Author: Willy Blackmore Published: 6/26/2024 Word In Black
Federal Government Spending $900 Million Updating Fleets, Move Could Benefit Black Communities
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan held a press conference to announce the investment of nearly $900 million to electricity school bus fleets in states across the country
By now, it’s a well-established pattern for environment-related announcements from the Biden Administration: when unveiling a new program that’s good for the climate overall, the news is often announced in a place where a lot of Black and/or Latinx people live.
A few weeks ago, it was Jackson, Mississippi, where U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Michael Regan returned to hold a press conference to announce the investment of nearly $900 million to electricity school bus fleets in states across the country.
And while it is political theater to make announcements like this, especially in an election year when the president is polling miserably, there’s this truth too: it is almost always the case that doing good things for the environment, things that will help everyone, will often help Black people the most.
Black communities tend to have closer proximity to major roads and other transportation infrastructure, exposing them to higher levels of fine particulate pollution that can cause a host of respiratory health problems, including asthma. And as we wrote when Chicago took steps to electrify its school bus fleet, where the buses are going to be deployed first in the city’s Black and brown communities, this overhaul of student transportation can have an even stronger effect when the new investment is specifically targeted to such neighborhoods.
“The NAACP recognizes this bold step on behalf of the EPA to ensure children from disadvantaged and excluded communities are prioritized with the air they breathe,” Abre’ Conner, the NAACP’s director of environmental and climate justice, said in a release (the president of the NAACP was at the Jackson event). “Now is the time to ensure Black youth are not left out of mass transit and clean air conversations. It is critical that we prioritize having clean school buses in Black school districts and it remains our hope that President Biden and Administrator Regan will center the needs of Black children in these additional environmental and transportation funding conversations.”
The Clean School Bus program was initially going to be a $500 million fund. But after the window to apply for the money, which will come in the form of rebates, closed last fall, the fund was nearly doubled due to the huge amount of interest from school districts. The funding will help replace 3,400 older diesel school buses, which as heavy-duty vehicles, emit a significant amount of pollution.
The new buses will nearly all be electric (8% will be newer low-emission models). Nearly half of the projects are in “rural, low-income, or tribal communities,” according to the EPA, which also said that the investment meets the Biden Administration’s Justice40 requirements too.
Jackson, for its part, could definitely use the cleaner air. In the latest State of the Air report from the American Lung Association the Mississippi city, which is more than 80% Black, was the 29th worst city for particle pollution in the country.