This is a great opportunity for all of our communities suffering from air pollution and high asthma rates:

Clean Electric Bus Upgrades For Schools Across Florida

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection recently announced that school districts in Florida’s most polluted and populous regions are eligible to apply for $57 million to replace diesel-fueled school buses with clean electric buses. The funds come from Florida’s share of a settlement between the U.S. EPA and Volkswagen after the carmaker was found to have cheated on emissions requirements. Of the $166 million in funding allocated to Florida, 70% of funds will be allocated to school, transit, and shuttle bus upgrades.

Over the last two years, Florida Conservation Voters Education Fund has amplified the voices of concerned parents and communities in demanding that the hundreds of millions of dollars our state is receiving from the VW settlement be used to upgrade our aging fleet of toxic diesel school buses to zero-emissions electric buses. Together with the resounding voices of our supporters, we urged Governor Ron DeSantis and DEP to focus this funding in low-income communities and communities of color who experience disproportionately high environmental burdens like poor air quality and high rates of asthma.   

Of the nearly 500,000 school buses operating in the United States, nearly all of them are powered by diesel fuel. Diesel school buses expose 2.7 million Florida students to toxins and known carcinogens and emit harmful pollutants, including particulates and greenhouse gases. This issue is especially prevalent in densely populated areas of Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Orange, Duval, and Pensacola, which DEP has classified as  “Air Quality Priority Areas.” 

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