Happy Drive Electric Week! The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is helping us celebrate by releasing today its new $500 million Rebate Program for clean school buses, mostly electric.
This issue includes:
- Overview of EPA’s Clean School Bus Program‘s just-released Rebate Program (deadline Jan. 31, 2024)
- Oregon’s Clean Trucks/Buses (CARB) Forum tomorrow Fri.Sept. 29
- How Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 – October 15) is linked to ESB adoption
- How the rapid growth of wind and solar energy is woven into the growth of ESBs
Overview of EPA’s Rebate Program
EPA reports the overwhelming feedback from the first rebate round was a desire for ease and simplicity in applying. This second rebate round is similar to last year’s round, with a few key differences.
Similarities to 2022 Rebate Program:
- Lottery-based (not competitive)
- 1-25 buses per application
- Just one application per district, Tribe or third party
- Third parties (dealers, contractors etc.) must get consent of district or Tribe to apply for them
- Bulk of funds to prioritized districts (but now capped at 60%)
- Upfront funding, upon proof of purchase order
- Diesel bus must be replaced and scrapped (no waivers on scrappage)
- Use Sam.gov portal to apply ( can be tricky; start that part now)
- Support webinars available (EPA’s here)
- Air quality still not a factor in prioritization
- Repowers still not eligible
- $345,000 topline (max) per bus for prioritized districts
- $200,000 topline per bus for non-prioritized districts
- 40% of funds to non-prioritized districts
- Deadline to apply Jan. 30, 2024 (four months instead of three to mount applications)
- Those numbers inclusive of ESB, chargers and more
- “More” now includes workforce training development and consulting services (both optional)
- $20,000 available per bus for shipping to AK, HI and territories
- $20,000 available for buses with wheelchair lifts
I find especially valuable: non-prioritized districts now being included, because every district needs a chance to get started on ESBs. Also, the new wheelchair lift allowance, because students with disabilities are more vulnerable than average to toxic diesel emissions. Also, their buses do much more idling than general education buses as the wheelchair lift is deployed.
Oregon Clean Trucks (And Bus) Forum Fri. Sept. 29th
Note: there is no preregistration. A second forum is planned in October for those unable to attend this one. I’m looking forward to getting smarter on this.
Oregon Clean Truck (And Bus) Rules Implementation Forum
presented by Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ)
Friday, Sept. 29, 2023
10 – 11:30 a.m., PDT
From a PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone or Android device: Join via Zoom [no preregistration]
To join by phone:
+16699006833,,86121313521# US (San Jose)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
Toll Free: 888 475 4499
Meeting ID: 861 2131 3521
For more information, contact DEQ staff Rachel Sakata (rachel dot sakata @oregon.deq.gov) or Eric Feeley (eric dot feeley @oregon.deq.gov). I’m writing email addresses that way in an effort to evade bots.from the
Hispanic Heritage Month
Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs September 15 – October 15, relates to ESB advocacy in that Latina women, through Chispa, founded the ESB advocacy movement about eight years ago with the slogan “Clean buses for healthy ninos”. Children/ninos of all colors are now benefitting from ESBs’ zero emissions, and so are drivers and all the communities the clean buses drive through; I note it was brown women that led the charge.
I have much respect for three ESB drivers who spoke this past week in a webinar co-presented by World Resources Institute’s ESB Initiative and AESB: Carmen Pena Duran of Modesto City Schools, California, Trish Rea of Three River Community Schools, Michigan, and
Margarita (Margo) Villalobos at Salt Lake City Schools, Utah. We (and I) tend to focus relentlessly on funding. But the success of ESBs ultimately depends on the drivers embracing them. Which the leaders I just mentioned are doing, and convincing their colleagues to do, both by example and training.
“America’s schools are making progress on the switch to clean energy. Since 2015, the amount of solar installed at K-12 schools has tripled and the number of schools with solar has doubled . . . one in ten public K-12 schools have gone solar” (Generation180). More on this topic in future newsletters.
Coming up: I’m taking a break from newsletter-writing in October as I start work on the MOVER resiliency project, and prepare for a Tedx talk I’ve been invited to give on ESBs. I’m excited about that, but should not get a big head: there are 3,000 Tedx events annually worldwide. Plus many people reading this are at least as qualified as I am to speak on this topic. My next newsletter will come out in November. Speaking of November, I’m thinking about attending STN’s Transporting Students With Disabilities (TSD) Conference in mid-November in Texas. If you work in ESBs and are planning to go, please let me know; I’m more interested in going with more ESB colleagues in attendance.
Financial support for this newsletter is provided in part by the World Resources Institute. While the World Resources Institute may engage as a partner on content, it does not control, nor does it necessarily endorse, the contents of this newsletter.
Alison Wiley (she/her/hers)
I am on the ancestral lands of the Multnomah, Chinook and Cowlitz peoples.
Whose land are you on?