The Clean Fuel Fleet Program furthers the effort to improve air quality through mandating the purchase of vehicles that pollute less. |
The clean Fuel Fleet recently established requirement Program (CFFP) is the most requirement of the U.S. Clean Air Act Amendments that impacts park and recreation agencies. Specifically, CFFP affects areas of the country that do not meet the federal air quality standards (non-attainment areas). In Illinois, these CFFP requirements apply to the Chicago area which, for this program, is defined as Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenty and Will counties as well as Oswego Township in Kendall County and Aux Sable and Goose Lake townships in Grundy County. The CFFP is administered in Illinois by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) Since the mid-1970s, the Clean Air Act has required that all vehicles sold in the United States meet federal emissions standards for three major pollutants: hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides. With emission control technologies improving and cleaner conventional fuels NOW available, these emission standards have also evolved and become more stringent over time. The Clean Fuel Fleet Program furthers the effort to improve alt quality through mandating the purchase of vehicles that pollute less. The CFFP targets fleets (10 or more vehicles owned by one agency) and requires the acquisition of lower polluting vehicles having been certified to emission standards that are more stringent then the standards in effect for general population vehicles. The CFFP was originally scheduled to begin in model year (MY) 1998 but was delayed by one year, as manufacturers needed more time to make additional certified vehicles available for sale. The CFFP officially took effect September 1, 1998, and covers all fleets, including government and private, of 10 or more vehicles located in the Chicago area. |
The CFFP requires that 30 percent of all light-duty vehicles (up to 8,500 pounds GVW - Gross Vehicle Weight) new to a fleet must he clean fluel vehicles. "New to the fleet" means acquiring or leasing either a new or used vehicle (MY 1999 or newer), provided the vehicle is not exempt. This percentage increases to 50 percent in MY 2000 and to 70 percent in MY 2001 and thereafter. For heavy-duty vehicles (8,501 to 26,000 pounds), 50 percent of the vehicles new to a fleet must be clean fuel vehicles. In lieu of acquiring a new vehicle, an existing vehicle can be made compliant through conversion to make it operable with a "clean fuel as long as the conversion system is certified to one of the CFFP standards. A "credit" program is also available to help enable fleet operators to maintain CFFP requirements. It is important to understand that fuels are not certified to the emissions standards, vehicles and engines are. Therefore, any fuel is eligible to be used by the manufacturer to certify the maker's engine or vehicle. Quite simply, then, a clean fuel vehicle can be one that operates with either an alternative fuel or conventional fuel (e.g., gasoline or diesel). The CFFP does allow the type of gasoline sold throughout the Chicago area ("reformulated gasoline") to be used by the auto or engine manufacturers in meeting CFFP |