How Do We Best Tell Our Legislators What We Want From Them? Lets Collaborate!

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Permalink Reply by Dave on September 7, 2008 at 2:03pm

Here is the first draft of a CNG conversion kit letter for our legislators. Please give your input!

Attachments:

• CNG legislator Letter Draft 1.doc, 120 KB

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Permalink Reply by Curtis Martin on September 7, 2008 at 2:49pm

I think what is missing is a specific plan on how to proceed with the specifics of your plan. We need the details of what EPA and CARB should accept to streamline the certification process, ie any vehicle that has a kit legally available in the past and can pass emissions testing once converted...

I don't know because this is outside my are of expertise, but you get the idea. Give them the tools they need to draft this legislation. Doing otherwise is like me telling you that your car needs to be rebuilt but giving you no tools or manuals.

They need a plan, and upfitters need to work together to create a workable strategy that doesn't compromise the emissions benefits of cng, yet makes these conversions available to the public. Submit proof of your upfitters status to myself, or any admin at cngchat and we will admit you to the Upfitters Roundtable, a forum within the site that is only visible to it's members. Perhaps this would be useful in designing your letter.
Curtis

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Permalink Reply by Curtis Martin on September 7, 2008 at 2:36pm

Dave, I would suggest that you also post this in cngchat.com's conversion forum. There are a number of upfitters in there and they may be able to add valuable contributions to this effort.
Curtis

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Permalink Reply by David Latimer on September 7, 2008 at 4:04pm

Dave,

in reference to the following paragraph:

"Mr. Pickens’ army, and I, DEMAND you and congress take action to make CNG conversion kits accessible and affordable for all of our vehicles - not just a select few of them! We DEMAND you, and your fellow legislators, support and introduce legislation that will make CNG conversion kits available for all our vehicles!"

I think I would find another word rather than "DEMAND" and I think I would leave it lower case. I like you have a passion for CNG conversion kits, but I think you might get a bit more mileage by being a bit more civil. I know I don't really care for it when people that I may have never met DEMAND things from me.

I like the rest of the letter though....

Just my two cents

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Permalink Reply by W. Dan Chance on September 7, 2008 at 5:46pm

Hi Dave, I read your letter (well I scanned some of the paragraphs). Seems a little long. I have that problem too. I'll see if I can get the essense of it on one page (keeping the links).

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Permalink Reply by W. Dan Chance on September 7, 2008 at 6:41pm

Here is my rework of the letter. remember I was trying to get it down to 1 page so the legislator wouldn't throw up his hands at the prospect of trying to read it. I may not have cut enough. All the information was good but some was not to the point and some was repetitive. I plan to use it myself. Thanks for your good work in developing the meat of it. This box does not allow some of the formating that you and I used (like different colors and fonts).

Dear (Senator/Representative) (Name):

For the security of our nation, we MUST reduce our consumption of foreign oil. Natural gas is one of our nation’s major resources, and it can power our vehicles TODAY. Natural gas can act as a bridge to alternative fuels already on the horizon. Sadly we are not making use of it. It is cheap, effective and versatile yet less than 1% of natural gas is currently used for transportation. www.pickensplan.com/theplan
Today, throughout the world, vehicles are being converted to, and running on, compressed natural gas (CNG). Yet, in America, our access to reliable and affordable CNG conversion kits is almost non-existent. Why? It’s pretty simple. The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) certification process for after market CNG conversion kits is overly burdensome, overly restrictive, and prohibitively costly.

“The process of engineering, manufacturing, installing, pre-testing and then submitting a proposed retrofit system to an EPA- or CARB-approved laboratory for certification is a time-consuming and expensive process that may cost as much as $200,000 or more per engine family.” Source: www.ngvc.org This is madness and we demand that Congress take action to make CNG conversion kits accessible and affordable for all of our vehicles - not just a select few of them!

We urge you to start by vigorously supporting S. 3281: Drive America on Natural Gas Act of 2008 and H.R. 6570: New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act

If you doubt the viability of natural gas (and CNG conversion kits) for transportation use, then listen to your own experts!

Natural gas … domestically produced … readily available to end users through the utility infrastructure….produces significantly fewer harmful emissions than gasoline or diesel when used in natural gas vehicles. www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/fuels/natural_gas.html Fewer new light-duty original equipment manufacturer natural gas vehicles (NGVs) … in recent years. However, certified installers can economically and reliably retrofit many light-duty vehicles for natural gas operation. www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/vehicles/natural_gas_availability.html …natural gas vehicles produce significantly lower amounts of harmful emissions such as nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and toxic and carcinogenic pollutants as well as the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calculated the potential benefits of CNG versus gasoline [follow link for details] www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/vehicles/natural_gas_emissions.html … natural gas is clean burning and produces significantly fewer harmful emissions than reformulated gasoline. Natural gas can either be stored on board a vehicle in tanks as compressed natural gas (CNG) or cryogenically cooled to a liquid state, liquefied natural gas (LNG). www.doe.gov/energysources/naturalgas.htm

“The increase in the number of vehicles on our roads and the number of miles driven are pushing an ever-increasing demand for oil imports. Highway transportation alone is responsible for more than half the nation’s oil demand. At the same time, worldwide oil reserves, which are often located in volatile countries, leave the United States vulnerable to disruptions in oil supply. The steady increase in vehicles also contributes to degrading air quality in many of our cities and to increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Natural Gas Vehicles Are Crucial to the Solution. The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Transportation Technologies (OTT), is responding to these national concerns. OTT has identified the development of next-generation natural gas vehicles as a strategy to reduce oil imports, vehicle pollutants and greenhouse gases. Natural gas is a clean-burning, abundant, domestically available fossil fuel that is considered by many to be the vehicle fuel of choice in the long-term transition to a more sustainable energy future. Natural gas (in both compressed and liquefied forms) is also a promising alternative vehicle fuel in terms of cost competitiveness, vehicle performance, and low emissions of regulated pollutants. Working Group participants were actively involved in the development of the Program at the first meeting in Chicago, IL, May 2000.” Source: www.nrel.gov/docs/fy01osti/29162.pdf

Respectfully,

(Insert your name here)

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Permalink Reply by Denis on December 3, 2008 at 4:20pm

Dan

Great job on the letter!!


Denis Barba

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Permalink Reply by Kathryn Bryant on September 7, 2008 at 7:38pm

I don't entirely approve of the wording of H.R. 6570: New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act. It seems to be heavy on the tax incentives and I'm not sure we can afford all of that. I also noticed that the credit to the auto manufacturer who builds natural gas vehicles applies ONLY to dedicated natural gas or liquified natural gas vehicles. By far, the best bridge solution is going to be bi-fuel CNG/gasoline vehicles, like mine. I don't know why congress seems not to understand that nothing is instantaneous. It's going to take time to install enough CNG fill sites, even with tax incentives. The benefit of the bi-fuel is that it can run on gasoline in an emergency. Ours has a full-size gasoline tank and a 5.9 gallon CNG tank. It is rarely run on gasoline except to get to the nearest fill site when we run out of CNG. Newly manufactured bi-fuels should double or triple the size of the CNG tank but reduce the size of the gallon gasoline tank to about 5 gallons. Bi-fuel CNG/gasoline vehicles should certainly not be excluded from any credit.

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Permalink Reply by Dave on September 8, 2008 at 1:32pm

Kathryn,
I see your point. It does seem to provide a credit for individuals purchasing home refueling units. It may be best, as space is always at a premium with a letter like this, to only use one example. Like the Drive America on Natural Gas Bill.
Dave

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Permalink Reply by J. Douglas Fisher on September 7, 2008 at 8:22pm

Thoughts:

1.) The letter itself is 1 page to long. Having worked in the political arena, I can tell you from knowledge that anything more than 1 page, doesn't get read thoroughly, and in many cases, gets circular filed. Realize, when you send a letter to your representative, usually one of their office staff actually reads the letter, not necessarily the representative himself. Only the best letters land on the representatives desk, so it needs to short, sweet, and right to the point. Think of it as a cover letter to a resume, if you haven't worded yourself right and within the boundaries of one page, your chances of being taken seriously greatly diminish.

2.) While on the topic of letter writing for a minute, remember to send several copies to ALL OFFICES of the elected official. In many cases, they maintain a minimum of 2, one in D.C., and one in the home state. Some have 3 or 4 depending on land mass and population.

3.) I said it elsewhere in the site, and I will say it here too, stay away from negative, radical, or threatening language. Telling the representative that your part of an Army of Individuals, makes us all look like lunatics. We are not a para-militant organization, we are a collective group of concerned citizens.

4.) I will read through the letter now, and then repost something more appropriate. Politics is a shitty game to play, but if we're going to play it, its by their rules, not ours.

J....

Post Script: For the folks who actually administer the website, we need to revamp the site. After reading the letter proposed, there are something like 6 or 7 links to the internet, ALL OVER THE PLACE!!!! If the website administers can please create a page with all this information referred to in the letter, in ONE PLACE, this would greatly help not only newcomers interested, but also help these representatives go to 1 place, and get ALL THE INFO they need.

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Permalink Reply by J. Douglas Fisher on September 8, 2008 at 3:00am

Here's my suggestion. A little tight on the margins, but thats ok, its not margins that matter so much, its content. This should work well. The only downside is that although I formatted it with MS Works, for some reason, when I re-download from the site here, it formats the header to thick, pushing the name and city/state go onto page two. Not hard to fix with some format adjustments before printing to send.

J...

Attachments:

• PinkensLegislatorLetter.doc, 6 KB

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Permalink Reply by tom on September 8, 2008 at 4:30am

yes i do, but i think someone has to be able to correctly communicate how to supply low or no cost transportation that is fast and does all the things for the plan.

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