“I have never seen existing, legally binding contracts not honored. No one expected this,” said Jeff Allen, the veteran Executive Director of Forth (NYT). School districts nationwide receiving Clean School Bus Program funds under legal contracts with the EPA are finding their payment portals frozen. (If you’re one of those districts, WRI recommends what to do in this article.)
It’s fair to call the situation chaotic. Both because it may lead to stranded assets that would waste large federal investments and because a federal judge’s order to unfreeze the freeze is being ignored by federal leadership. When judges are ignored, the rule of law is deteriorating, which as a trend itself does not bode well for children, one of our country’s largest and most vulnerable populations.
Keeping our focus on children, the concept of public education itself is on the federal chopping block with H.R. 899. Transportation and education for students with special needs are among the things that a dissolved U.S. Department of Education would almost certainly, in turn, dissolve. While I’m an advocate for electric school buses (ESBs), I am a yet firmer advocate for public education and the school buses, all fuel types, that make it and society as we know it possible. Read on for how to stand up for public education.
February is both Love the Bus Month and Black History Month. I see these things as interrelated. More on that later.
- Resources for meeting chaos with community
- MOVER‘s discovery of new cost savings of electric over diesel
- WASBE Forum Tue. March 4th. 11 am PST (Women Accelerating School Bus Electrification)
I’m Alison Wiley here in Oregon, an ESB and equity geek, and a partner in MOVER, the resilience project in Hood River, Oregon. I’ve worked in low-carbon transportation since 2006, focusing on electric buses since 2016. Find my Electric School Bus website and back newsletters here. I help school bus fleets move forward with electrifying, by writing this newsletter and as a consultant and grant writer. This newsletter is a member of the nationwide, equity-focused Alliance For Electric School Buses (AESB).
Meeting Chaos With Community
Broken contracts, chaotic governance, potential stranded assets and jobs disappearing all unsettle us. But acting together steadies us.
Call your federal legislators, asking them to oppose H.R. 899. Find their phone numbers here. Our representatives and senators want us to call them, including when they already agree with us on an issue. Our voices strengthen theirs. They tally every call and voicemail they receive from each of their constituents. If you don’t already know about the excellent app that I and many are using to make efficient, well-informed phone calls to Congress, hit reply and ask me for the link.
The Breaking Barriers Collaborative School Bus Accelerator, to my direct north in Washington state, is supporting interested Washington school bus fleets in the steps of electrifying, under the able leadership of Paul Bloom with Climate Solutions. Being part of a learning cohort is the best form of community.
I also recommend the New York School Bus Incentive Program Calculator for New York state school bus fleets, which are being fast-tracked to electrify. NYCERDA endorses this tool that Michael Backman of Spectivate created. Michael formerly worked for UES, which repowers diesel buses to electric. Speaking of which —
Five repowered ESBs are operating in New York City, some since 2021, each logging 3,000-6,000 miles/year, according to Corey Muirhead of Logan Bus. While repower efforts in Oregon, Texas and Illinois haven’t yet reached fruition (I contributed to the Oregon effort in 2022), this option may get renewed interest now that federal funding of new ESBs has almost certainly ended. Repowers cost much less than new ESBs, use existing materials and can create local jobs. Jessica Keithan of the Texas Electric School Bus Project states Texas is ripe for repowers due to its having “high quality used buses in massive quantities and an appetite for conservative economics”.
Join an ESB learning cohort that meets monthly. Craig Beaver’s group meets second Wednesdays at 10 a.m. Pacific (see his district’s outstanding ESB page). Tim Farquer’s group meets first Wednesdays at 9 am Central (it was led for years by EPA Region 5 staff who are now prohibited from doing that). Tim also leads Bus To Grid which cultivates mutual aid, a prime way to practice community. Reply to me if you’d like to be invited to either of their meetings, or contact Craig or Tim directly.
Finally, it appears this ESB newsletter you’re reading, established 2019, has become one of many hubs (some led by my readers) that build community. My last issue Lion Goes Dark As MOVER Moves Forward had 2,191 total opens, half of those unique, with 2,625 clicks on links within it. That data doesn’t include readers or clicks resulting from people forwarding an issue, nor LinkedIn readership of my newsletter excerpts. If what I’m writing about is not of interest to you, I hope you’ll unsubscribe at bottom (MailChimp charges me way too much if I go over 2,499 subscribers).
New Cost Savings Found of Electric Over Diesel
Here comes the geekiest part of this month’s newsletter, brought to us by Hood River County School District, Oregon, a partner, as I am, in the MOVER project.
Background: ESBs cost way too much up front, as we all know. But, Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) analysis shows us that ESBs’ reduced fuel, maintenance, etc. costs offset much of the purchase cost. A new “etc.” item was discovered last week by Kyle Rosselle of Hood River County School District and Joe Wachunas of New Building Institute, project manager of MOVER.
Diesel buses, and not electric buses, require block heaters to warm them so they can start at temperatures under 20 degrees. That means that in cold months, electric buses save more money compared to diesel buses than previously thought. How much? HRCSD found through its bus-yard electric meter that it spent $299.53 in December to block-heat 11 diesel buses, i.e. 3,890 kWh at .077 cents per kWh. But that is unusually cheap electricity from the district’s local co-op. The average electricity price nationwide is .17/kWh. So let’s crunch that number.
It appears that $661.30 would be saved on block heating each winter month, on average, with 11 ESBs having replaced 11 diesel buses. (I told you this was geeky.) While that’s not huge, it shifts the TCO a notch in favor of electric, and gives hard-working employees one less task on bitter winter mornings. WRI’s brilliant Michelle Levinson, co-author of its TCO analysis, has been following this with interest.
Hood River’s Kyle Rosselle and I are co-presenting on rural ESBs at the Oregon Pupil Transportation Association Conference this June.
WASBE Forum March 2nd, and a closing thought
Our 12th WASBE Forum is Tue. March 4th (Women Accelerating School Bus Electrification). We’ve engaged at least 200 women, across all sectors, since we formed in 2021. Nancy Jensen is speaking this time, formerly of early-adopter Twin Rivers School District. Nancy possibly has more hands-on experience operating ESBs than anyone in the country. If you’re a woman in the ESB field and you didn’t receive an invitation from me and/or Susan Mudd back on February 6th, reply to this email and ask to be included. It’s a good time to come together.
I am behaving calmly, amidst broken contracts and more, but I feel unsettled. Some of you have told me you feel the same. Building community with each other is the antidote and the path forward. Let’s love the bus, this month and every month. Let’s honor Black History, this month and every month. Outsized numbers of the precious cargo riding our school buses, and probably of those driving them, are people of color. Our bus drivers are holding public education together, especially for special needs children, whose access and rights depend on the U.S. Department of Education staying in existence. All threatened by H.R. 899. Call your congresspeople; their phone numbers are here.
Here’s a closing thought. When I was in church the other Sunday, Rob, my pastor, mentioned that the general fear and concern we are feeling right now is new to us, but not so new to minority groups. Rob and I are both white. A Black woman sitting in the pew behind me murmured, “Uh-huh”. I wanted to make note of that.
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)
Electric School Bus Newsletter
TEDx talk
To go fast, go alone. To go far, go together. — African proverb