SEATTLE — EPA on Wednesday announced it is distributing nearly $1 billion in grants to 389 school districts across the U.S. to buy cleaner buses, most of them electric.
Made available by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the funding targets school districts in all 50 states, D.C. and U.S. territories, with a focus on assisting low-income, rural and tribal areas. Wednesday’s awards are the first in a five-year, $5 billion program created by the law.
The initial grants will help support the purchase of more than 2,400 clean school buses to “accelerate the transition to zero emission vehicles and produce cleaner air in and around schools and communities,” EPA said in a press release.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan | © RTO Insider LLCVice President Kamala Harris joined EPA Administrator Michael Regan and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee at Lumen Field, home to the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, to announce the funding. Harris pointed out that 25 million U.S. children take buses to school each day, but that “95% of our school buses are fueled with diesel fuel, which contributes to very serious conditions that are about health and about the ability to learn.”
Harris said the new buses would reduce incidences of childhood ailments such as asthma. She also cited reducing greenhouse gases and the economic boost to local industries involved in building the buses as additional reasons for the appropriations.
“Our electric school bus program really does represent an intersection of all these points, on top of the importance of investing in domestic manufacturing,” the vice president said. “We all know when, during the height of the pandemic, we saw what it means when we don’t have domestic manufacturing around things we need every day; it slows us down.”
“Not only does this stop climate change, but its stops asthma in our kids because they don’t have to breathe in diesel smoke,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee told the audience.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee | © RTO Insider LLCEPA originally allocated $500 million for the 2022 grants, but it received so many applications that it almost doubled the pool of money available, Regan said. Ultimately, EPA distributed $913 million to 389 districts to purchase 2,463 buses, he said.
In Washington state, four school districts received a total of about $2.7 million. Each of them — Easton, Pomeroy, South Whidbey Island and Toppenish — are rural areas.
And while rural school districts dominated the national list of recipients, some large metropolitan ones, such as Atlanta and New York City, won among the largest rewards of about $9.9 million each.
“Those school districts who received an award can now proceed with purchasing new buses and eligible infrastructure,” EPA said in its announcement. The agency said it is partnering with the U.S. departments of Energy and Transportation to provide recipients “with robust technical assistance to ensure effective implementation.”
In a statement, Sue Gander, director of the Electric School Bus Initiative at the World Resources Institute, said the EPA program “marks a huge step forward in efforts to equitably electrify the nation’s school bus fleet. We are excited that school districts from coast to coast, large and small, urban and rural, will be receiving one or more electric school buses, including in twelve states and Washington, D.C, that previously had none on the way.”
Gander also had advice for bus makers. “For any manufacturers who are wondering about where to focus their investments, today’s announcement demonstrates loud and clear that the future is electric. It is time to step up and scale up production and job training for an inclusive transition.”
“Today’s announcement is the result of years of advocacy by families, students and community members seeking federal funding to facilitate their local school districts investing in a clean ride for kids,” Carolina Chacon, coalition manager for the Alliance for Electric School Buses, said in a press release. “These new electric buses will eliminate dangerous toxins in the air our children and communities breathe and reduce climate-harming pollution. For students and drivers, this means quieter rides, better health and fewer missed days of school or work due to preventable respiratory illnesses.”
Regan said EPA will soon establish a $1 billion pool to take another round of applications for clean bus grants. “Improving lives of young children around the country is near and dear to the EPA’s mission,” he said.