Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris has been appointed to lead a new initiative from the White House to swap the national school bus system over to using election vehicles, explained an announcement from the White House made public on Wednesday.
This brand new project will end up utilizing almost $1 billion out of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for rebates which were handed out to various school districts that chose to buy and utilize electric school buses. As seen on a fact sheet, by the end of the program, the Biden admin will end up seeing a price tag of over $5 billion attached to the program.
“School buses safely transport more than 25 million children every day across America,” expressed the White House. “However, diesel exhaust from buses produces particulate matter and other pollutants that can cause lung damage and aggravate asthma and other health problems in children. In addition, diesel exhaust exposure has been linked to increased school absences.”
The $913 million put out by the primary round of funding was split among 2,263 electric buses seems to imply an average cost of just over $370,000 per bus, which on average seems to sit at twice the normal price of the typical diesel school bus, as reported by the Philadelphia School District, which took strides to add on a total of 5 new electric buses to its existing diesel fleet this year. City officials put out a document expecting to see annual fuel savings of roughly $5,000.
“When I think about what the experience should be for our children of going to school on the school bus, I think about the fact that it should be about maximizing that experience for them, understanding that this bus symbolizes so much about our collective investment in our future,” stated Harris while attending an event held in Seattle, Washington, unveiling the school bus program. “Because, of course, it is about our investment in our children, in their health, and in their education. And in that way, our electric school bus program really does represent an intersection of all those points, on top of the importance of investing in domestic manufacturing.”
This plan for spending on electric school buses comes after the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress highlighted that the average scores for reading among nine-year-olds dropped by roughly five points and the average score for math managed to drop by roughly 7 points. “This is the largest average score decline in reading since 1990, and the first ever score decline in mathematics,” as stated by a report from the National Center for Education Statistics.
