $40,000 toward purchase of ultra-clean natural gas trucks – both medium- and heavy-duty – powered by renewable natural gas fuel,” said Mark Riley, Clean Energy’s Vice President for Canada and the Eastern US. “It also offers exclusive truck pricing, and a fiveyear fuel cost certainty through either discounts or indexed offer of diesel fuel.” Last year in the Hunts Point neighborhood of the South Bronx, Clean Energy opened the first natural gas vehicle fueling station in New York City to sell RNG exclusively. READ MORE