LCV and Chispa Statements on EPA’s Clean School Bus Grant Program Announcement

For Immediate Release

January 8, 2024

Contact: Mika Hyer, mhyer@lcv.org, 940-783-2230

Washington, D.C.— In response to today’s EPA announcement awarding $965 million to school districts from the Clean School Bus Grants program, the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) and Chispa released the following statements:

“The Biden-Harris administration is continuing to deliver on historic investments towards a clean energy future with more clean buses that will help address environmental injustice in the communities of color and communities with low wealth, and increase good paying union jobs in our country,” said LCV Government Affairs Advocate for Climate & Clean Energy Darien Davis. “These investments will ensure that 7.5 million students across the country will have a clean ride to school. As the EPA continues to fund electric buses for our youth and communities to breathe cleaner air, we must ensure these benefits are prioritized to reach the communities of color and communities with low wealth that are most impacted by toxic air pollution.”

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“Communities of color and low-income communities across the country experience higher rates of respiratory and other illness due to exposure to dirty air,” said Chispa National Director Estefany Carrasco-Gonzalez. “This latest announcement from EPA is a great step toward ensuring cleaner, safer, healthier air for all communities, particularly for our children in historically excluded communities who are more than twice as likely to have respiratory diseases like asthma than children living in higher income areas, by helping these communities to replace toxic, diesel school buses with cleaner, electric models. Already, the EPA’s Clean School Bus Program has doubled the number of electric school buses in the country, and we are excited to continue to work with EPA to further an equitable and just transition to electric school buses.”

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