Domestic Natural Gas and Propane Can Deliver Savings And School Kids, Says Commissioner Michael Williams of the Texas Railroad Commission
Everyone remembers last year’s skyrocketing fuel costs. Families got hit hard. Small businesses and big businesses felt it too. So did school districts.
School districts are not unlike what you do in your family and what I do in my family. At the beginning of the school year, they sit down and budget what their fuel costs are going to be, and when gasoline and diesel prices jumped about 100 percent last year they had some tough decisions to make. Some cut routes. Others took money out of academic activities. And it was just so they could get their kids to school.
The effects were felt all across Texas.
There’s nothing more iconic than the yellow school bus, and there’s nothing that people cherish more than their sons and daughters. We’ve got 36,000 schools buses that move our four-and-a-half-million youngsters around the state.
And you see those numbers as an opportunity.
Over the course of the next seven to ten years it is my goal that we convert at least 10,000 of those buses to natural gas and/or propane buses.
That would have a huge impact.
We saw that large school districts are buying propane in bulk or buying it probably $2 cheaper than they would if they’re paying for gasoline and diesel. And they were getting the federal tax credit returned back to them. So it can provide significant savings for districts that make the conversion.
That’s a very Texan approach.
Texans think of their state as the energy capital of the country, and we have significant resources in terms of infrastructure. We have the capacity to produce particular alternative fuels: natural gas and propane. If we can create a transportation market that utilizes these Texas products, then there’s no doubt there’s going to be the opportunity to enhance jobs, whether it be auto manufacturing or truck building, conversions, the guy who’s installing the refueling station, and even the guy who’s going to be maintaining the vehicle. There are all kinds of opportunities that are available to us. What we’ve got to do is sort of in a smart way help us, as a state and as a country, to make the transition from the old to the new.
The Lone Star State can really show some leadership.
What we’ve got to do is sort of recognize that we have an opportunity obviously to lead, no doubt, and what we want to do is to help the state and the country in a pro-growth way to make that conversion and make that transformation. Texans are willing to do that. There’s no doubt that obviously we have a long history and a long marriage with crude. We recognize that crude is valuable. But we’ve also got some other resources. And I think Texans are open to that and they’re willing to do that. We’ve just got to make sure policy makers foster this in a pro-growth way.
The reasons are many, and they are compelling.
I think what Texans understand, perhaps intuitively, is that there are three basic reasons. Cost is one. Obviously these fuel sources under the right dynamics are cheaper, they’re cleaner, and in two of our urban centers, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston-Galveston, we’ve got to be concerned about air quality. So they’re cleaner. Texans really understand the fact that if we are burning a fuel to move our cars, trucks, and tractors that is home-grown and that is ours, that’s money we don’t send to foreign folks. That’s money we don’t send to folks who may not like us. That’s money that stays here that enhances this economy and the quality of life for folks that live here. So Texans understand all three of those, but the independent streak in us understands the latter with a whole lot more.
Starting with school buses just make so much sense.
If we could get some kind of critical massive conversion to school buses in every city and urban community in the state, you would have an example and a demonstration of using a fuel that’s home-grown, that’s cheap, and that inures our energy security.
In my Breathe Easy tours we’ve had some 430-odd school officials come to the various tours. Since we’ve started doing them, there have been another 14 school districts and municipalities that have begun buying either natural gas or propane buses. School officials understand. We just have to be aggressive in making sure they have the data. If they have the data, then they have the information and they’ll make a decision that’s in the best interests of their districts, their taxpayers, and their kids.
INTERVIEW CONDUCTED, CONDENSED, AND EDITED BY ERIC O’KEEFE