By Alex Baumhardt/Oregon Capital Chronicle
Oregon will soon have more than 200 federally-funded electric school buses shuttling kids to and from school following an announcement that the state will get money for more early next year.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced Dec. 11 that it has allocated more than $6.5 million to Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality so districts can retire 26 diesel buses and replace them with electric ones. The money will also go toward installing more electric vehicle chargers and training 17 mechanics to work on electric buses and charging infrastructure, according to an EPA news release.
Diesel and heavy-duty gas-powered buses emit high levels of air pollutants that cause asthma and cardiovascular disease along with greenhouse gases that spur climate change, according to the EPA. With DEQ data showing that transportation is the single largest contributor to Oregon’s greenhouse gas emissions, curtailing them is a priority for state officials.
Oregon’s senior U.S. senator, Ron Wyden, said the money will help.
“Creating opportunities like this with school buses to reduce those emissions is key to tackling this issue head-on in Oregon and nationwide,” Wyden said.
The $6.5 million comes from the Clean Heavy-Duty Vehicles Grant Program established in the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. It will be awarded in early 2025 and can be spent over the next three years, the news release said.
The EPA has also granted Oregon since 2022 more than $64 million in rebates and grants for 23 school districts, allowing them to purchase about 200 electric school buses. The Beaverton School District, the third largest in the state, was the first to purchase an electric bus and has the largest fleet of electric buses so far. According to district data, electric buses have one-third of the operating costs as diesel buses, and they’re half as expensive to operate as the district’s propane-powered school buses.
This story first appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.
