Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Representatives with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were in Buffalo on Friday to announce a major investment coming to the Buffalo-Niagara region funded predominantly through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that looks to electrify school bus fleets and clean up polluted areas.
Specifically, this funding will provide 25 electric school buses to Buffalo Public Schools at a cost of $8.625 million, and provide electric buses for other Erie County school districts like Sweet Home, Depew and Springville-Griffith Institute.
"That means not just cleaner, greener school buses, but clean air for our children's lungs to breathe in while they're being transported. This builds off of the promises that we've made as a community, as a state and as a nation, to fight climate change and to improve our environment. It starts right here today at the water's edge. but it has to continue on for the months and years ahead and generations to come because what we're fighting is a very difficult industrial past," said Congressman Tim Kennedy (D, NY-26) on Friday.
This is the third round of funding for the EPA's Clean School Bus Rebate program, providing upfront payments to eligible entities to subsidizes buying zero-emission or clean school buses, fund the necessary charging infrastructure, and pay for related expenses like professional training. Recipients get the money upfront to ensure a smooth purchasing process.
In addition, the Buffalo Niagara River Land Trust will receive a $500,000 Brownfield grant to assess three Buffalo neighborhoods with environmental justice concerns with the goals of improving water quality and connecting underserved community members to the waterfronts. EPA provides a majority of this funding to New York communities through a $1.5 billion investment into Brownfields sites from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda.
"Kids deserve a clean ride to school, and people deserve clean and healthy neighborhoods. For many New York communities, this also means a healthy lake or river front and a safe path to get there," said EPA Regional Administrator Lisa Garcia. "Today’s announcement shows how EPA is investing in Buffalo's communities and its kids and highlights the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s ability to deliver transformative results in underserved communities throughout New York."
In total, nearly $96 million in funds part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure law will be provided to New York State through EPA’s Clean School Bus Rebate program, and about $15 million, including $9.5 million in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding, will be awarded through EPA’s Brownfields program to assess and clean up polluted sites.
The school buses should be in service within 14-18 months, according to Kevin Matthews, First Student's Head of Electrification. He says that's primarily due, in part, to infrastructure construction.
"We're already in discussions with National Grid and actually have been for some months looking at our locations here in Buffalo, we're pretty close to narrowing down on which one [facility] we would actually deploy the infrastructure in, we typically go with what's known as DC fast charging for our infrastructure, because we want to make sure we're prepared to deal with cold weather that we have here in Buffalo. And please know we're prepared for that we operate over 300 units in Quebec, Canada today. So we know cold weather, we've never missed a day because of cold weather issue," noted Matthews.