Industry Leadership Group
The City wanted
to clean up this
environment, we
found a way to do it
Every movement needs its allies,
and biodiesel has some of its
most important backers in New
York City.
The largest city in the United
States has been a bold leader in biodiesel
adoption, and one of the key players is
the New York Oil Heating Association.
NYOHA’s Board of Directors and their
Chief Executive Officer Rocco L. Lacertosa
and his predecessor, John Maniscalco,
have made the association an essential
and vocal supporter of biodiesel blending.
“We exist to serve our members and
incorporating biodiesel in heating oil has
been an important part of our mission,”
Lacertosa said. “Energy suppliers need to
be pro-environment these days, or you
become a target instead of a participant.”
With the heating oil dealers themselves
stepping to the podium time and again
and meeting with lawmakers to advocate
for new fuel standards, New York’s
environmentalist policymakers have had
the wind at their back.
The results have been phenomenal for
the biodiesel industry. Since 2012, New
York City has had made biodiesel part of
its uniform fuel standard for heating oil,
while also adopting biodiesel widely in
fleets and setting the stage for Bioheat®
adoption in three adjacent counties.
The breakthrough event occurred in
2010, when the New York City Council,
led by Council Member James Gennaro,
adopted legislation changing the city’s
heating oil standard to B2, effective
in 2012. Given the enormous mass of
New York’s heating oil consumption, a
20-million gallon biodiesel market was
born, and the biodiesel industry had its
East Coast beachhead.
While the victory was an immense one,
the biodiesel advocates at NYOHA and
within the city government were just
getting started. The first wave of biodiesel
champions, Maniscalco and Gennaro,
left the stage with their victories intact,
and their mantle was picked up by
Lacertosa and City Council Member Costa
Constantinides.
In 2016, the City built on its B2 success
story by passing the landmark local
law Intro. 642-A, which changed the
heating oil standard to B5 in 2017 and
enacted incremental increases that will
culminate in a B20 standard in 2034. The
City also requires using B20 biodiesel in
non-emergency vehicles (B5 in winter)
like sanitation vehicles, and the police
department is voluntarily using B10.
There is a study under way
of biodiesel usage in ferries.
“This is a great victory for all
New Yorkers and, of course,
for our members,” said
Lacertosa.
NYOHA’s successes were
closely watched by heating
oil dealers in the greater
New York metro area, and
in 2017, NYOHA’s industry
partners in the Downstate
region led a drive at the
Statehouse to make B5 the
new fuel standard for Nassau,
Suffolk, and Westchester
counties effective later this
year. Together with New York
City, the region is home to 1.3
million oil-heated homes.
The switch to B5 in New
York City alone raised
biodiesel demand to 50
million gallons last year. As the
1.3 millionhomes in New York
will use a blend of biodiesel for heating
Rocco Lacertosa
CEO, New York Oil Heating Association
20 Biodiesel Success Stories