LEWISTON, ID – Three regional school districts have been chosen to receive part of more than $400 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean School Bus Program. Under President Joe Biden’s Investing in America agenda, the grants will help to improve air quality in and around schools and communities, save schools money, create good-paying clean energy jobs, and reduce greenhouse gas pollution, protecting people and the planet, the EPA says.
The Genesee Joint School District 282 will receive $1.2 million to purchase three electric school buses; the McCall-Donnelly Joint School District 241 was awarded nearly $4 million for the cost of 10 electric buses; and the Tekoa School District will receive $395,000 for one electric bus.
Overall, EPA received around 2,000 applications requesting nearly $4 billion for over 12,000 buses. The applicant pool included submissions from all 50 states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and federally recognized Tribes. The 2022 rebate program will fund approximately 2,500 school bus replacements.
The grants are made possible by the bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which provides an unprecedented $5 billion to transform the nation’s fleet of school buses. This is the first round of funding available as grants and follows the nearly $1 billion the Biden-Harris Administration awarded through the rebate competition last year to fund electric and low-emission school buses across school districts.
