Electric school buses cost around $400,000 each, plus charging infrastructure — a high price tag for many New York school districts working to meet the state’s deadline to electrify all their buses by 2035.
So last year, when the Environmental Protection Agency awarded about $100 million in federal funding to nearly 50 New York school districts to purchase electric buses, local communities largely welcomed the investment. It included $800,000 for the Ithaca City School District to purchase four electric buses, as well as millions of dollars for larger school districts in New York City and Buffalo.
The EPA funding for electric school buses was meant to cut climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality. During the Biden administration, school districts across the country received this funding.
But now, many environmental advocates worry the most recent round of funding, and any future federal funding for electric school buses, could disappear under President Donald Trump.
In January, the Trump administration froze some funding related to energy saving projects, which left many school districts around the country unable to access recent EPA grants, according to Carolina Chacon, the coalition manager for the advocacy organization Alliance for Electric School Buses.
“It’s been really difficult for school districts,” said Chacon. “They just know that they lost access, or they received a notice from their program officer, ‘Hey, your funding is frozen. And we’ll let you know when we can talk again.’”
The EPA hasn’t said what’s happening to the future of the Clean School Bus Rebate program. A spokesperson said the agency would not comment because the issue is part of pending litigation related to the federal funding freeze.
In New York, the federal funding uncertainty has added to the challenges districts face meeting the state’s deadline to transition their fleets to electric buses. Now, amid growing concerns around how districts will afford to upgrade their fleets, some Republican state lawmakers have proposed legislation that would enable districts to completely opt out of the state’s mandate.
To Chacon, it matters that school buses are electrified as quickly as possible.
“In the very immediate term, what we’re seeing is we’re going to have kids that were meant to be riding in cleaner school buses, riding in diesel buses,” said Chacon. “They will be breathing dirtier air.”
WSKG reached out to several New York school districts that were awarded funds last year to see what’s happening to that money. But most didn’t reply, including the Ithaca City School District.
Buffalo Public Schools was awarded the largest sum — over $8 million to purchase 25 buses. A spokesperson from the district said in a statement that they are committed to moving towards electrifying buses, but that a private company called First Student is in charge of acquiring the vehicles. First Student said it is monitoring the situation.
All of this is happening under deadline in New York.
In 2022, the state passed a directive requiring all school buses be electric by 2035. Any new bus a district purchases has to be electric beginning in 2027.
The state has put some money towards the transition, including $300 million available through a voucher program to school districts. But uncertainty around federal funds is creating a big hiccup for some districts and school bus providers looking to make the switch.
“With the new administration, everything’s on hold right now,” said Tommy Smith, president of the New York School Bus Contractors Association and chief operating officer of a transportation company on Long Island that provides buses to districts there.
Smith said he was working on a project that he hoped would get funding in the next round of EPA electric school bus awards. But now he doesn’t think he can count on that grant.
“Now that the federal money is dried up, it’s something we definitely have to sit back and evaluate where this is going,” said Smith.
Republican New York state Sen. Joseph Griffo, who represents part of the Mohawk Valley and Southern Tier, recently introduced legislation that would allow districts to opt out of the state’s electric school bus mandate.
He said the point is to give districts more time to wait for electric school buses to become more affordable and more reliable. And, he added, it doesn’t make sense for the state to require districts to buy electric buses if it doesn’t have funding to fully support them.
“I don’t blame the federal government,” said Griffo. “This is a New York decision, so as a result of it, they have to figure out a New York solution.”
Still, to many environmental advocates, it’s too early to give up on New York’s ambitious timeline to transition to all-electric school buses. Researchers have found that replacing diesel buses with electric ones is key to improving air quality and reducing climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions.
“It’s a public health crisis,” said Patrick McClellan, policy director at the New York League of Conservation Voters. “Even if we weren’t worried about climate change, even if we didn’t, to achieve the state’s climate goals, need to decarbonize the transportation sector as quickly as possible, there’s still an overwhelmingly strong public health case for transitioning off of diesel buses.”
Story by Rebecca Redelmeier/WSKG/New York Public News Network
Produced with assistance from the Public Media Journalists Association Editor Corps funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.
Image: Replacing a diesel school bus with an electric one can cost around $400,000, plus charging infrastructure.