Posted: February 10, 2015<\/p>\n
Awards $3 Million to Reduce Emissions from 76 School Bus Fleets Nationwide<\/p>\n
SAN FRANCISCO<\/strong> \u2013Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is awarding five California School Districts $325,000 and one Nevada School District $110,000 to replace eighteen older diesel school buses with new, clean buses that are more than 90 percent cleaner.\u00a0 Nationwide, 76 recipients will receive rebates through EPA’s Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA) funding to replace 210 school buses.<\/p>\n Nevada’s recipient, the Washoe County School District, will\u00a0replace five school buses.\u00a0 California recipients\u00a0will replace\u00a0four buses in the Town Ride, Inc. of Arcadia Unified School District; \u00a0two buses for the Culver City Unified School District, one bus\u00a0for the\u00a0Enterprise Elementary School District in Redding, Calif., five buses for the Clovis Unified School District, and one bus for the Southern Humboldt Unified School District in Miranda, Calif.<\/p>\n In conjunction with \u201cLove the Bus\u201d month, which is dedicated to showing appreciation for school buses and their drivers, EPA\u2019s Office of Transportation and Air Quality Director Christopher Grundler joined the American School Bus Council (ASBC) at Tuckahoe Elementary School District in Arlington, Va., today to discuss the environmental benefits provided by new, clean diesel school buses. The ASBC estimates that each school bus takes approximately 36 cars off the road each day, which reduces emissions and saves fuel costs for passenger cars.<\/p>\n The effort is part of the West Coast Collaborative, a clean air partnership that leverages public and private funds to reduce emissions from the most polluting diesel sources in impacted communities.\u00a0 Along the West Coast, California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington will receive a total of $755,000 in funding to replace polluting school buses.<\/p>\n \u201cAmericans put their children on school buses for a safe ride to school. They shouldn\u2019t have to worry about harmful pollutants emitted from these buses,\u201d said Janet McCabe, acting assistant administrator for EPA\u2019s Office of Air and Radiation.\u00a0 \u201cThis funding will help keep our children safe and improve the health of those in communities across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cReducing exposure to diesel pollution is important for everyone, particularly children,\u201d said Jared Blumenfeld, administrator for the EPA\u2019s Pacific Southwest Region.\u00a0 \u201cThis funding will improve air quality for children, one of our most sensitive populations.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThanks to the EPA School Bus Replacement Rebate, the air in Washoe County will be cleaner for everyone, especially our students,\u201d said Charlene Albee, Director of the Washoe County Health District Air Quality Management Division. \u201cA cleaner fleet of school buses helps us work toward an overall healthy community.\u201d<\/p>\n Applicants were randomly selected and placed in order on a list until a total of $3 million was allocated. This was EPA\u2019s second round of the rebate program aimed at replacing older diesel school buses.\u00a0 Public and private school bus fleets were eligible to apply for rebates for the replacement of school buses with engine model years of 2006 or older.<\/p>\n Since 2008, the DERA program has funded over 600 clean diesel projects across the country. These projects have reduced emissions for more than 60,000 engines. DERA is set to expire in 2016.<\/p>\n EPA has implemented standards to make diesel engines more than 90 percent cleaner, but many older diesel school buses remain in operation and predate these standards. Older diesel engines emit large amounts of pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and particulate matter. These pollutants are linked to health problems, including aggravated asthma, lung damage, and other serious health problems.<\/p>\n Reducing particulate matter emissions also reduces black carbon, which influences climate by directly absorbing light, reducing the reflectivity (\u201calbedo\u201d) of snow and ice through deposition, and interacting with clouds.<\/p>\n To view a list of the 2014 School Bus Replacement Rebate recipients, visit: http:\/\/epa.gov\/cleandiesel\/dera-rebate-schoolbus.htm#2014<\/a><\/p>\n To learn more about the West Coast Collaborative and this year\u2019s West Coast DERA school bus replacement projects, visit: http:\/\/www.westcoastcollaborative.org<\/a><\/p>\n Media Contact: Margot Perez-Sullivan, perezsullivan.margot@epa.gov<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Posted: February 10, 2015 Awards $3 Million to Reduce Emissions from 76 School Bus Fleets Nationwide SAN FRANCISCO \u2013Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is awarding five California School Districts $325,000 and one Nevada School District $110,000 to replace eighteen older diesel school buses with new, clean buses that are more than 90 percent cleaner.\u00a0 … Continue reading EPA Awards Six California and Nevada School Districts $435,000 for Eighteen Cleaner School Buses<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[386,385,85,384],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7133"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7133"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7134,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7133\/revisions\/7134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}