Season’s greetings! I just returned last week from the school bus conference in Reno Nevada presented by School Transportation News (STN). Exhilarating! I moderated one of the three sessions on electric school buses (ESB’s); the others were moderated by Michelle Levinson of World Resources Institute and Duncan McIntyre of Highland (see Key Players below).
As Jackie Piero of Nuvve noted in one session, “there’s a money cannon getting ready to be shot out of Washington D.C. for electric school buses”. No kidding. I’m focusing on that funding in this issue, along with key players, and how equity and raising up disadvantaged communities should, and probably will, be central to how this funding is administered nationwide.
For those new to this newsletter, I’m Alison Wiley here in Oregon, on a mission of electric buses, equity and inclusion, with 16 years experience in low-emissions transportation, focusing on electric buses since 2016.
How to invest 5 billion in clean school buses? Speak up!
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in charge of administering the $5 billion of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill that’s dedicated to clean school buses. 2.5 billion is specifically for electric school buses (ESB’s) and the other 2.5 billion is for alternatively fueled school buses, including electric, propane and more. Key facts:
- Mid-March deadline for EPA to announce its program plan (120 days from bill passage)
- Staff implementing this program are from EPA’s DERA team (Diesel Emissions Reduction Act team)
- Eligible recipients for funding: state and local governments, certain contractors, nonprofit school transportation associations, and Tribes, Tribal organizations or Tribally-controlled schools
Now is your opportunity to share how you think that money will be best administered. The EPA is holding a Listening session TOMORROW. It’s building out program details on how the money will be spent, who will be eligible, and what types of projects will be eligible for funding.
1) Attend the Listening Session tomorrow and provide feedback. Participants will be allowed 2 minutes each, time permitting.
EPA Clean Bus Program Listening Session
Wednesday December 15th, 2021
Noon to 1:30 pm PST
Register Here
2.) Can’t make it to tomorrow’s meeting? No problem. Send your written input to cleanschoolbus@epa.gov (but don’t expect answers to questions from that address).
For example: should funds be awarded by formula, according to districts’ needs and their existing air quality? Or competitively awarded, which would favor richer districts that have more resources and experience in grant writing? Should funding include some staffing implementation costs, especially for low income districts already strapped for staff? (Knowing that implementation can be hard and time-consuming, I think yes, on the basis of equity.) How about point of purchase vouchers for ESB’s and charging infrastructure (EVSE), where districts would receive the funds at time of purchase?
Key Players in the New Funding (in no particular order):
Alliance For Electric School Buses (AESB), formerly called the Electric School Bus Coalition, is an advocacy alliance of almost 30 nonprofits, active in this space long before it became popular, or profitable to companies. Led by Chispa, alliance members include Mothers Out Front, Sierra Club, Environmental Law and Policy Center, Clean Energy Works, U.S. PIRG, Jobs To Move America, this newsletter and many more. As I’ve noted before, the children who most depend on school buses are disproportionately low income and disadvantaged. These communities breathe the worst air, with the worst health outcomes, while having the least access to health care. ESB’s improve children’s health, school attendance and life opportunities, and also the climate we all share. I think the AESB will help guide the EPA to an equity-focused program, and so will the federal government’s Justice40 Initiative.
Highland, a for-profit financing company with a strong energy background, contracts with school districts to help them electrify their school bus fleets. Like SEA Electric (below), it has stated it will be eligible for EPA’s Clean Bus funding, i.e., to form public/private partnerships. Highland leverages funds, investing in the fuel and maintenance savings of ESB’s that will accrue over the years, and the energy services for utilities that ESB’s will, they trust in future, provide when they’re not being driven, such as vehicle to grid (V2G) services. Highland guarantees a district no costs above their current operating costs as they add electric buses, and flattens their ESB purchase costs to their usual, i.e. diesel, costs. Highland’s largest customer so far is Montgomery County in Maryland; their 1,400 bus fleet is now slated to become fully electric by 2035. A Highland spokesperson told me their contracts guarantee that the ESB’s they finance will fulfill all their transportation responsibilities before they fulfill any energy responsibilities, such as V2G discharges into the utility grid. (To be honest, I’ve long worried about conflicts of interest between kids’ needs and utilities’ needs; sounds like they’re being addressed, at least in the way Highland writes contracts.) Learn More
SEA Electric, also for profit, recently landed funding from Midwest Transit Equipment to convert the drivetrains of 10,000 fossil-fueled school buses to electric. I interviewed Tony Fairweather, CEO and founder, and learned from him that school districts will be able to buy his company’s repowered buses with the EPA funding. “At $150,000-$175,000, we can do two or three repowers for the cost of a new electric school bus. We are brand-agnostic and fuel-agnostic; we’re talking with all the OEM’s, and it doesn’t matter what fuel type the bus is, we can repower it. ” Learn More
I wondered aloud today whether SEA and its repowering model could partner with Highland and its financing model to stretch funds and sharply accelerate electrification of school bus fleets? Both Tony Fairweather and Mike Menyhart, SEA’s Chief Strategy Officer and President of the Americas, told me yes, they’re already looking at that idea.
World Resources Institute’s Electric School Bus Initiative, funded by 30 million from the Bezos Earth Fund, is new on the scene, yet clearly a player. It is working on market transformation through research, advocacy and relationships with EPA, utilities, OEM’s, the Alliance For Electric School Buses and many more organizations. WRI does not fund buses or infrastructure. It works to build capacity, and it supplies funding to a variety of organizations. Learn More
It’s hard for me to stop writing and say good-bye, because everywhere I turn there are more smart people with more valuable, late-breaking information that I would love to share. But we are going into the winter break, the point of which is to stop working breathlessly, slow down, rest and focus on loved ones. So I will wish you joyful holidays, take a deep breath, click send and see you again in January, when we’ll be refreshed for 2022 and the transition to electric buses that we’re all a part of.
Alison Wiley (she/her/hers)
I am on the ancestral lands of the Multnomah, Chinook and Cowlitz peoples.
Whose land are you on?