Truckers cannot buy compressed natural gas or liquid propane in Illinois, but companies wanting to get into that business might get started if their products were not at a tax disadvantage to diesel.
It takes more gallons of CNG or propane to go the same distance as diesel, and a bill would reduce the tax rate accordingly.
Clean Energy Fuels, a company owned by T. Boone Pickens, is behind this effort in the form of a bill pending before an Illinois House committee.
“One gallon of diesel fuel, to get the same energy of liquefied natural gas, you need 1.7 gallons of liquefied natural gas,” Pickens lobbyist Mike Kasper told the committee. “The idea is to equalize the tax rates so these vehicles are not incented to stop in Indiana and fuel up.”
SB 3369 is in the House Revenue and Finance Committee.