Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released eagerly awaited information on the new Clean School Bus Program. While the program itself is an exciting development in federal support for the nascent zero-emission school bus market, the chosen program funding mechanism leaves much to be desired. The EPA decided to disburse the funding via a rebate mechanism, leaving many of us at the Center for Transportation and the Environment concerned about the ability of under-resourced school districts to access the funding and about the ability of all school bus operators to receive proper technical support for deploying a complex and unfamiliar new technology. As we have found through our experience with the zero-emission transit industry, simply providing capital for vehicle acquisition is not enough for successful zero-emission vehicle deployments.

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