Kamala Harris Touted a $5B Electric School Bus Pro

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California superintendent says electric buses would take district back to 'Pony Express days'

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Thomas Catenacci
July 29, 2024

One of Kamala Harris's highest profile responsibilities as vice president has been spearheading the federal government's billion-dollar efforts to deploy thousands of electric buses across hundreds of school districts nationwide. But years into the program, only a small fraction of those projects have been completed while dozens of school districts have withdrawn from the program altogether.

As part of the first tranche of Clean School Bus program funding two years ago, Harris and EPA administrator Michael Regan unleashed nearly $1 billion in federal rebates for 389 school districts across all 50 states to help deliver a total 2,463 electric school buses. According to federal data reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, just 27 of those districts have proven to the EPA that their buses were delivered and that their diesel-fueled buses being replaced have been discarded.

Collectively, those districts have deployed a total of 60 battery-electric or low-emissions propane-fueled school buses. And 55 additional districts have pulled out of the program, according to other federal data shared with the Free Beacon, citing a variety of technological and infrastructure concerns. In other words: More school districts have withdrawn from the program than proven that they have completed it.

"EPA anticipates that transitioning to new technology school buses will take time, which is why the project period is two years with an option to extend where needed and justified," said EPA spokeswoman Shayla Powell.

Powell didn't deny that 60 school buses have been deployed as part of the program, but she explained that districts still have three months until the EPA's deadline to either file close-out documentation showing they have obtained the buses and scrapped old buses, or file for an extension. The wide time frame is designed to give districts time to test the new buses out and integrate them into their fleet. Powell didn't say how many total buses may have been deployed in districts that have yet to file close-out materials.

The slow progression of the Clean School Bus program is a blow to the Biden-Harris administration as it seeks to quickly get billions of dollars in green energy and climate funding—earmarked in President Joe Biden's signature 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and 2022 Inflation Reduction Act—out the door. It's also a black eye for Harris, who has, in many ways, taken credit for the program, which she characterized earlier this year as an "investment in our children, their health, and their education."

The Clean School Bus program was created nearly three years ago as a provision of the 2021 infrastructure bill, which put aside $5 billion for the EPA to distribute in the form of rebates and grants over the course of five years. Since Harris's initial announcement, the agency has unveiled a $1 billion tranche of grants for 280 school districts and a second tranche of rebates, worth $900 million, for another 530 districts. None of those districts have deployed any buses under the program.

"This only makes economic sense if the bus is paid for with a grant like we received," Jeff Dicks, the superintendent of the Newell-Fonda and Albert City-Truesdale school systems in northern Iowa, told the Free Beacon. "The cost is so prohibitive that the cost savings are not worth it."

Dicks's school district is among the districts that have received funds under the Clean School Bus project—Albert City-Truesdale was awarded $395,000 as part of the October 2022 tranche of rebates. That money was used to fund a single new electric bus and a corresponding charging station. The district will be able to save money on fuel, but only because the bus was acquired free of charge, Dicks said.

Based on the EPA's funding calculus, the average new school bus under the Clean School Bus program costs upwards of $370,000, more than three times the cost of a traditional diesel bus. That implies the cost to replace the entire U.S. fleet of 547,000 yellow school buses with electric alternatives would exceed $202 billion.

Kenny Bell, the superintendent of Wolfe County School District in central Kentucky, which received $1.2 million from the EPA to purchase three electric buses, also reported satisfaction with the vehicles, once they were provided free of charge. "We love our electric buses," Bell said.

The issue, though, is not nearly as simple for the districts that have yet to deploy any buses or that have pulled out of the program.

"Ultimately, what sealed it for us was just the performance concerns," Tom O'Malley, the superintendent of Modoc Joint Unified School District located in northern California, said in an interview.

Modoc School District withdrew from the Clean School Bus program in March 2023, five months after it had been selected to receive $2.4 million for six electric buses.

O'Malley said the EPA's funding came short by about $50,000 per vehicle, meaning the buses were more expensive than projected and would have cost his district hundreds of thousands of dollars, even though the program was intended to provide free buses. But he emphasized the performance concerns were an even bigger hurdle, pointing particularly to how electric buses fare in rural and cold weather conditions.

"We get super cold in the winter—we get down below zero in the winter and it's cold here about nine months out of the year," he continued. "Basically, we're being told that you can't run the heaters, which means you can't defrost your windows because they take too much battery power. So, we were told they would get 200 miles on a charge, but the people in the field were telling us 70 with a loaded bus. That just doesn't work."

The superintendent of Fall River Joint Unified School District, which is also located in California, about 90 miles west of Modoc School District, echoed O'Malley's concerns. Fall River didn't receive any EPA funding for electric buses.

"We don't want to put kids on a bus that's not guaranteed to be able to get there, especially here in the rural areas," Fall River superintendent Morgan Nugent told the Free Beacon, adding that relying on electric buses would take his district back to the "Pony Express days." "Those who are making the policies need to get out to actually see how this is going to impact the rest of the country."

Lakeland Union High School District, located in northern Wisconsin, withdrew from the program for similar reasons, namely the questions about infrastructure, range, and cold-weather performance, the district's administrator Robert Smudde told the Free Beacon. "We could not afford the risk of being a 'test' run on this type of technology," Smudde said.
Lakeland ultimately turned down federal rebates worth nearly $4 million for 10 electric buses one year after Harris named it an awardee.

And Nicole Henson, the superintendent of Wayne City School District in southern Illinois, which declined rebates worth $1.2 million for three new buses, said in an email that her district withdrew from the program over mileage concerns.

Energy experts and industry groups have long warned that pushing forward with electric buses, and electric heavy-duty vehicles broadly, too quickly would be met with a series of roadblocks. In addition to electric vehicles having a lower range than traditional vehicles, charging infrastructure for heavy-duty vehicles requires substantial electric grid upgrades and increased power generation.

"As with a comprehensive program of this nature, there are certainly going to be challenges that quite frankly those who do not operate a yellow bus are going to be aware of and understand completely," said National School Transportation Association executive director Curt Macysyn, adding that the evolution to an electric school bus has created a new ecosystem that requires partnerships with electric utilities and charging infrastructure companies.

Overall, EPA stated in its annual report on the program that most withdrawals are due to "challenges coordinating with electric utilities, sometimes lengthy and costly electric infrastructure upgrades required to install [electric vehicle supply equipment], or concerns around the maintenance and range of electric buses."

And an internal EPA spreadsheet shared with the Free Beacon showed that cold climate concerns, technology concerns, and increased infrastructure costs were also justifications for withdrawals.

"I suspect many school districts are having second thoughts about purchasing electric school buses when they cost around three times as much as a traditional school bus," Rep. Morgan Griffith (R., Va.), who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight subcommittee, told the Free Beacon. "Further, I surmise local school systems are hesitating because of concerns about the cost of installing electric charging infrastructure and the cost and reliability of maintaining the charging stations."

"Clearly with many projects uncompleted and school districts opting out of the program, this program is performing far below expectations," he continued.

Griffith, along with Energy and Commerce Committee chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R., Wash.) and Rep. Buddy Carter (R., Ga.), in April penned a letter to EPA administrator Regan, expressing concern with the feasibility of the program and its implementation. The lawmakers further highlighted the findings of a December 2023 EPA inspector general report, which exposed potential for fraud.

The inspector general investigation into the Clean School Bus program concluded that some school districts were unaware they had even applied for rebates as part of the 2022 tranche. The report stated that, instead, third-party contractors had applied for the funds on behalf of those districts, an issue that "extended the program timetables and created confusion and inconsistency within the program."

Harris's office and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.

"I think as we move forward, student transportation will have to peel back the onion and see where bottlenecks occurred and why," Macysyn, from the National School Transportation Association, said. "Hopefully, the EPA will be committed to listening to our feedback as school bus operators, as we seek to improve upon the program, and create reasonable expectations for students, their families, and the community."

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