LAS VEGAS -- President Barack Obama is expected to pay tribute to environmentally friendly delivery trucks that run on liquefied natural gas when he visits a United Parcel Service facility near McCarran International Airport Thursday morning.
Fresh off Tuesday night's State of the Union speech before Congress, Obama will address American energy and energy security issues at stops in Las Vegas and Denver, according to an administration official. The Las Vegas visit will be sandwiched between today's itinerary in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Phoenix, where he will focus on manufacturing, and a Friday visit to Ann Arbor, Mich., where he will tackle American skills and innovation.
"And most importantly, throughout all of his events, the president will continue to call for a return to American values, where everyone gets a fair shot, a fair shake, and everyone plays by the same set of rules," the official said.
This is not the first time Obama has made energy the theme of a Las Vegas visit. In May 2009, he visited Nellis Air Force Base to inspect its 14-megawatt solar photovoltaic array to publicize renewable energy programs.
This also isn't the first time the president has pitched his agenda at a UPS facility. He visited one in Landover, Md., in April 2011 to announce the National Clean Fleets Partnership. The purpose was to encourage businesses with large fleets to run their vehicles on clean energy, both to benefit the environment and to lower America's dependence on foreign crude oil.
UPS, for its part, has obliged by operating 2,000 natural gas delivery trucks nationally, including 59 that shuttle regularly between Las Vegas and Ontario, Calif. The vehicles operate on a mixture of 95 percent natural gas and 5 percent diesel fuel, a combination company spokeswoman Kara Ross said reduces emissions by as much as 30 percent.
Ross told KLAS-TV Channel 8 Tuesday that the company hopes Obama's visit to its customer center at 335 E. Arby Lane will encourage other businesses to switch to cleaner burning fuels.
"We are very excited to have him here," Ross said. "We hope this will shed light on issues like alternative fuels and how they are good for the environment."
In his address to Congress, Obama said: "We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly 100 years. And my administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy. Experts believe this will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade.
"The development of natural gas will create jobs and power trucks and factories that are cleaner and cheaper, proving that we don't have to choose between our environment and our economy. And by the way, it was public research dollars, over the course of 30 years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock -- reminding us that government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground."
Last year UPS inked a deal to use a new natural gas truck fueling depot that is owned and operated by Clean Energy Fuels Corp. near the airport. Clean Energy Fuels bills itself as the largest provider of natural gas fuel for transportation in North America with its closest production plant in Boron, Calif.
Mike Britt, director of vehicle engineering at UPS, said at the time: "Investment in a fuel-efficient technology that helps reduce our carbon footprint and reduce our dependence on petroleum remains a key component of UPS's transport strategy. For our heavy-duty vehicles, LNG (liquefied natural gas) has proved successful in reducing emissions, keeping our maintenance and operating costs low, and significantly reducing our dependence on petroleum for these shipping lanes."
The president's visit to UPS is also timely on the jobs front. While the company announced 1,800 layoffs of mostly administrative and management employees in January 2010, a website devoted to postal news reported earlier this month that UPS and other private firms that deliver mail and parcels accounted for one-fifth of the nation's seasonally-adjusted job growth in December. The Courier Express and Postal Observer reported that private firms in that sector added 42,400 jobs that month while the Postal Service lost 800 positions.
Obama is expected to arrive at McCarran tonight at 6:30 p.m. aboard Air Force One and then depart town following his scheduled 10 a.m. visit Thursday at the UPS facility.
