After meeting with the CEOs of major automobile manufacturers on Monday, President Bush spent Tuesday taking a look at alternative fuel vehicles used by the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx, UPS, and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.
According to a White House fact sheet, the U.S. Postal Service has the “largest alternative fuel vehicle fleet in the world. Almost 13 percent of the 289,000 vehicle fleet are alternative fuel vehicles such as hybrids, biodiesel, compressed natural gas, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.”
UPS operates the largest private alternative fuel fleet in its industry, using more than 1,500 compressed natural gas, liquefied natural gas, propane, hydrogen fuel cell, and hybrid vehicles. Fed-Ex and the Washington Metro are using or investing in hybrid-electric diesel trucks and buses.
They note that large fleet operators like these are participating in the Department of Energy’s Clean Cities Program, which works through a network of more than 80 volunteer coalitions to promote alternative fuels and vehicles, fuel blends, fuel economy, hybrid vehicles, and idle reduction.
Meanwhile, an Associated Press report criticized the president for “talking, for two days in a row, about converting switchgrass and wood chips into ethanol,” instead of focusing on the congressional standoffs over Iraq and controversy over the firings of US attorney generals.
Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle and officials with North Prairie Productions, LLC were among those at a groundbreaking ceremony in Evansville for the state’s latest biodiesel plant. According to 
“Our state has the ideal resources to be a national model for renewable energy – from agriculture and forestry, to manufacturing and cutting-edge innovation,” Doyle said in prepared remarks. 
Mike Robinson, president of North Prairie Productions, is delighted with the state’s support, but even more grateful to investors. While biofuels have plenty of detractors, Robinson said about 800 investors, all Wisconsin residents, have committed an average of $30,000 to the company as part of an equity drive that will close on April 5.
Our friends at “The Fueling Station” in St. Petersburg, Florida alerted us to an 
The 
“I first would say that I don’t think about using food for fuel. I think about using crops for fuel. I say that because this use has been an objective of agriculture for a long, long time. Henry Ford built a car out of plastic made from soybeans a long, long time ago. We’ve been trying to utilize agricultural commodities in industrial uses for decades precisely because the productive capacity of American agriculture has been so great. It’s often overwhelmed demand and created lower prices. That’s why we have this elaborate system of price and income support programs at USDA. So it’s not a new thing to use crops for fuel.”
Rick Wagoner, Chairman and CEO, General Motors Corporation said that flex fuel vehicles offer the best opportunity right now for America to lessen its dependence on foreign oil. “There are millions on the road today. As a group, we’ve agreed to double our production by the year 2010, and then have 50 percent of our production E85-capable by the year 2012.”
Vegetable oil converted to motor-vehicle fuel is considered a biodiesel, which is taxable under state law, said Meredith Helgerson, spokeswoman for the Revenue Department.
Ironically, this news comes after the 
Montreal, Canada will run its entire bus fleet on biodiesel by 2008 and will buy eight hybrid buses to test in the city’s cold climate.
All Société de transport de Montréal (STM) buses will run on biodiesel fuel by 2008, and the transition should be fairly inexpensive, said president Claude Trudel.
Seattle-based Imperium Renewables, ready to put the country’s largest biodiesel plant into operation and holder of the record for investment in a biodiesel company (see my posts on