U.S. School Buses May Never Be The Same Thanks to Biden’s Infrastructure Plan

#1:U.S. School Buses May Never Be The Same Thanks to Biden’s Infrastructure Plan 

An all-new EV schoolbus is parked beside a charging station at South El Monte High School during a ceremony introducing a fleet of 11 all-electric buses on Aug. 18, 2021 in El Monte, California. Credit - Frederic J. Brown—AFP/=Getty Images
Assembly line workers at the Thomas Built school bus factory in High Point, North Carolina are over the moon about the new infrastructure bill—specifically Title XI, Section 71101. Buried deep in the 2,702-page document approved by the House last week, that line item allocates federal funds to help localities purchase brand-new battery-powered school buses. That’s good news for Thomas Built, a subsidiary of German auto giant Daimler that controls nearly 40% of the North American school bus market. And for Chris Pratt, president of the local United Auto Workers chapter and a 22-year veteran welder at the Thomas Built plant, the legislation means one thing: more jobs. “We’re all excited,” Pratt says. “This is something huge for us.”
The school bus provision accounts for a comparatively tiny $5 billion within the $1.2 trillion bill now awaiting the President’s signature. But for workers like those in High Point, and campaigners advocating to get rid of diesel fumes on childrens’ commutes, this new federal funding represents a turning point in a surprisingly significant industry that will affect communities across the country.
The U.S.’s approximately 500,000 school buses comprise the country’s largest public transportation network, moving 26 million children between school and home every day. That’s more than four times the New York City subway’s daily ridership ,all picked up and dropped off at farm houses, suburban developments, and city apartment blocks from Idaho to Alaska. About 95% of those buses run on diesel, accounting for more than 5 million tons of yearly greenhouse gas emissions, and exposure to their exhaust fumes have been linked to lower test scores and worse respiratory health for children, whose developing lungs are more susceptible to irritation caused by the fine particulates bus engines generate. Inside those buses, especially idling in traffic or in pickup lots, children often breathe the most polluted air they experience all day.
The burden of those health problems falls heaviest on low-income communities of color, says Johana Vicente, national senior director at Chispa, the Latinx-oriented branch of the League of Conservation Voters based in Washington D.C. Spurred by asthma and other health effects they saw among children, Chispa began that year to campaign to electrify the nation’s buses. “School buses were not necessarily part of the conversation at all,” says Vicente. “It was a very new topic that we were talking about.”
Membership on the electric-school-bus bandwagon soon swelled to include groups like progressive policy nonprofit Jobs Move America and the Sierra Club, united by a pretty much inarguable case. It’s hard to produce electric versions of heavy vehicles, like long-haul trucks, due to their need for huge batteries, which weigh a lot and require long charging times. But as far as big, gas-guzzling vehicles go, electrifying school buses would be relatively easy, since they only need limited range, and have plenty of time to charge up during the school day or at night. Doing so would not only help the environment, but also directly impact children’s health—not to mention that the major U.S. school bus manufacturers were all already eyeing electric versions of their tried-and-true staples.