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 Armenia is not generally known as a world leader, but it holds at least one record: seventy-five percent of its cars and trucks run on natural gas, Bloomberg story said. In the U.S., in contrast, the share is well under 0.1 percent -- even though natural-gas prices have plummeted here over the past few years.

“Given the problems associated with U.S. dependence on oil, more use of natural gas for transportation could carry big benefits,” said the story.

One of the most important of these would be macroeconomic. Switching to natural-gas vehicles would reduce our vulnerability to oil-price shocks.

Converting to natural-gas vehicles requires several changes the most elemental involves filling stations. There are fewer than 2,000 natural-gas stations across the country -- a fraction of the 120,000 that offer gasoline. This makes people and companies reluctant to shift to the new vehicles.

To provide a forceful incentive to create the needed filling stations, the federal government could provide an 80 percent tax credit, up to a maximum of $250,000, for additions to existing stations and $2 million for new stand-alone facilities, for the first 20,000 natural-gas stations built over the next three years. This would be the Natgas Act on steroids.