Michigan to get 138 new electric school buses with $50M in federal cash

Electric school bus in Ann Arbor

Charlie Bogg charges an electric school bus at Ann Arbor Pioneer High School in this file photo from February 2021.Photo provided | DTE Energy

Dozens of new electric school buses will be coming to Michigan in a major effort to reduce harmful diesel emissions after authorities announced more than $50 million will come to the state from a recent federal program’s nearly $1 billion first round of awards.

The federal program was designed to accelerate the decarbonization of the transportation sector and improve air quality for schoolchildren and neighborhoods nationwide by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Midwest garnered more than 20% of this first wave of federal infrastructure money to buy “clean” buses; Michigan led that pack in both requests and awarded dollars.

Michigan will get 138 new electric school buses at 25 school districts. That will be in addition to the existing 17 electric school buses at seven districts in the state.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials chose school districts serving low-income, rural, or Tribal students for 99% of the selected projects nationwide, the agency said.

Environmental advocates are hailing the surge in electric buses for America’s school bus fleet as critical climate action, and Michigan’s role as a key example among the northern reaches of the United States.

“There’s been more fear, frankly, in northern states about whether electric buses – just like you hear with electric cars – ‘will they work in the in the winter,’” said Susan Mudd, senior policy advocate for Chicago-based nonprofit Environmental Law & Policy Center.

“It’s been slower to start in many northern states, but Michigan is definitely a leader both in the Midwest and nationally in terms of showing in these cold weather climates, electric school buses do well.”

Regular school buses are heavy-duty vehicles that emit large amounts of harmful diesel exhaust, which disproportionately contribute to poor air quality and accelerate the climate-warming greenhouse effect. This EPA funding amounts to a “game changer,” Mudd said.

“This now will give a broader, bigger opportunity for both children to ride these quieter, cleaner buses, but it also will give more residents cleaner air because less diesel buses going through their neighborhoods, with the opportunity to experience and to witness quiet, zero-emission school buses,” she said.

Additionally, this spike in domestic electric school bus production can be expected to reduce the overall cost of the vehicles going forward, Mudd argued.

A parents’ group also celebrated the announcement of nearly $1 billion for electric buses across the country.

Regular, diesel-powered school buses “spew carcinogenic and climate-warming pollution into the air our kids breathe,” said Molly Rauch, public health policy director for nonprofit Moms Clean Air Force.

“It simply doesn’t make sense to send our kids to school on buses that create brain-harming, lung-harming, cancer-causing, climate-harming pollution. Our kids, our bus drivers, and our communities deserve better,” she said.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said she welcomed the news of the large federal investment in Michigan’s school districts and efforts to meet statewide climate goals, including lowering costs, creating jobs, and protecting public health while putting Michigan on a “clean energy path to carbon neutrality.”

The governor said the “grants will help Michigan buy and use clean school buses to take kids to school safely and keep the air in and around our schools cleaner, all while powering our economic growth.”

Pontiac City School District received funding for 25 electric buses, the most in the state. Jackson Public Schools will get 21 new electric buses, while Dearborn City School District will get 18 and Ypsilanti Community Schools will get 10. The rest of the awarded school districts in Michigan received money for between one and seven electric buses, each valued at $375,000 plus $20,000 for charging equipment.

Vice President Kamala Harris and EPA Administrator Michael Regan announced the first round of federal funding for the “clean” school bus program in Seattle on Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022.

Harris said as many as 25 million schoolchildren ride school buses each day in the “largest form of mass transit in our country.” All but 5% of those buses are run on diesel and emit harmful carbon emissions, she said.

Regan said this national “clean” bus program starts the work to build a healthier future, reduce climate pollution, and ensure the clean, breathable air that “all our children deserve.”

Only about 1% of the nation’s 480,000 school buses were electric as of last year, but the push to abandon traditional diesel buses has gained momentum in recent years. Money for the new purchases is available under the federal Clean School Bus Program, which includes $5 billion from the bipartisan infrastructure law President Joe Biden signed last year.

The EPA initially made $500 million available for clean buses in May but increased that to $965 million last month, responding to what officials called overwhelming demand for electric buses across the country. An additional $1 billion is set to be awarded in the budget year that began Oct. 1.

The EPA said it received about 2,000 applications requesting nearly $4 billion for more than 12,000 buses, mostly electric. A total of 389 applications worth $913 million were accepted to support purchase of 2,463 buses, 95% of which will be electric, the EPA said.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

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