SEATTLE — Vice President Kamala Harris, in Seattle on Wednesday, announced that nearly $1 billion has been awarded to school districts throughout the country to replace older school buses with newer electric and cleaner-running models.
The funding is part of a total of $5 billion for cleaner school buses, to be distributed over five years, included in the bipartisan infrastructure law passed by Congress late last year.
Harris spoke for about eight minutes to an-invite only crowd of several hundred in the bowels of Lumen Field, with a backdrop of four electric school buses.
“Who doesn’t love a yellow school bus?” she asked. “It’s part of our experience growing up, it’s part of a nostalgia, a memory of the excitement and joy of going to school to be with your favorite teacher, to be with your friends and to learn.”
Harris spoke in front of Highline School District No. 401, a Saf-T-Liner C2 Jouley electric bus that can go up to 138 miles on a charge and was purchased this year using a state grant. It’s one of three electric buses in the district, which serves the Burien, SeaTac and Des Moines area.
Every day, 25 million kids ride on yellow school buses, Harris said, calling it the largest form of public transit in the country. And 95% of those buses currently run on diesel, she said, emitting climate-warming greenhouse gases and contributing to health issues like asthma.
“We are witnessing around our country and around the world the effects of extreme climate,” she said. “What we’re announcing today is a step forward in our nation’s commitment to be a leader on these issues, to reduce greenhouse gases, to invest in our economy, to invest in job creation, to invest in building the skills of America’s workforce.”
Four Washington school districts have, so far, applied for and received funding to replace aging diesel-powered buses with electric, natural gas or propane models: Easton, Pomeroy, South Whidbey and Toppenish.
The $1 trillion infrastructure bill, signed by President Joe Biden last year, includes billions for roads, public transit, ports and the power grid.
Harris, while in the Senate in 2019, had originally sponsored legislation to provide funding to electrify the nation’s school buses. Washington Sen. Patty Murray then offered similar standalone legislation last year, before working to get the funding included in the massive infrastructure package.
“Building new, clean, electric buses and getting them on the roads is good for our kids, our economy and our planet,” Murray said.
The $1 billion in rebates awarded for school buses will help purchase nearly 2,500 school buses in all 50 states, 95% of them electric, according to the White House.
Seattle Public Schools contracts its transportation needs out to two bus contractors: First Student, which has said electric buses are not in its near future, and Zum, which has promised it will include electric buses in its fleet by the end of the school year.
There are or will soon be about 80 electric school buses on the roads in Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee said Wednesday.
Harris’s official visit, which will coincide with a private fundraiser for Murray at the Showbox in downtown Seattle, comes as the 2022 midterm elections enter the final stretch. In Washington, ballots are in the hands of voters who are weighing competitive races for U.S. Senate and for at least two congressional races.
Harris appeared with Inslee, EPA Administrator Michael Regan, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell and Murray, who is seeking her sixth term and is facing her most competitive race since 2010.
Murray’s opponent, Republican Tiffany Smiley, has said climate change should be fought at the local level. She recently declined to say whether she believed human actions are contributing to climate change.
“Vice President Kamala Harris — Joe Biden’s so-called border czar — has failed us and Patty Murray has gone right along and made it worse,” Smiley said in a prepared statement Wednesday.
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(Seattle Times staff reporter Monica Velez contributed to this report.)
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