EPA to Deliver $900 Million for Clean School Buses Nationwide

The EPA on Wednesday will release nearly $900 million to school districts across the country for clean school buses, a key plank of the Biden administration’s environmental agenda.

The buses have emerged as a symbol of the White House’s agenda because they fulfill goals to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, give a jolt to the bus and battery manufacturing industries, and improve air quality—especially in low-income communities, which will get 67% of the new funding.

“This announcement is not just about clean school buses,” Michael Regan, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, told reporters on Tuesday. “It’s about the bigger picture.”

“We’re sending a strong demand signal for clean school buses, and we’re already seeing the response,” said Natalie Quillian, White House deputy chief of staff.

The rebate program is popular in both red and blue states. Every state except Alaska, Hawaii, and Nevada applied for and will receive at least some of the new funding, which is enough to buy more than 3,400 buses across 530 school districts.

“Each year, our program is oversubscribed,” Regan said. “We have a lot of demand out there for electric school buses from districts all across the country.”

New York will receive the largest share of funding, at $95.8 million. Next in line are California, at $91.2 million, and Pennsylvania, at $55.7 million.

The EPA provided two earlier rounds of funding for clean school buses under the 2021 infrastructure law, which allocated $5 billion over five years to replace the current fleet of existing school buses with zero-and-low emission models.

This time, however, the EPA made sure school districts applying for the rebates had early conversations with their local utilities to make sure both sides are in agreement on charging infrastructure, according to an agency official on the same press call.

That fix could be a response to a report issued by the EPA’s internal watchdog last year, which found that a lack of charging stations could hinder the agency’s national plan. Some utilities said they didn’t have experience delivering EV power at the scale envisioned by the EPA’s plan, while others said they would need years to build the needed infrastructure.

Congressional Republicans have repeatedly challenged not only the Biden administration’s support for EVs, but also the EPA’s school bus program on the grounds that it favors electric school buses over buses that use alternative fuels, such as propane. In the current round of funding, 92% of the buses will be electric.

The electric models are two to three times more expensive than other types of clean school buses, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said during a hearing in September.

“The federal government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers,” McMorris Rodgers said. “And what happens when the federal subsidies run out? Will school districts be able to continue charging, maintaining, and repairing these expensive buses?”