A clean fuel standard offers drivers choices
We all know the drill. Some guys around a table on the other side of the world decide to cut back on oil production. Commodity traders bid up crude oil prices with no intention of taking delivery. Russia invades Ukraine. Refineries go down for maintenance. Summer driving season arrives.
The story is the same no matter how much we extract in New Mexico or in the United States, which is the world’s largest oil-producing country. Oil prices spike for any number of reasons — none of them under our control. Yet we always pay the price at the pump.
It does not have to be this way.
We pay and pay because there have never been any other options when fuel prices rise. A choice of various gasoline brands that are priced in lockstep with crude oil is not market competition. Yet we all accept it because it has always been this way. The irony? We dread the next gasoline price spike so much that even baseless threats of rising gas prices is a sure way to scare us into keeping the status quo.
Our Legislature has the power the change it. We can make fuels compete for our fuel dollars. We can have cleaner fuels. Cleaner fuels can be produced from renewable and waste products. We can use them in the cars and trucks on the road right now and the vehicles of tomorrow. And clean fuels can even be cheaper than today’s gasoline and diesel, especially when world oil prices drive up the price at the pump.
Electric vehicles are one option. More models are available every year, and vehicle costs are coming down. Electricity is generated from a variety of energy sources so prices are not tied to the oil market.
For the majority of drivers relying on liquid fuels, there are also readily available alternatives like ethanol, renewable diesel and biodiesel. Delivery vehicles and long-haul trucks have additional options like green hydrogen or renewable natural gas. Airplanes can use renewable jet fuel. The options can be almost unlimited if my colleagues just open the door.
Cleaner fuels can also be produced right here in New Mexico. Our dairy industry can add new revenue streams by capturing and using manure gas. Defunct refineries can be transformed to produce renewable diesel to power existing trucks and sustainable aviation fuel that is approved to run in existing jets. Used cooking oil can be turned into biodiesel for trucks and buses on the road today. But these are just the beginning.
Innovation and new production technologies can drive progress in ways we cannot yet imagine.
The time is now. The Clean Transportation Fuel Standard is the way to make it happen. Drivers in other states with this type of program have benefited from lower price options when gasoline and diesel prices spiked. The reason is that other fuel sources are not tied to oil prices. Instead, they provide a buffer to consumers by creating genuine market competition.
New Mexicans deserve the freedom to choose our fuels. We cannot let unfounded scare mongering deny us a better future with a thriving and competitive fuel market. The Clean Transportation Fuel Standard can give us that future — of cleaner fuels, cheaper options and new economic opportunities to invigorate our state economy.