The Oregon Environmental Quality Commission today unanimously approved a significant expansion of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality’s Clean Fuels Program, which helps reduce emissions that cause climate change.
The revised clean fuel rules set new targets for reducing the carbon intensity – or lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions – of transportation fuels used in Oregon. The current reduction target is 10% below 2015 levels by 2025 and the new reduction targets are: 20% lower by 2030 and 37% lower by 2035. These more aggressive targets help ensure that Oregon will continue to lead in its efforts to lessen the amount of carbon emitted through transportation.
In 2021, the Clean Fuels Program added five-cents to the cost of a gallon of gas.
The transportation sector is the largest single source of carbon emissions in Oregon, responsible for 37% of the state’s emissions. The Clean Fuels Program is one of Oregon’s most successful statewide policies for addressing the state’s contribution to global climate change and expanding its targets will brings us nearer to achieving those goals.
Expanding these targets will:
- Provide lower-carbon fuel providers with valuable incentives to continue to bring their products to Oregon
- Increase the availability and lower the cost of low-carbon liquid fuels that can be used by existing internal combustion engines
- Bring down the cost of the transition to zero emission technologies like electric and fuel cell vehicles
- Reduce tailpipe air pollutants that disproportionately harm communities that live closest to our transportation corridors
Clean Fuels Background
Since 2016, the Clean Fuels Program has supported the reduction of 7.3 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions and has displaced nearly 1.5 billion gallons of fossil fuels with cleaner ethanol, biodiesel, renewable diesel, electricity, and renewable forms of natural gas and propane. Electric utilities have invested over $45 million in grants that provide community-based organizations with electric vehicles and chargers, community colleges with workforce training programs, statewide media campaigns, and the state’s first electric school buses.
For more information, go to the Clean Fuels Program website at: https://www.oregon.gov/deq/ghgp/cfp/Pages/default.aspx