Advanced Energy Perspectives

State governments across the country are increasingly turning to electric vehicles (EVs) as a way to reduce air emissions, and save taxpayers millions of dollars in the cost of fueling, maintaining and operating state-owned motor vehicles. EVs also allow state fleets to switch from imported fossil fuels to homegrown sources of renewable power, offering a path to bolstering local economies and energy security. 

November was quietly one of the most consequential months for transportation policy in New York’s history, and it’s worth looking back on everything that happened in its totality—especially given New York’s leadership role on all things clean energy, and how transforming the transportation sector may be the state’s biggest challenge in hitting its clean energy goals.

When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced and opened applications for a new school bus procurement funding program last fall, school districts from every corner of the country rushed to apply. Unfortunately, over 70 Pennsylvania districts from across the Commonwealth were waitlisted or deprioritized for funding from the nationwide Clean School Bus Program. There simply wasn’t enough funding set aside to meet the enthusiasm of school administrators for electric school buses in Pennsylvania.

Florida currently has the nation's second-highest number of electric vehicles and the second-largest network of charging infrastructure in the Southeast. But those numbers – and the potential economic and consumer benefits that additional EV adoption offer Floridians – aren’t always reflected by how legislators in Tallahassee treat the issue of an electric transition. That’s why Advanced Energy United, the Electrification Coalition, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Drive Electric Florida, the Alliance for Transportation Electrification, and several others sponsored an Electric Vehicle Day at the Florida Capitol last week.