The Environmental Protection Agency is planning to spend $5 billion dollars over the next five years to help school districts across the country purchase electric buses. In New Mexico, public health officials plan to push lawmakers in the upcoming legislative session for additional funds to help replace diesel school buses with electric vehicles.
The School Bus Modernization Act has the backing of the New Mexico Public Health Association. It would encourage school districts to transition to electric school buses to help reduce air pollution and protect children from harmful diesel exhaust.
“Every medical report that has looked into it has found that there are four to eight times more particulate matter inside a diesel school bus than there is inside a regular conventional automobile,” said lobbyist Charles Goodmacher with the New Mexico Voices For Children Action Fund.
Goodmacher is working with Democratic lawmakers Sen. William Soules and Rep. Debra Sariñana, who wrote an op-ed on the issue, to introduce the legislation. He said it came out of the challenges facing five school districts that got federal funds in 2022 to purchase electric buses and the charging infrastructure required to run them.
One problem is that New Mexico public schoolsdon’t qualify for renewable tax credits.Also school buses have to be replaced every 12 years. Electric buses cost $400,000 each, nearly three times the amount of a regular diesel bus.
Four states including Maine, New York, Maryland, and California have already required that schools in their states switch to electric school buses. But Goodmacher said this proposed bill is not a mandate.
“This is not about forcing any local school district to choose electric school buses,” he said.
Goodmacher said it’s designed to level the playing field so if a district chooses to replace a diesel bus with an electric one it will not be penalized.
He adds that renewable energy buyback programs could help offset the high costs. School districts would have to apply for them through the Public Education Department.
Goodmacher said there are studies showing a correlation between cleaner school buses and student attendance since diesel particulates can make asthma worse, leading to more sick days.
“They can’t succeed if they’re not in the classroom,” he said.
The bill also proposes $400,000 for an engineering study by New Mexico State University to look at all 89 school districts and evaluate their electrical infrastructure needs if they pursue electric vehicles.
Support for this coverage comes from the Thornburg Foundation.
