March 10, 2025. The Transport Project released a Clean Fuel Standard Program fact sheet detailing what clean fuel standard programs are, how they are operated, why they are effective, and how the inclusion of renewable natural gas (RNG) in them dramatically contributes to their effectiveness.
“Clean fuel standard programs reduce transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions, diversify motor vehicle fuel supply, and improve public health,” said TTP Director of State Government Affairs Sherrie Merrow. “Furthermore, when implemented correctly, they provide new economic opportunity and create jobs associated with the production and delivery of new, domestic, clean fuels like RNG and biofuels.”
A clean fuel standard is a technology- and fuel-neutral market-based policy that evaluates fuels and technologies based on their life cycle emissions to promote the lowering of the overall content of all transportation fuel used in a state. Fuels with carbon intensities above the established carbon intensity limit generate deficits and those below generate offsetting credits.
In such programs, RNG has an outsized impact. While RNG made up just 5.1 percent of all on-road alternative fuels dispensed by volume in California in 2023, it generated 19.2 percent of all CO2e reductions of on-road alternative fuels reported in the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) program. At -212 gCO2e/MJ, Bio-CNG (RNG) has the lowest carbon intensity of any fuel or technology – including ZEVs – in the California LCFS.
Multiple states are considering implementing their own programs this legislative session.