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Energy Policy
Act (EPAct)
The Energy Policy Act (EPAct) is
Federal legislation to reduce the consumption of
petroleum-based fuels for transportation. It is
administered by the Department of Energy and
primarily focuses on replacing petroleum-based
fuels with alternative non-petroleum fuels. It
originated in 1992 with very aggressive goals of
replacing 10% of petroleum-based motor fuels by
2000, and 30% by 2010. Its actual progress to
date has lagged these goals by a considerable
amount. The primary strategy for increasing the
use of alternatively-fueled vehicles has been to
require state and federal fleets to purchase
these vehicles. Alternative fuel providers have
also been required to purchase alternative fuel
vehicles and starting in 2002, some municipal
and private fleets are provided with purchasing
guidelines. Although these fleets have provided
a market for thousands of new alternative fuel
vehicles, and all of the major automakers have
alternative fuel models available, they only
consumer about 1-2% of the total fuel supply.
Even when ethanol (E10) is included the total
alternative fuel consumption is only about 3% of
the supply.
Biodiesel was not originally included in
the list of EPACT-defined alternative fuels, but
B100 was quickly added. However B20 has a
special exemption and is handled on a pro-rated
basis. Essentially, five conventional
diesel-powered heavy-duty vehicles fueled with
B20 can be counted as one alternative fuel
vehicle. The regulations require that the
vehicles must actually be fueled with B20 or a
higher blend and consumption equal to 450
gallons is considered to be equal to one
vehicle. More information about the EPACT
program is available at:
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