I write this newsletter to make sense of the fast-expanding ESB world. I write it especially to serve the many school districts and tribal fleets, often underfunded, that are somewhat or completely new to ESBs. (If you are among the small number who are deeply experienced with ESBs, please help me write this newsletter.) Banner photo above is by Deanna Dent for Chispa Arizona. Chispa, a Latinx-led nonprofit, were and are the founding pioneers of ESB advocacy.
This issue includes:
- Tips on applying for EPA Clean School Bus Program funds (proposals due August 22, 2023)
- Oregon-specific ESB news (no new diesel purchases starting Jan. 1, 2024)
- Repower update: recap of EPA’s July 17 meeting on this topic
- WASBE exclusive photo (Women Accelerating School Bus Electrification)
I’m Alison Wiley here in Oregon, an ESB, equity and inclusion geek. I’ve worked in low-carbon transportation since 2006, focusing on electric buses since 2016, with my newsletters housed here. This newsletter is a member of the nationwide, equity-focused Alliance For Electric School Buses. As always, please reply with comments, questions, jeers, and information you’d like to share. Some of my best material has come from readers, including opposing viewpoints, and I’ve met with and mentored people who reached out to me, including people who subsequently founded the Texas Electric School Bus Project. WASBE formed in 2020 due to responses to this newsletter.
Tips For A Winning Grant Proposal
Tuesday August 22nd, 2023, at 11:59 p.m. EST/8:59 PST is the deadline for grant proposals for the EPA’s Clean School Bus Program, which is in year two of its five year, five billion dollar endeavor. I have cowritten some kick-ass, winning grant proposals. (I’ve also lost some. Never losing means you’re not trying hard enough). I’ve read and evaluated a couple hundred proposals. I read and write for a living, besides building relationships (the relationships are the most fun). Here’s what I’ve got for you.
Get help, from ESB experts and/or grant-writing experts. This can be free, and should be, in my view. Lots of help available, including from the third parties that make small district inclusion possible (see below). I’ve been especially impressed by expert, incisive feedback given to a district’s draft proposal by Phillip Burgoyne-Allen of WRI (email protocol is first name dot last name at wri.org). I believe Phil could point you toward help whether or not he’s available on a given day. See WRI’s Sample project narrative and sample budget. While WRI specializes in deep ESB knowledge and technical assistance, the Alliance website specializes in gaining initial access to the ESB world, including CSBP funding.
Remember you can be small and still apply. A tiny district responded to my May newsletter, seeing no way they could participate in this round. I pointed out they could, through a group application led by a third party such as a dealer, manufacturer or HIghland. The EPA (also third parties) caution against appearing in multiple applications, though.
Write specifically to EPA’s NOFO and its FAQs, obeying all the many rules. I admit this is exhausting (58 pages and 65 pages respectively; Control F is really helpful). It’s easy to go astray as you develop and write about your project. The FAQs keep getting updated as people pose questions to cleanschoolbus@epa.gov; last updated July 20 as of this writing.
Tell a good story. To do that, you’ve got to be living a good story. In this round, the EPA wants to fund fleets and third parties that are already traveling down the ESB road. Illustrate that vividly, especially with descriptions of engagement and partnership, below.
Get letters of commitment, not of support. This is the counter-intuitive part. To the above point, EPA only wants letters stating what partner organizations will do to support the project over time. They don’t want the passive letters of praise usually attached to traditional grant proposals. ESB projects and especially fleet transitions require active, committed partnerships with others, and EPA knows this. Kudos to them.
Take the points breakdown seriously. See pie chart above. Don’t devote 75% of your attention to 10% of the points.
Don’t pretend to know things you don’t. It’s obvious to the evaluators, or at least it was to me when I read proposals. Do your research; get your facts. Don’t guess.
See your proposal as valuable regardless of whether you win. ESBs are in all of our futures, so everything you learn, you will eventually use. In particular, building the utility part of the application with your utility is time very well invested.
Watch for the CSBP’s next funding round, not yet announced, but which EPA states will be an easy-application, lottery-chosen rebate round similar to that of last year. Also, watch this newsletter for news of charging infrastructure grant opportunities, separate from the CSBP.
Oregon is banning new diesel school bus purchases starting January 1, 2024. This is due to Oregon following CARB (California Air Resources Board) requirements, which increasing numbers of states are doing. It’s not the same as a state directive to electrify, as New York state has done, and let’s note that propane is popular and affordable here. But it’s part of a nationwide response to climate change, and a desire to protect children from toxic diesel exhaust. Most changes have unintended consequences, and this change has triggered a rush on diesel bus orders while they’re still possible.
An Oregon group of which I’m a part has landed a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for an innovative ESB microgrid resilience project in Hood River, called Microgrid Opportunities: Vehicles Enhancing Resiliency (MOVER), led by the New Building Institute. I’ve long advocated for ESB’s famously large and available battery-packs to benefit local communities; see my piece The ABC’s of Vehicle To Grid. My final happy Oregon news is that I met at the OPTA conference the highly engaged Dani Shannon of EPA Region 10, now Oregon’s contact person for the CSBP and other programs.
Update on Repowers
On July 17, 2023 the EPA convened a stakeholder meeting on repowers to learn more about them. I attended along with about 46 others. Why do I and others advocate for them? Who opposes them? Why is the EPA not yet funding them, and who decides? Answers below. Later this week I’m convening a meeting of nonprofit repower advocates to look at landscape and strategy.
1.) They cost less than half of new, are thus more accessible to the low-income districts that tend to have the worst air quality, and their resource conservation would greatly reduce overall demands on the earth, as opposed to all new ESBs.
2.) At least two major ESB manufacturers oppose repowers. Of course they do. This reminds me of the early years of electric public transit buses, when major OEMS worked to block repowers at the federal level. They didn’t succeed, and more than 60 repowered buses by Complete Coachworks have logged millions of zero emissions miles nationwide.
3.) It’s the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that will decide on repowers, not the EPA, I learned at last week’s meeting. There are safety concerns. Possibly NHTSA is looking to EPA for a recommendation. The EPA invites comments on repowers at cleanschoolbus@epa.gov. Sources of information include my coauthored article originally published by STN and then republished on CleanTechnica, and WRI’s “8 Things To Know About ESB Repowers“.
My next newsletter will come out in mid-late August. Let me know what you’d like to learn more about, and if you’re a woman in ESBs, ask to be added to our WASBE list (I just heard from the women at Fermata — thank you!). In addition, next month I’ll pen another blog piece for School Transportation News, this one covering the STN Reno conference. Preview: a highlight was the presentation of the rigorous GreenPower ESB pilot project in West Virginia.
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.
Thanks!
Alison Wiley (she/her/hers)
Electric School Bus Newsletter
I am on the ancestral lands of the Multnomah, Chinook and Cowlitz peoples.
Whose land are you on?