The Biden-Harris Administration and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have awarded nearly 1 billion USD in funding for the purchase of clean school buses.
With this announcement, the EPA’s Clean Bus Fund will support the purchase of over 2,700 additional clean school buses in 280 school districts, serving over 7 million students.
This funding will help accelerate the transition to low- and zero-emission vehicles to improve air quality for children and their families.
Vice President Kamala Harris said:Every school day, 25 million children ride our nation’s largest form of mass transit: the school bus. The vast majority of those buses run on diesel, exposing students, teachers, and bus drivers to toxic air pollution. Today, we are announcing nearly $1 billion to fund clean school buses across the nation. As part of our work to tackle the climate crisis, the historic funding we are announcing today is an investment in our children, their health, and their education. It also strengthens our economy by investing in American manufacturing and America’s workforce.
With today’s announcement, the Clean School Bus Program has awarded a total of nearly 2 billion USD and will have funded approximately 5,000 electric and low-emission school buses across the US.
This programme was created under President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to provide 5 billion USD in funding that will transform the nation’s school bus fleets.
Its funds support the purchase of electric, compressed natural gas and propane buses, with a requirement that at least half of the funding goes towards zero-emission vehicles.
Today’s grants are the second round of selections for this newly created programme. EPA will make more funds available in additional rounds of funding.
