A look inside and out at one of the eight new eLion, zero- emissions school buses at Twin Rivers Unified School District in Sacramento, California. Several of the buses begin operation this summer.
the administration of EPA’s National Clean Diesel Campaign (NCDC). It started funding grants in 2009 and has since award- ed over $500 million to replace, re-power, or retrofit nearly 60,000 pieces of diesel equipment. “Each year since 2009, EPA has opened the Clean Diesel Fund- ing Assistance Program, which is a competitive grant application open to eligible entities nationwide,” says Annotti. “School bus projects of all fuel types are eligible to compete against other on- and non-road vehicles and equipment. Beginning in 2012, the DERA Program created the School Bus Replacement Program, which offered rebates to school districts to replace older school bus- es with newer vehicles. In this first round of funding, EPA offered a total of $2 million and rebates covered 25 percent of the new school bus cost. EPA now offers this program on an annual basis.” Te funding appears to be hardly enough to go around to all schools. A new school bus may cost upwards of $100,000. Plus, there’s infrastructure that goes with the price tag to enable electric buses, for example, to recharge with sufficient charging stations. In addition, though DERA is one of the only funding sources with some allocation earmarked just for school buses, other transport modes compete for funding. Another funding source with more resources is the Volk- swagen Mitigation Trust Fund. Te $2.7 billion fund is made possible by legal settlements by VW for tampering with fuel consumption standards in 2.0-liter and 3.0-liter passenger vehi- cles. Most of the $2.7 billion is available nationwide, with about $800 million earmarked for California’s stringent emission requirements. Te VW Mitigation Trust Fund, like DERA, must be shared with different commercial transportation modes. But its future is finite and, thus, it’s not consistent and ongoing source of
48 School Transportation News • JUNE 2017
funding. It will dry up over the next decade. “Te VW Miti- gation Trust Fund will be managed at the state level so it will ultimately be up to each state to decide how to use their funds,” adds Annotti. “Te states can select from among 10 different project types, including school buses, medium- and heavy-duty trucks, drayage trucks, marine shore power, and locomotives, among others. Te important point to note here is that, while school buses are eligible, each state may choose to direct its funds to some of the other project types. In other words, it is very important that school transportation and fleet managers reach out to their state funding agencies to recommend that funds be directed to school bus projects.” “It’s kind of early to determine who’s going to get what,” com-
ments Robert T. Pudlewski, an industry consultant and the retired vice president of procurement for Laidlaw Transit Services. “It’s not like going to the store to get some money.” Pudlewski explains that, in the past, public transit has implemented more technologies to assist in cleaner burning power trains. Te Federal Transit Administration, which receives budgets funding from the U.S. Treasury, and differs from the relatively scant funds available from the EPA, aided public transit bus investment. He adds that school districts rely on their local governments to make investments. School boards are very prudent about what they fund; they have a long list of capital improvements and programs that take priority. For alternative technologies and lower emissions, grants and
trust funds are one of the only way that schools can get new and improved buses. Simply put, if grant money was paying for a cleaner burning school bus, the school districts would go for it. If not, it the school board via the local government budget must
CELEBRATING25YEARS
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