Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives Chris Benge and AT&T have announced that AT&T is going to deploy 30 vans running on compressed natural gas for its Oklahoma fleet.
Remember, in March, AT&T announced it was going to replace 8,000 of its domestic fleet with vehicles running on natural gas over the next few years.
AT&T recognizes that natural gas is an excellent replacement for imported gasoline and diesel. Recent studies have shown we have natural gas reserves in the United States which will last for 118 years.
The 30 vehicles, which will run on CNG, represent 10 percent of AT&T’s fleet in Oklahoma. This is the result of the State Legislature of Oklahoma providing incentives for companies and individuals to make better use of domestic fuels rather than using imported oil.
The number of jobs which will be created by up-fitting vehicles to run on domestic resources, plus the jobs in the production, distribution and fueling facilities for natural gas, will be a great net benefit to the State of Oklahoma.
It’s important to note that this is a further sign that America’s business and political leaders recognize that we have an abundance of natural gas, and this cleaner-burning American resource can be put to work to displace foreign oil/diesel/gasoline and offset that threat to our national security and economy.
In fact, as Boone has said, “On an equivalency basis, the study shows we have more natural gas than Saudi Arabia has oil. In fact, if the study is right, and you have to assume it is, we have more natural gas reserves than any other country. It’s time to put it to work as a critical bridge fuel in transportation.”
The Pickens Plan Army should be proud to take some of the credit for helping to create an environment that allows legislatures to look at our energy supplies in new ways and come up with creative solutions to our dependence on foreign oil.