Clean Fuel Standard

The fuel that vehicles like cars, trucks, buses, trains, and ferries use to travel – and how that fuel is created – impacts all of us. Transportation fuel emissions can create pollution that makes people sick, heats up our climate, and dirties our land and water.

This pollution problem is what led the State of Washington to create the Clean Fuel Standard.

What is the Clean Fuel Standard?

The Clean Fuel Standard is a state regulation that is designed to reduce transportation pollution. The Department of Ecology tracks the pollution created when using different types of transportation fuels, from gasoline and diesel to electricity and hydrogen. Some types of fuels pollute more than others.

The Clean Fuel Standard requires organizations that supply high-pollution transportation fuels to either reduce their pollution over time or purchase credits – paying money that can be used to address the harms of pollution.

How is City Light involved?

Electricity created through renewable sources, like hydroelectric dams, is one of the cleanest ways to power a vehicle. Almost all electricity supplied by City Light comes from water and wind power. By providing electricity to charge electric vehicles, we are considered a clean transportation fuel provider by the state.

Clean Fuel Standard credits are generated when people use our electricity for transportation. Credits are then reinvested by City Light into large-scale initiatives that reduce air pollution, improve the power grid and local economy, and continue to expand access to EV charging. The Clean Fuel Standard converts City Light’s electricity used by electric vehicles into funding for projects that improve the lives of our customers and everyone who calls this region home.

How will this affect me?

In the years ahead, Clean Fuel Standard funding will allow City Light to maximize environmental and economic benefits for our entire community.

By reinvesting Clean Fuel Standard credits, we will keep state energy dollars local, reinvest them into needed grid and charging infrastructure, and make clean transportation more accessible and affordable.

Over the coming years, City Light plans to team up with community members who are most harmed by transportation pollution to identify new Clean Fuel Standard-funded projects that will improve lives and livelihoods for the greatest number of people in our region. This co-creation strategy aligns with City Light’s Transportation Electrification Strategic Investment Plan (TESIP); watch this space for more information.

Further Reading

The Washington State Department of Ecology has a complete overview of the Clean Fuel Standard on their website.

Questions?

Contact an Energy Advisor at SCLEnergyAdvisor@seattle.gov.