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Vice President Joe Biden today announced $300 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for state and local governments and transit authorities to expand fleets of clean vehicles and the fueling infrastructure necessary to support them.

The Clean Cities program offers $300 million to support at least 30 alternative fuels or advanced vehicles projects and requires a 50 percent participant cost share. Technologies eligible to be funded include a number of different light and heavy-duty vehicles, including hybrid, plug-in electric hybrid, hydraulic hybrid, electric, fuel cell, and compressed natural gas vehicles. In addition, projects can support refueling infrastructure for alternative fuels, including biofuels and natural gas. Other efforts eligible for funds include public awareness campaigns and training programs on alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles and infrastructure.

UPS (NYSE:UPS) today announced it had deployed 300 new delivery trucks powered by Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) to seven cities in Colorado, Georgia, Oklahoma and California.

allow UPS to further reduce its dependence on traditional fossil fuels like gasoline and diesel and lower its carbon footprint. UPS already operates the largest private fleet of alternative fuel vehicles in its industry - 1,819 in total with these additions.

Continuing to add CNG delivery trucks to our fleet is a sustainable choice because natural gas is a cost effective, clean-burning and readily available fuel."

The new single national standard will create a car and light truck fleet in the U.S. that is almost 40 percent cleaner and more fuel-efficient by 2016 than it is today,

"While the United States makes up less than 5 percent of the world's population, we create roughly a quarter of the world's demand for oil,"

By 2016, this would raise cars up to 39 miles per gallon and light trucks to 30 miles per gallon.

6.8 billion gallons of fuel wasted sitting in traffic.

Government transportation agencies are seeking out new, cheaper technology to replace the high-priced loop sensors and other invasive technologies that have been used in the pas

Of course, when you replace them with hybrids, the uptake in fuel economy and air quality reduced emissions is significant."

Each bus costs about $537,000 -- that's approximately $200,000 more than its clean-diesel counterpart. Barker said each hybrid bus uses about 3,000 gallons of gas less annually than the old buses. Depending on gas prices in Louisville, TARC can save up to $12,000 per bus each year.

"We got these hybrids and overnight we went from being part of the problem to part of the solution," Barker said. "I have never seen quite a change in public attitude as I have saw with that."