Larisa Manescu, larisa.manescu@sierraclub.org
WASHINGTON, DC - Today, the Environmental Protection Agency announced another $500 million in rebates for the Clean School Bus Program, which offers funding for school districts to purchase clean school buses, install charging infrastructure, and cover workforce development.
The Clean School Bus program was established through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed in 2021. The program is funded for five years and will distribute a total of $5 billion to swiftly help school districts across the country replace their fleets of dirty diesel buses and transition to cleaner buses.
Currently, 95 percent of the nation’s almost 500,000 school buses are diesel. Diesel exhaust is a known carcinogen and can lead to or worsen respiratory illnesses like asthma.
The Sierra Club is a founding member of the Alliance for Electric School Buses (AESB), a national network of advocates urging the Biden-Harris Administration to prioritize school bus electrification so that every child in the U.S. has a clean commute to school. The AESB is working to ensure that the 25 million children who take a school bus each day get there on an electric school bus, starting with the communities most harmed by air pollution.
The application for school districts opens today and will extend through the end of January.
In response to today’s EPA announcement, Katherine García, director of the Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All campaign, released the following statement:
“Having this money go out the door means that more and more children are able to breathe easier on their commutes to school, and we will continue our advocacy until every school bus in the U.S. is electrified – for our kids and our bus drivers. No longer should communities have to deal with the negative impacts of polluting school buses spewing tailpipe pollution through their neighborhoods and exposing families to a host of air pollutants.
“The EPA’s Clean School Bus Program continues to be a model example of how electrifying our heavy-duty vehicles improves public health, cuts climate pollution, and advances clean energy jobs.”
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.