TX Observer: “In addition to the upcoming federal funding, Texas has its own Clean School Bus Program, run by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). The program is currently open to all of the state’s school districts on a first-come, first-served basis, and has an estimated $13 million available this year to reimburse districts for upgrading older buses.
Since 2008, the program has allowed more than 200 Texas school districts to retrofit or replace a total of nearly 8,000 buses. The program has been popular, according to TCEQ officials—there’s more demand than the state has allocated money to meet. Texas has nearly 50,000 school buses that transport more than 1.3 million students every day—about 25 percent of all students enrolled in the state’s public schools.
“We’re receiving applications every day,” said Nate Hickman, a specialist in TCEQ’s Air Grants Division.
Some have critiqued the TCEQ program for being too incremental because it allows districts to get newer diesel engines or models that run on propane or liquified natural gas rather than requiring that they transition fully to electric buses. While switching to alternative fuels like propane and natural gas does reduce some unhealthy emissions, particularly nitrogen oxides, those buses will still produce greenhouse gasses.
“They aren’t really clean in the way that they’re being marketed,” said Mac Dressman, a transportation associate at the Public Interest Research Group, a national network of state-based health and safety advocacy groups. Though they cost more upfront, Dressman and other environmental advocates argue that electric buses offer many more benefits in the long run than upgraded buses that run on alternative fuels.
For now, TCEQ is accepting applications for newer buses using a variety of fuels as well as zero-emissions electric buses. The choice is up to individual school districts.
“We’re excited to see those new technologies continue to roll out to the market,” Hickman said.”