Happy Earth Day. The first one was in 1970, under a Republican president (my parents voted for him, twice), and led eight months later to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Its mission was to address things like air and water pollution (the Cuyahoga River bursting into flames may have been a factor here). Fast forward to 2022, when the EPA created, through a bipartisan funding package, the Clean School Bus Program (CSBP), which most of you are familiar with. It emphasized support for low-income districts, including rural ones. Isn’t history fun?
Soooo, two things have spun my head around lately. One is the word on the street that EPA is planning to launch its new funding round, presumably for one billion dollars, as early as May 2026. That’s fast, for government — the deadline for comments was just April 6th (all 142 of those are posted here). The second is the game-changing comment — actually a new policy — that First Student posted in said comments. More on that in a minute.
I’m Alison Wiley here in Oregon, God’s country, which phrase may well describe where you live, too. I’m a partner in MOVER, the vehicle to building (V2B) project for community resilience in Hood River, Oregon. I’ve worked in low-carbon transportation since 2006, and I founded this Electric School Bus Newsletter in 2019 (archives here). I’ve been happy to moderate ESB panels (ok, I’m an extrovert) at the STN West conference and the Green Transportation Summit and Expo. I’ve done contracted electric school bus (ESB) projects for the World Resources Institute’s Electric School Bus Initiative, Beaverton School District, Pacific Power, Portland General Electric and more. My former employers include Center for Transportation and the Environment, Forth Mobility and the Oregon Department of Transportation’s Public Transit Division, where I administered grants and evaluated grant applications.
First Student Rejects Propane
Background: propane, a fossil fuel with lower emissions and noise levels than diesel and gas, is widely used by many school districts. Before electric came along about 2019, it was the green fuel alternative. Even Craig Beaver of Beaverton School District in Oregon, who’s operating the third largest ESB fleet in the country, advocates for propane, in addition to electric. (Craig is retiring; here’s the posting for his job. He has delegated the coordination of the Region 10 Pacific Northwest ESB group to me and Brandon Coonrod, who leads the Portland Public Schools fleet. If you’d like to join us, just reply to this email; we’re geography-agnostic. Sorry for the digression.)
Excerpt from First Student’s comment to the EPA (comments are in pdfs you have to download):
“First Student is in the process of exiting the use of propane units within its fleet and operations. At this time, we do not plan on purchasing any new propane units and do not anticipate replacing the units we currently operate.”
This company transports almost one in five of the 26 million children in the U.S. who ride the yellow bus. There’s no larger player in the national school bus market. Even though they later state they will accommodate districts that request propane, this is the first corporate repudiation I’m aware of in the school bus world to the Trump administration’s embracing of fossil fuels, which have long been proven to be harmful to children, communities and the climate. Maybe I should be less surprised. First Student signaled their commitment to ESBs some time ago, stating they’d transition 30,000 diesels to electric by 2035. Moreover, Blue Bird is now the sole manufacturer producing propane buses, which suggests this fuel type is in decline.
Zum, Zenobe Receive Massive Investments
Zum, which operates by far the largest ESB vehicle to grid (V2G) project in the country in Oakland, California, has landed a new 100 million dollar investment. I understand it is envisioning similar projects in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Context is that utilities are desperate for more electricity, including that held in ESBs’ massive battery packs. Power outages are on the rise nationwide as data centers gulp energy, extreme weather escalates, and utilities stagger under lawsuits for the massively destructive wildfires traced to sparks from their exposed wires. It may seem odd to keep reading about energy issues in a school bus newsletter, but the worlds of energy and transportation are becoming wedded, and not just via ESBs.
Zenobe, a huge international firm that helps school bus fleets to electrify among many other things, has received backing from some of the world’s largest investors to expand electric truck charging, despite the federal government’s slashing of supports. Parallel to First Student repudiating propane, this illustrates long-term confidence in the electrification of transportation.
Eating Crow and Larger Concerns
I’m worried that I sound too cocky in the above. I’m aware I’ve been wrong in the past, as when I voiced full confidence in repowering diesel buses with electric drivetrains. That’s only worked out in one location in New York City. Beaverton School District’s and Forth’s repower project, which I worked on briefly in 2022, took three years to complete and deliver, and I’m told that that repowered bus has had problems and is rarely in operation. And I underestimated the risks that districts were taking when they bought ESBs from start-up companies like Lion, which later went under and abandoned its U.S. warranties. I have much to learn. Many of you have taught me a great deal. I appreciated when a rural reader politely challenged me on something; I then based part of a newsletter on what he taught me.
Erosion of public education is a larger concern for me than ESBs. School districts everywhere are staggering under the 12 billion the federal government has slashed from education, especially from Title 1 programs that serve low-income children and presumably help them stay in school. I wrote here and here about ICE’s chilling impacts, especially on districts feeling a need to keep secrecy for fear of further targeting. However, not all districts are cowed; I recommend School Transportation News’ recent article on this topic, and the example set by this school district’s program.
Back to Earth Day. In early 2025, EPA abandoned its 55 year torch of protecting the environment and the people most vulnerable to pollution when it rejected science and the public good and instead embraced fossil fuels, which are highly profitable for some. That torch, in various parts, is now being carried by a host of other organizations, both not-for-profit and robustly profitable ones, many of which agree with each other on nothing except the forward motion of electric school buses. I’m a fan of putting aside differences in order to work together; the massive federal disinvestment in public education mentioned above makes coalition-building yet more urgent.
Coalitions of unlikely allies are how progress historically has happened. Let me give an example. As a woman, I get to vote only because progressives and conservatives joined forces in the late 1800’s. Suffragettes allied with the Women’s Christian Temperance Union to gain enough support, over time, to pass the 19th amendment. Half the U.S. population’s right to vote is directly due to that compromise, that finding of common purpose between people whom we can imagine were not crazy about each other. In fact, I picture lots of side-eyeing in some pretty tense meetings. But these groups from originally opposite ends of the political spectrum made good trouble together; they accomplished something enormous that neither side could do alone. For my part, I support ESBs, yet see them as part of a larger goal: access to public education for all, especially for low income people, because civil society and democracy hinge on that. Access to public education is also the law of the land.
I’ll write again after the new EPA/Clean School Bus Program funding announcement drops, with the aim of helping to interpret it. As I’ve noted before, many states and utilities have long supported ESBs and will continue to do that, regardless of what the EPA does or doesn’t do. I’m especially impressed with Washington’s new Zero Emissions Incentive Program, known as WAZIP. Again, happy Earth Day.
Alison Wiley (she/her/hers)
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To go fast, go alone. To go far, go together. — African proverb