An automotive-related sustainability stakeholder group has announced that it appreciates that language within the Trump administration’s proposed rule aimed at rolling back automobile fuel-efficiency targets set by the Obama administration reflects that "natural gas is an important part of the climate change battle."

Natural Gas Vehicles for America, an umbrella group of companies and organizations that supports the marketing of natural gas-powered vehicles, said theproposed rule changes “reflect significant work” by Natural Gas Vehicles for America (NGVAmerica) and other natural gas vehicle (NGV) advocates. “The recently released proposed fuel efficiency requirements for light-duty vehicles suggest that natural gas is an important part of the climate change battle,” NGVAmerica stated in a news release.

“This joint proposal by the U.S. Department of Transportation and Environmental Protection Agency to update national automobile fuel-economy and greenhouse gas standards reflects a growing understanding in Washington that natural gas must be a growing part of the transportation fuel mix if we are to successfully address climate change concerns in a timely and cost-effective way,” said NGVAmerica President Dan Gage.

Gage said that the group also “greatly appreciates the administration’s work to offer a regulatory framework within which all alternative fuels, including natural gas, can compete based on their full emissions benefits.”

According to NGVAmerica, thenotice of proposed rulemaking includes “numerous natural gas citations, including that: “EPA received input from several industry stakeholders who supported expanding [these] incentives to further incentivize vehicles capable of operating on natural gas, including treating incentives for natural gas vehicles on par with those for electric vehicles and other advanced technologies, and adjusting or removing the minimum range requirements for dual fueled CNG vehicles.”

The group also stated that natural gas already has “a strong record as a clean, zero emission-equivalent, domestically available transportation fuel. And when the newest ‘Ultra Low-NOx’ natural gas engines are fueled with biogas – or renewable natural gas – captured from landfills, wastewater, and food and agricultural waste, its results are carbon-neutral or even carbon-negative.”

Gage added that NGVAmerica is “working so that, once concluded, this process to update fuel efficiency requirements will incentivize manufacturers to produce more NGVs and light-duty fleets to utilize more NGVs nationwide. Market realities prove consumers want choice. Increased natural gas options should be one, but we need a level playing field to make that happen.”

As the rulemaking process continues, NGVAmerica said it will continue to provide EPA and DOT with “guidance related to alternative fuel parity and incentives that expand the production and use of clean, domestically fueled natural gas vehicles.”