In general, I love the arms-wide-open, let’s-include-everyone approach to things, whether it’s a social gathering at my house, or a funding program for electric school buses (ESBs). Last year’s rebate program definitely had that spirit; the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Clean School Bus Program awarded almost one billion to 389 schools and Tribes in year one of its five-year, five billion dollar program.

EPA’s new funding round, though, goes deep instead of wide. I love this one too, because it’s designed to help whole fleets transition to electric, while easy, open-arms rebates are designed to get fleets started on ESBs. We need both. My criticisms (I’m a loyal critic) are that Round 2 still doesn’t allow repowers (see the STN article on repowers I coauthored with Tim Farquer) and out of 120 possible points, only five are for addressing bad air quality. On the positive side, the Environmental Justice section of the application (see second chart below) has 25 possible points, far more than any criteria. That’s good!