Jul. 5--Utahns can grab a clean-air tax credit for buying a factory-made compressed natural gas car like a Honda Civic GX, or for driving a gas-electric hybrid such as a Toyota Prius.

They can even catch a break with regulator-approved compressed natural gas conversion kits for a truck or minivan.

But if they go all out for cleanliness, with a zero-emissions electric car, there's no state reward. Kanab restaurateur Victor Cooper found that out the hard way after claiming an $1,800 tax credit that he now has to pay back with interest.

He drives what's known as a neighborhood electric vehicle, a plug-in that sticks to the 30 mph streets and isn't much bigger than a golf cart.

"How can a zero-emissions vehicle not get a clean-emissions credit, but a vehicle that does have emissions gets it?" Cooper asked.

"This is idiotic. This is bureaucracy at its worst."

Lawmakers also were surprised, and one says he'll work to close the loophole.

"It's ridiculous that he's got a car and, to me, it meets the objectives of the law, and yet it doesn't fit," said state Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, Cooper's hometown legislator.

Yet it's true, and here's why. Lawmakers wrote the law largely to attract a wave a compressed natural gas [CNG] vehicles to Utah roads, and in 2008 they updated it to reward hybrid gasoline-electric owners as well. But to qualify for credits of up to $2,500 for CNG or $750 for hybrids, the vehicle must compare

to a like model that runs on gasoline or diesel, said Cheryl Heying, director of the state Division of Air Quality.

The state approved about 1,300 tax credits last year, mostly for CNG fleet vehicles.

That leaves out what some believe is the next generation: pure plug-ins with no peer vehicles, including the little neighborhood carts like Cooper's. Technologies keep evolving, Heying said, and lawmakers find themselves trying to predict which will sell widely and clear enough pollution to merit a public incentive.

"It's not that we have anything against these types of vehicles," she said. "It's what the legislators decided."

Noel said he'll try to change that in this winter's legislative session. It appears that electric vehicles simply "slipped through the cracks" in the legislation, he said, and his colleagues should support a change.

"The more we go to electrics and hybrids, the less requirement we have for fossil fuels," he said. "That's a good thing."

Utah's oversight isn't unique, though.