A Federal Push to Electrify the U.S.’s School Buses Started With Philanthropy

But that’s not the whole argument. Electrifying the nearly 490,000 school buses in the U.S. will have an enormous benefit on the climate—as these cleaner vehicles produce the lowest level of greenhouse gas emissions of any bus alternative. 

“There’s also an economic story here as well,” Steer says. “As of two years ago, 96% of all the electric buses in the world were built in China. Wouldn’t it be good to share that massive industry with our own workers here in the Midwest or wherever they happen to be?” 

Another economic benefit? The batteries in electric buses can be used to conserve energy in the summer, allowing power to be put back on the grid as needed, Steer says. 

The proposition attracted Bezos because, as Steer recalls him saying, “it captures the whole idea of changing a system, and the multi-faceted benefits that really good investments make.” 

In November 2020, the Earth Fund boosted local, state, and national efforts to electrify the school bus fleet with a five-year, US$37.5 million grant to WRI, in partnership with Chispa (an arm of the League of Conservation Voters focused on Latinx communities and people of color), Mothers Out Front, the Vermont Energy Investment Corp., and other organizations throughout the U.S. 

That funding allowed WRI and others to get the word out to local, state, and federal lawmakers on the benefits of electric school buses to health—especially for children living in low-income neighborhoods—and to the climate. It also supported WRI’s partnerships with school districts, communities, environmental justice organizations, utilities, manufacturers, and policymakers aimed at electrifying the nation’s school bus fleet. 

Those efforts helped lead to an estimated US$5 billion in federal funding through the infrastructure legislation passed in 2021, and an estimated US$1 billion from the Clean Heavy-Duty Vehicle Program—established in the federal Inflation Reduction Act passed last year. The latter funding also includes relevant IRA tax credits, such as the Qualified Commercial Vehicle Tax Credit and the Alternative Fuel Refueling Tax Credit. 

The work of WRI and several other nonprofits—including the Alliance for Electric School Buses (a multi-organization effort)—also influenced the passage of zero-emission school bus transition mandates in five states, beginning with New York in 2022, in addition to other state efforts that together have affected 20% of buses nationwide and 16% of school-bus riders, according to WRI. 

The total that’s been made available for school bus electrification—from federal and state funding sources—is estimated to have reached about US$9 billion, WRI figures show. 

The Earth Fund and other donor organizations, including the Energy Foundation—which is backed by the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the McKnight Foundation, among many others—are not buying the buses—which in 2022 cost about US$350,000 compared to US$103,000 for a diesel version, according to WRI—but their philanthropic dollars have catalyzed the electric transition.

“We would not be where we are today without having the [financial] support that has helped support the advocacy on the ground at the local level, and then increasingly at the state level and the federal level to be at this point,” says Sue Gander, director of WRI’s electric school bus initiative. 

A key focus for WRI is facilitating all the various “systems change” aspects required to make electrification viable for school districts by, for instance, providing technical assistance, in addition to collaborating with manufacturers and working with electric utilities to provide the charging infrastructure, among other strategies. 

“It’s great to get all this funding and bring in the school districts and they get excited about it, but it’s a really different story to then actually get the buses, figure out where the charging goes, figure out the routes and help with that part of things too,” Gander says. 

Philanthropy’s role is in supporting all the elements of this “jigsaw puzzle” that is required to make change happen, according to Steer. 

“It turns out that to make a sort of a movement like this possible, you need different players to come into the equation,” he says. That means working with school boards, manufacturers, financial institutions (to finance the expansion of manufacturing capacity), in addition to parents and politicians, he says. “The federal government can’t do that.” 

Today, school districts have 5,985 “committed” electric school buses, meaning vehicles that have either been awarded, ordered, delivered, or are operating as of Aug. 1, according to WRI. Though that represents only 1.2% of the 489,186 buses on the road, it’s up from 3,478 in 2022, before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offered nearly US$1 billion in rebates to replace existing school buses with funding allocated through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021, WRI data shows.

In September, the EPA announced another US$500 million of this funding was available for rebates. A goal is to deliver funding consistent with the Biden Administration’s Justice40 initiative, which aims to ensure disadvantaged communities receive at least 40% of the benefits of certain federal investments. 

Getting the equity piece right is a major focus for WRI in particular, Gander says. So far, the organization’s analysis shows committed electric buses are mostly reaching underserved districts. Ensuring this happens is a priority because it’s “kids from communities of color, from low-income communities, from rural areas, and also children with disabilities that rely on school buses more so than their peers,” Gander says. 

The Earth Fund’s donation to WRI and others was significant in kicking the impact of the existing movement “up quite a notch or two,” she says, but the fact it was a five-year grant was also important. “It’s great to get the funding, but it’s even better if it can be a stream of funding where you’re not like immediately thinking about how do I keep this going?”

That funding stream is critical because “we’re still in early days,” Gander says. A big challenge is ensuring that the infrastructure is built to support the buses in addition to other municipal vehicles, in rural areas in addition to cities.  “One could say, and not be wrong, that the hill is getting a bit steeper. So it’s really critical to continue the incentives.”

Steer is optimistic. “Five years ago you basically couldn’t find an electric bus to buy in this country. By 2035, it will be hard to find a school bus that isn’t electric on the market,” he says. The transition may seem expensive, until the cost of the buses come down, the infrastructure is built, etc. “But the more you look at it, it’s sort of irresistible and unstoppable,” Steer says. “What we want to do is continue to be part of that.”