The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced the recipients of its Clean School Bus program last week, awarding 389 school districts some $965 million toward the purchase of more than 2,400 school buses.
School districts across the nation will soon begin transitioning at least part of their bus fleets toward electrification and other forms of cleaner energy.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced the recipients of its Clean School Bus program last week, awarding 389 school districts some $965 million toward the purchase of more than 2,400 school buses.
“This program will improve air quality in and around schools and communities. It will reduce greenhouse gas pollution. And it will also protect our childrens’ health,” said Daniel Blackman, Region 4 administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, speaking in Orangeburg, S.C., on Nov. 1. The Orangeburg Consolidated School District was awarded $6.32 million, which will help fund 16 e-buses.
“When you think of the transformative opportunity this does for especially rural communities that have been left out of the conversation, this is a great day for South Carolina,” said Blackman.
The funding announced by the EPA is part of the more than $1 trillion infrastructure law, passed in Congress last year. This year’s awards mark the first $1 billion of a five-year and $5 billion plan to transition school buses away from internal combustion engines. A similar initiative is afoot for transit buses.
South Carolina will receive some $58 million to go toward school bus transitions, with $25 million of this money going into the Sixth Congressional District, home to Orangeburg, a largely rural area.
“This grant was written to target resources into communities in need,” said Rep. James Clyburn, the longtime Democratic congressman from South Carolina.
The 8,300-student Orangeburg school district has a fleet of 189 buses which travel some 1.3 million miles annually across the county covering 1,200 square miles, said Shawn Foster, superintendent of education for the Orangeburg Consolidated School District.
