From City Hall News Release
October 3, 2005

Carmel (IN) Mayor Jim Brainard signed an executive order August 24 requiring all replacement vehicles purchased by Carmel to be capable of using alternative fuels rather than exclusively gasoline or diesel fuels. A news conference was held outside city hall in Carmel to announce this order and display seven new Ford Escape Hybrid vehicles purchased for use by the city’s Community Services and Engineering Departments.

The executive order requires Carmel, when replacing fleet vehicles, to find ways to meet the EPA guidelines for fuel emissions, and reduce costs of operations wherever possible. “Requiring all vehicles purchased for the city to be fuel efficient and more environmentally friendly will send a clear message that we want to help clean up our air quality. We also want to encourage others to consider alternative fuel vehicles when making their purchases. In addition to improving air quality, the city will save on fuel bills at a time when gasoline prices are rapidly increasing,” said Brainard.

Director of Community Services Mike Hollibaugh says, “The new hybrid vehicles address what the department needs while being environmentally friendly, which complies with the new executive order. It’s exciting to be one of the first departments to use these hybrid vehicles. Our building inspectors and code enforcement staff will be using these vehicles on a daily basis.”

City Engineer Mike McBride commented that, “Our department will use the two new hybrid vehicles for our road inspectors. The fact that most of their driving is in the city and this hybrid gets its best gas mileage in the city makes this vehicle a perfect match for our needs while helping the environment at the same time.”

While Carmel does not have large factories or strong sources of pollution, it is unfortunately located in the northeast portion of the metro region and, as a result, experience very poor air quality levels. This problem is attributed to two primary causes - carbon monoxide from vehicles and electrical generating plants burning high sulfur coal. Hamilton County ranks eighth highest for carbon monoxide emissions from mobile sources out of 25 counties in Indiana and worst for overall air quality. This executive order is one step towards becoming an attainment area. One of the penalties of being designated by the EPA as a “non-attainment area” is that all municipalities in the area can lose federal highway and economic development funds.