Alternative-fuel-vehicle report by state is amiss

Tally wrong, and most burn gasoline

Arkansas state government has at least 1,084 vehicles that run on alternative fuels, not the 290 vehicles listed on the most recent annual report submitted to legislators. And the number may be higher.

Whatever the actual number is, the agencies with the largest number of alternative-fuel vehicles say they aren’t intentionally buying them and they aren’t, in most cases, using the alternative fuel because the state has so few fueling stations that offer ethanol, electricity, biodiesel and other alternative fuels.

The annual Alternative Fuel Vehicle report from theDepartment of Finance and Administration’s Office of State Procurement was approved with no discussion along with more than a dozen other reports at the end of a lengthy Arkansas Legislative Council meeting in late May. The report, which covers the 2012 calendar year, has been required by law since 2005, and state officials are not sure how long it has been wrong.

State Procurement Director Jane Benton said it will be up to management in the finance department whether she amends and resubmits the last few years of reports or just uses the more accurate information goingforward.

“I’ll just really have to ask my management if they would like us to go back a revise those figures, and if we do, we would certainly go back and file an updated report with the Legislature,” Benton said.

The Office of State Procurement, which negotiates state contracts, is required by the 2005 law to turn in the report, but data for the report comes from the State Agency Vehicle Application, a state database managed by the Office of Administrative Services. Both offices fall under the finance department.

“We have a piece of it, but just a piece. For whatever reason it was placed under our jurisdiction,” Benton said.

DIFFERENT RECORDS

The department handles purchases for most state agencies and higher-education institutions. Legislative offices, constitutional officers, and constitutionally independent agencies such as the Highway and Transportation Department, the Game and Fish Commission and the Arkansas Lottery follow separate purchasing rules but sometimes choose to buy under state contracts, which often provide cost savings.

Arkansas has no law requiring government agencies to purchase alternative-fuel vehicles, though an Arkansas law does state that the finance department should encourage less gasoline consumption through the use of alternative-fuel vehicles.

The biggest difference between what was reported and what agencies say they have is in the Highway and Transportation Department - which says it has 403 alternative-fuel vehicles, not 70 as the report states - and the Game and Fish Commission - which isn’t in the report at all-which says it has 335 such vehicles. Officials with other agencies said their numbers are inaccurate as well.

That discrepancy arose because of how those agencies report vehicles they purchase to the state, said Jake Bleed, Office of Administrative Services assistant administrator.

Highway Departmentspokesman Randy Ort said the department’s data have not been updated in the annual report since 2008.

He said monthly andquarterly reports currently submitted to the finance department don’t ask the agency to specify fuel type, and the department hasn’t provided it.

“But it sounds like we’re about to,” Ort said. “They don’t ask for it, but they’re about to and we’re going to report it.”

Bleed said he didn’t know why some data for one constitutionally independent agency was included in the annual report, but not others, or why no one kept updating the information.

“For whatever reason, we just didn’t continue to make sure that was updated,” he said. “I’m not really sure why.”

Ort said he doesn’t see the discrepancy in numbers as anyone’s fault, adding that no vehicles were missing.

“I don’t know if there’s blame to be placed. It’s not like we were trying to hide any kind of information, but to my understanding we were not asked to provide it,” he said.

Game and Fish Commission spokesman Keith Stephens said the commission, which isn’t listed in the report, has 335 vehicles that can use E-85, a gasoline and ethanol blend, and one electric-hybrid Honda.

Bleed said the finance department has asked for the commission’s vehicle records and will have to update the files one-by-one, because once a vehicle record has been created, a state agencydoesn’t have the ability to change it.

“They have thousands of cars, so there is a fair amount of data input we have to do at our end to get those up to date,” Bleed said.

The other entities under the separate purchasing rules also don’t appear on the annual report. After the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette began asking questions, the finance department asked the agencies that fall under those rules to submit information that will be added to the state vehicle database to reflect fuel type.

The House of Representatives owns an electric hybrid, spokesman Cecillea Pond-Mayo said. Senate spokesman John Reed said the one vehicle owned by the Senate cannot use alternative fuels.

Of the state’s seven constitutional offices, the secretary of state has an electric-hybrid vehicle, the attorney general has seven hybrids and the land commissioner has two that can use E-85. The governor, lieutenant governor, auditor and treasurer have none.

Gov. Mike Beebe said it is unusual for a report produced by the finance department to be so inaccurate.

“[The department is] normally pretty good about keeping records, that’s why we make them do that kind of stuff, but everybody can do better and it sounds like somebody hadn’t had that on a very high-priority list that’s now decided to put it on a high-priority list,” Beebe said.INTERNAL RECORDS

The report, which covers 2012, lists 47 state agencies, boards, commissions and higher education institutions that own an alternative-fuel vehicle. In total, it shows 290 of the 8,445 vehicles the state had at the end of 2012 fit the criteria.

Of the vehicles in the 2012 report, 250 vehicles can use E-85, 26 are electric and seven use 95 percent ethanol. Four run on biodiesel, one on a methanol blend and two run on P-series fuel, which is a blend of biomass and methanol. None use compressed natural gas.

When contacted by the Democrat-Gazette, several other agencies said the information presented to legislators differs from their internal records.

Bleed said that is because the database that tracks state vehicles doesn’t require agencies to say what type of fuel the vehicle uses.

When most governmental entities purchase a vehicle, they have to create a record in the State Agency Vehicle Application, he said.

“You can create a vehicle file without identifying a fuel type,” he said. “It is not a mandatory field.”

He said agencies may also be confused about what constitutes an alternative-fuel vehicle. For instance, many vehicles that can use E-85 can also use regular gasoline.

He said the department may consider requiring agencies to include fuel type.

The Department of Community Correction says it has 103 vehicles that can run on E-85. The annual report says it has three.

Spokesman Rhonda Sharp said E-85 is only used in three of the vehicles, though the other 100 are capable of using the fuel.

The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality has 18 alternative-fuel vehicles, just as the annual report says it has, but their records show different vehicles, purchased in different years and with different license-plate numbers.

The Department of Human Services says it has five electric-hybrid vehicles, not the four in the report. Spokesman Amy Webb said two were purchased after the report was completed.

Department of Veterans Affairs spokesman Kelly Ferguson said the truck listedon the annual report for her agency could be converted to use E-85, but the department hasn’t paid to have the conversion done.

“It’s still running off gas. I don’t know why they didn’t clarify that on the list,” she said.

The state Oil and Gas Commission has two electric hybrids and seven E-85-capable vehicles, but the annual report says it has 13 E-85-capable vehicles. Deputy Director Shane Khoury said some vehicles were mistakenly listed as having the option of using E-85.

He said that even for the vehicles that can use E-85, the commission encourages employees to use gasoline. He said E-85 may never have been used in the vehicles.

“It’s easier to find it in Little Rock than in White County where our inspectors are located,” Khoury said.

Arkansas has only 86 fueling stations that carry alternative fuels, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center. The stations are clustered in Little Rock or around Fayetteville. Of those, 26 have ethanol, 18 have electric and 38 have liquefied petroleum gas.

Arkansas State Police spokesman Bill Sadler said the department doesn’t intentionally buy vehicles that can use E-85, though he wasn’t sure how many it has that do. All patrol cars use regular-unleaded gasoline.

“We’re taking what we can get on the state contract,” Sadler said. “We want that vehicle to have an engine that would burn the most common type of fuel that a trooper might need in the middle of the night or in the middle of nowhere.”

Several other agencies said that even if a state vehicle is listed on the annual report as being able to use E-85, that does not mean the fuel is used.

Ort said E-85 is not used in any of the Highway Department’s 403 vehicles that can run on the fuel. He said the department buys fuel in bulk and has its own network of fueling stations. It hasn’t installed new tanks and pumps to hold E-85.

“Do we have a fleet that is capable? Yes. Do we have an infrastructure to support that? No … unless we we made arrangements to purchase it at another chain of stations,” he said.

P utting in new tanks would be expensive, he said.

“The manufacturers are building them that way now and the vehicles that we [request], that’s the way they come,” Ort said. “You can run gasoline in a vehicle that’s equipped for E-85, but you can’t run E-85 in a vehicle that’s only equipped for gasoline.” Bleed said the increased number of alternative-fuelvehicles in state fleets, particularly those that can use regular gas or E-85, comes down to what manufacturers are building and thus what is available.

“That’s what Detroit was making,” he said.

State Vehicle Buyer John Leverett said his office did not ask that flex-fuel capability be standard in vehicles purchased via the state contract, but it is available as an option on any vehicle where it is available. Flex-fuel capability is the ability to use more than one type of fuel in a vehicle, most commonly E-85.

In all cases where flex-fuel capability is available for a state car it is either standard or costs extra, he said. Of the 67 vehicles available on a state contract, flex-fuel capability is standard in 25, he said.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 06/23/2013

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