This story was originally published by Canary Media.

One of California’s marquee programs for cleaning up transportation emissions is at a crossroads. Decisions made in the next few months could set the decade-and-a-half-old Low Carbon Fuel Standard on one of two very different paths.

One path, favored by fossil fuel and renewable natural gas interests, would lock in a market scheme that currently extracts billions of dollars per year from Californians at the pump and subsidizes crop-based and cow-manure-derived biofuels.

That would be a disaster, according to environmental advocates, who point to a growing body of scientific evidence showing that this approach, if extended until 2045 as proposed, would cause these biofuels to grow at a scale that would harm the climate and the environment.

The other path, proposed by environmental groups, transportation-decarbonization analysts and climate and energy researchers, would limit the scope of unsustainable biofuels in the program, and instead reorient it to support what experts agree should be California’s primary clean transportation pathway: electric vehicles.

To date, roughly 80 percent of LCFS funding has gone to combustion biofuels rather than electric vehicles. That’s simply incompatible with the state’s EV ambitions and needs, said Adrian Martinez, deputy managing attorney of nonprofit advocacy group Earthjustice — and the imperative to reduce emissions from transportation, which account for nearly 40 percent of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.

“We’ve got to eliminate our reliance on combustion,” he said, but ​“the program as designed will continue to provide lucrative incentives for combustible fuels well into the future.”

The regulator in charge of the LCFS program — and this high-stakes decision — is the California Air Resources Board. CARB’s board, which comprises 14 voting members, 12 appointed by the governor and two by the state legislature, holds a host of responsibilities around California’s energy transition. Those include shaping the state’s nation-leading EV policy, as well as determining its broad plans for achieving long-term greenhouse-gas reduction goals.

Critics say the LCFS program’s increasing support for biofuels is in direct contrast to both the EV targets and the climate goals also overseen by CARB — and that the program has been captured by deep-pocketed industries trying to greenwash the continued use of combustion fuels.

CARB has a chance to reform the program with an upcoming vote, initially set for this month, but now postponed to an undetermined future date. But its pathway to fixing the problems that plague LCFS is murky and messy at best.

Right now, the staff managing the LCFS program hasn’t given CARB board members an opportunity to pick a climate- and EV-friendly alternative. Instead, a December staff proposal provides only one option for the board to vote on later this year: a set of policies that Earthjustice forecasts would direct $27 billion over the coming decade toward biofuels and worsen effects on the climate, the environment and the prices that Californians pay at the pump.

CARB does have another option, however — an alternative proposal laid out by CARB’s Environmental Justice Advisory Committee, created to advise the board on environmental-justice issues.

That proposal would cap the fast-growing share of crop-based renewable diesel flooding the state. It would also end the unusual structure that now allows biogas produced by dairy farm manure to offset a much higher amount of carbon emissions than any other source of alternative fuels.

And, importantly, it would make the core of the program — its carbon-offset marketplace — function in a much healthier way, proponents say. A torrent of cheap, polluting renewable diesel and dairy farm biogas credits have dragged down the price that LCFS credits can fetch for avoiding emissions, diluting the incentive to deploy new climate technologies and sapping what could be a key funding source for EV infrastructure in the state.

“The stakes are very, very high,” Martinez said. ​“That’s why you see so much attention focused on this — and a very broad and diverse coalition that is pushing for more systemic change to the program, versus more modest tweaks that will really just keep this market owned and dominated by fossil fuel interests.”

A history of the LCFS program

California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard was born out of AB 32, the 2006 law that created the state’s carbon cap-and-trade market. Much like carbon markets, LCFS is meant to make companies pay for their carbon emissions by buying credits from technologies that reduce carbon emissions.

The program requires all fossil fuels refined and sold in California to meet increasingly stringent carbon-intensity targets. In practice, fossil fuel producers have to buy a bunch of LCFS credits from low-carbon transit sources operating in the state in order to comply. The goal is to create a system that taxes planet-warming fossil fuels to fund cleaner transportation alternatives.

But the LCFS has strayed from its initial focus on vehicle electrification and ​“advanced” non-crop-based biofuels to become ​“a swag bag for venture capitalists, big oil, big agriculture, and big gas, increasingly coming at the expense of low- and moderate-income Californians.” That’s how Jim Duffy, a 13-year veteran of the agency who served as branch chief of the LCFS program from 2019 to 2020 and retired in 2022, described the evolution of the program in comments filed with CARB.

Under the LCFS regulation adopted in 2009, dairy-manure-to-biogas projects did not receive special treatment compared to other sources of methane such as landfills and sewage treatment plants, Duffy wrote. Similarly, diesel fuels made from crops like soybeans were considered ​“only marginally better than fossil diesel.”

But in the years since, ​“the LCFS was revised to provide additional and unnecessary support to landfills and first-generation crop-based biofuels” and ​“to mitigate the methane problem created by the dairy industry itself,” Duffy wrote — despite the fact that evidence increasingly suggests that both sources harm the planet far more than they benefit it.

The result has been an increasing share of LCFS credits being supplied by renewable diesel and dairy-generated biogas. 

CARB has justified these shifts with analysis indicating they will yield net positive climate impacts.

“The proposed amendments now under consideration will directly increase the program benefits in the most burdened communities, by reducing the carbon across the supply chain for fuels sold in California, as well as improving public health for fuels sold in California,” CARB spokesperson Dave Clegern said in an email to Canary Media. He cited data from CARB staff’s analysis of its proposal indicating that, by 2045, its plan will reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by 25,586 tons, cut greenhouse gas emissions by 560 million metric tons and yield public-health cost savings of nearly $5 billion. 

But critics say the agency is failing to account for the full scope of climate harms that will be caused by its continued emphasis on biofuels.

They warn that the sheer scale of California’s program — totaling some $4 billion per year — is driving investment in the wrong transportation alternatives. The consequences are dire, they say — not just within the state, but across the country and around the world.

Why renewable diesel is threatening CARB’s climate and credit goals

Take renewable diesel, a fuel made from fats and oils processed to be identical to fossil diesel fuel. The U.S. increased production of the fuel by 400% between 2019 and 2022, and it is set to double it again this year, according to Jeremy Martin, senior scientist and director of fuels policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Unlike ethanol and biodiesel, which can only partially replace gasoline and diesel, renewable diesel has ​“no limit on how much can be blended,” Martin said. It could theoretically completely replace diesel fuel for trucks, buses and other vehicles. And California’s LCFS offers credits on top of the federal incentives the fuel receives, making the state the primary target of renewable diesel producers across the country.

As a result, the share of renewable diesel as a percentage of total diesel fuel use has skyrocketed in California compared to the rest of the U.S., as the chart below shows.

In a September meeting, Steven Cliff, CARB’s executive officer, highlighted a milestone for the LCFS program: As of mid-2023, California had ​“more than half of our diesel demand being met by non-petroleum-based diesel alternatives. This is a direct result of the LCFS program, and it’s bringing real climate and air-quality benefits to the state.”

In Martin’s view, that milestone is not a win, but a warning. It indicates that renewable diesel is ​“flooding the LCFS, drowning the policy — and it doesn’t make sense” on climate or environmental terms.

Once the demand for renewable diesel outgrows the supply of waste oils and other non-crop feedstocks that can be used to make the fuel in genuinely climate-friendly ways, it becomes highly likely that it will cause more greenhouse gas emissions than it will displace. Critics like Martin argue that demand has now reached this point, though it’s a contested question.

This additional demand for crop oils could mostly serve ​“to expand the cultivation of palm oil to replace the soybean and other oils made into fuel,” the Union of Concerned Scientists argued in comments to CARB. That, in turn, is likely to lead to more rapid deforestation in nations that produce large amounts of these crops, such as Brazil and Indonesia — an outcome that would cause far greater climate harms than whatever emissions reductions result from replacing fossil diesel.

To stop this, the Union of Concerned Scientists and other groups want CARB to set a limit on how much renewable diesel can receive LCFS credits. CARB staff’s proposal declines to set such a cap, citing renewable diesel’s climate and health benefits.

But CARB’s methodology is out of step with the latest science, according to multiple groups studying these issues. The Union of Concerned Scientists, for its part, says CARB’s analysis is ​“based on inaccurate claims of climate and air-quality benefits and associated health outcomes.”

In a recent comparison of five different models for evaluating the climate impacts of crop-based biofuels, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that only CARB’s own model shows a positive carbon-reduction impact.

And while the agency has a proposal to limit deforestation harms by setting ​“sustainability guidelines” for crops being used for renewable diesel, it applies only to feedstocks grown in the U.S., Martin noted. That’s a problem: California is on pace to consume 10 percent of global soybean oil supplies for renewable diesel, meaning a significant amount of the crop oil produced for the program will be grown under conditions CARB cannot police, he said.

Given that reality, Martin said, ​“If California declines to act — if they say, ​‘This is evidence of success; look how little fossil diesel we’re using’” by replacing it with renewable diesel, ​“then, in fact, California is giving its support to a fuel that we know is unsustainable at these volumes.”

California’s biofuel bias is hampering its EV future. Can that change? is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

University Park is a small suburb south of Chicago, built around sprawling warehouses for companies like Clorox, Amazon and Solo Cup that attract a steady stream of diesel truck traffic. Its residents, 88% of whom are African American, are also exposed to pollution from a steel and wire processing facility relocated there from a gentrifying Chicago neighborhood, as well as steel mills and an oil refinery in nearby Northwest Indiana.

So, village manager Elizabeth Scott figured, the town was a prime candidate for improving quality of life and the environment by adopting electric vehicles — even if only two local households had EVs when Scott first checked the secretary of state’s website.

An EV Readiness program developed by the Chicago-area Metropolitan Mayors Caucus helped University Park catapult to being a leader in electric vehicle adoption, with the program offering a “blueprint” for preparing charging infrastructure, accessing grants and doing community outreach. University Park earned the second-highest score of a dozen municipalities participating in the first cohort to finish the EV Readiness program last year, and they were the only municipality in the region’s “Southland” to complete the program.

University Park is in the process of acquiring an EV charging station for electric semi-trucks city leaders hope will increasingly serve its warehouses, and they hope to add electric vehicles to their municipal fleet while also supporting residents to get their own EVs.

University Park’s EV Readiness website offers resources for local electric car owners and aspiring owners, from a video demonstrating how electric vehicles work to an interactive map of charging stations.

Scott, who has an electric car herself, had long noticed the vast disparity in available charging stations in the predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods and suburbs on the South Side of Chicago, versus the wealthier and whiter neighborhoods and suburbs to the north.

“In Black and Brown communities there’s been a lot of disinvestment,” said Scott. “This [electric vehicle rollout] is big, it’s something new — for the world, and especially for this country.”

The truck charging station will be one of the first in the Midwest. “We’re kind of pioneers in this, this is uncharted territory,” Scott continued.

EV expansion

The EV Readiness program, funded by utility ComEd, offers guidance on a wide range of issues, including updating zoning and building codes to facilitate EV charger installation, training first responders in dealing with electric vehicle fires, and accessing federal and state incentives. 

Municipalities receive scores for various achievements and can earn bronze, silver or gold certification through the program. Doing a fleet assessment to prepare to acquire municipal EVs helps earn silver certification, for example, and actually adding EVs to the fleet earns gold. Oak Park received a gold certification during the program’s first cohort, with the rest of the municipalities earning bronze. 

The cohort of participating municipal leaders received guidance and instruction from the Mayors Caucus and met regularly. 

“It was like a support group, to be able to partner with other communities, bounce ideas off one another,” Elizabeth Scott said. “I highly recommend every municipality to go through the program.”

Between October 2022 and November 2023, according to state registration data, the total number of EVs owned in the municipalities participating in the first cohort increased from 2,175 to 3,608. Hanover Park doubled its EV ownership, from 105 to 219, and Oak Park increased ownership from 581 to 904. Much-smaller University Park doubled its EV ownership — from eight to 16 vehicles.

A timely idea

The concept of EV Readiness was born in 2018 during public meetings around the Volkswagen vehicle emissions cheating settlement that provided funding to states for alternative fuels and electric vehicles. Metropolitan Mayors Caucus director of environmental initiatives Edith Makra noted that the majority of public comments made during that period were focused on acquiring electric vehicles.

The caucus launched the initiative with a series of listening sessions with stakeholders including the IBEW electrical workers union, fire safety officials, advocacy groups and municipal leaders. The caucus developed an EV Readiness checklist, certification program and curriculum. The first cohort of municipalities started the program in December 2022 and “graduated” in December 2023.

“When we first signed on to support this program, we weren’t fully sure what the response from municipalities would be,” said ComEd external affairs director Philip Roy. “We were kind of blown away by the interest. We have over 400 municipalities in our service territory, that are all very different — in size, makeup, resources, they all need different kinds of help. That’s where having a group like the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus that is so used to working with a broad, diverse set of municipalities is key to success.” 

The EV Readiness program dovetails with an ongoing Metropolitan Mayors Caucus initiative known as the Greenest Region Compact that involves communities collaborating to develop and adopt sustainability standards. 

EV Readiness also builds on the model of SolSmart, a nationwide technical assistance initiative that helps municipalities invest in and prepare for solar power, at no cost to them. Many of the municipalities in the first cohort of EV Readiness were also participants in SolSmart. 

With both programs, part of the goal is to help communities be well-positioned to apply for federal grants and incentives. 

“We wanted communities to be ready for the influx of funding that was on the way, we knew it was coming, we wanted to make sure they were thinking about it,” said Metropolitan Mayors Caucus sustainability specialist Cheryl Scott (no relation to Elizabeth Scott). 

During the first cohort, the federal government announced the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program providing grants for EV charging under the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The smallest grants available were $2 million, “more than most of our communities need,” as Makra said. And ironically the paperwork to apply for the environmental justice-focused Justice 40 mandates of the program was “a really heavy lift for most small communities,” as Makra said. 

So, the Mayors Caucus worked with communities to prepare an aggregated NEVI grant application, seeking $15 million to install 114 chargers in 35 towns and two counties. Recipients have not yet been announced. 

Statewide leadership 

Illinois has been a leader in legislation promoting electric vehicles on the state level. The 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act created incentives for public transit electrification and EV ownership, with a goal of having one million EVs on Illinois roads by 2030. The law creates rebates of up to $4,000 for consumers who buy electric vehicles, and demands utilities pursue transportation electrification in an equitable way that does not burden customers who don’t own EVs. 

Last year the Illinois legislature passed the Electric Vehicle Charging Act, which requires new single-family homes and multi-family buildings be EV capable, meaning conduit is laid to allow easy installation of chargers and wiring. State law also prohibits landlords and homeowners associations from unduly interfering with charger installation, and clarifies how renters should pay for electricity used in charging EVs.   

ComEd funded the first two cohorts of EV Readiness with $225,000, and the utility is in the process of finalizing increased funding for additional cohorts, said Roy. The second cohort of the program – including 16 municipalities and two counties – is underway. 

During a recent luncheon sponsored by the Executives’ Club of Chicago, ComEd CEO Gil Quiniones touted the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus’s work and the importance of EV rollout. 

“We want to make sure our grid is ready, if someone wants to buy an electric vehicle today and put in a charging station,” Quiniones said. “We want electric vehicles to be an easier choice for our customers.” 

He said alleviating “range anxiety” by installing more charging stations is key. Currently, there are about 2,000 level 2 chargers and 1,000 fast-chargers in ComEd’s service territory, he said.

As part of its Beneficial Electrification program, ComEd is spending $231 million on rebates and other incentives to encourage electrical vehicle adoption by municipalities and individuals.

“We recognize that municipalities are going to play a vital role in the transition to electrification,” said Roy. “Many of the policies that drive how and where infrastructure is installed are very hyperlocal policies that municipalities oversee: zoning, parking code, use of public space.” 

An investment in the future

The mayors caucus helps municipalities coordinate with utilities on EV readiness and helps them understand suggested electrical code standards and practices. 

Cheryl Scott said most municipalities require permits for level 2 or fast-charging stations, but not for level 1 charging.   

“If it’s the same outlet as plugging a toaster in, should the government get involved?” she asked. “Level 1 is where we saw uncertainty about how to do that. If it’s an older house, older wiring could cause problems. The owners manual (for chargers) says check with an electrician.” 

“Do you permit for EV charging at a residential level or not?” added Makra. “We ask a community to think that through. Do you risk being overly burdensome, or not necessarily protecting your constituents in terms of safe installation?” 

The EV Readiness program encourages communities to adopt policies going beyond the state EV charging law, and some including University Park did so by requiring new commercial construction be EV-capable. 

Oak Park, a suburb west of Chicago, adopted the “most transformative” charging infrastructure policy, in Cheryl Scott’s words. The town requires a level 2 charger be installed in any new residential building with a garage or parking space, and commercial buildings and multi-family residences must have a level 2 charger for every five parking spaces. Several towns including University Park also adopted policies that commercial construction must be EV-ready or EV-capable; the state law only applies to residential buildings. 

Elizabeth Scott said she’s seen interest in EVs blossom in University Park since EV Readiness launched, for environmental and financial reasons. 

She said she spent $350 a month on gasoline for her car before getting an EV, since her position requires constant driving. Now, she spends about $100 a month on charging. 

“It’s convenient, it’s safer, I have no catalytic converter to steal, I don’t have oil changes,” Scott noted. “But it’s really an investment in the sustainability of our future and our communities. I’m really grateful we’re able to do this as a community of color that normally doesn’t have all the opportunities.”

A gold star for EV Readiness: Chicago-area program prepares communities for electric vehicle adoption  is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

A lack of state money isn’t curbing Virginia school districts’ enthusiasm for ridding their fleets of polluting, noisy diesel-powered buses. 

Through December, Virginia ranked fourth nationwide in the number of electric school buses either on the road or on order. Its 260 total was surpassed by only California, Maryland, and New York, according to data compiled by the nonprofit World Resources Institute.

All three of those states have either robust incentives, mandates, or both for districts to make the switch to electric school buses. In Virginia, though, state funding has not been available since a one-time, $24 million allocation five years ago from the state’s Volkswagen emissions cheating settlement. Meanwhile, state lawmakers blocked Dominion Energy from expanding an electric school bus pilot program that it had also started in 2019.

Instead, school districts have bumped up their e-bus counts by plugging into federal dollars, forming public-private ventures and buying buses directly.

“There are so many ways to make this transition work and that’s great,” said Bobby Monacella, a Mothers Out Front campaigner in Fairfax County who helped to usher in the e-bus evolution in her Northern Virginia backyard in 2019. “I’m so happy it’s happening to what amounts to the largest mass transit program in the country.”

And the momentum is continuing.

• Virginia’s electric school bus total will soon exceed 300 following Monday’s announcement from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarding Fairfax County Public Schools $16.5 million to purchase 42 buses. Lynchburg City Schools received similar funding in 2022 under the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and is bringing 25 electric buses on board. Lynchburg and Fairfax County are two of 14 Virginia school districts that have thus far successfully tapped into that money. 
• In the Washington, D.C. suburb of Manassas City, school transportation officials are the first in Virginia to begin leasing buses from Highland Electric Fleets, a Massachusetts-based company with an innovative model to help school districts more smoothly transition to electric transportation.
• And in Fairfax County, local pressure applied by Monacella and Mothers Out Front to reduce its carbon footprint is prompting the local district to buy an additional three electric buses on its own dime — the first school district in Virginia to do so. By spring, its 1,625-bus fleet will include 31 electric models. Eventually, that count will jump to 73 when the district spends its newly awarded $16.5 million.

Tish Tablan leads the Electrify Our Schools program at Charlottesville-based Generation 180. The nonprofit has been instrumental in guiding a movement among Virginia schools toward adopting rooftop solar as a cleaner, more affordable power source. More recently, Tablan folded electric buses into that mission.

Navigating the latter is challenging, she said. But by buckling down on her homework, she has become a go-to resource for schools clamoring for guidance on accessing electric buses.

“I wish there was an easy button that schools could press to navigate this complicated process,” Tablan said. “We’re trying to help them because there’s a lot to figure out.”

Cost is part of that formula. Electric school buses are roughly three times as expensive as traditional diesel ones.

The price tag on a 77-passenger electric bus in Virginia is $368,500, compared to $120,099 for a diesel model, according to Whitney Kopanko, the electric vehicle program manager at Sonny Merryman, the Prince William-based bus dealer that controls 60% of the overall school bus market in Virginia. 

Two other major barriers to the transition are lack of familiarity with electric bus technology and insufficient staffing.

“Strapped school districts in Virginia just don’t have the bandwidth to do all of this,” Tablan said. “Applying for grants is difficult enough. Districts are shorthanded already. Too few bus drivers means they have to pull people off their regular jobs.” 

Staying ahead of curve in Lynchburg 

Lynchburg City Schools will replace close to half of its 62-strong diesel bus fleet in one fell swoop this winter when 25 shiny new electric buses begin plying the roads.

Hope Watts, the district’s director of transportation, doesn’t want to stop there. She’s hoping Lynchburg can receive money for 37 more before the EPA’s five-year, $5 billion grant program runs out of money in 2026.

“It’s possible that the state or the federal government could have a mandate for electric buses,” said Watts, where roughly 6,000 of the 8,000 students ride buses. “I want to be ahead of the curve.”

Lynchburg was awarded $9.8 million for 25 buses and chargers — $375,000 per vehicle and $20,000 per charger — from the EPA in its first round of grant funding. Watts found out earlier this week that her district didn’t qualify for a second-round request for four additional buses.

Generally, the EPA’s Clean School Bus Program prioritizes school districts with the highest shares of low-income and underserved households. Historically, they disproportionately bear the health burdens of tailpipe pollution, including ozone and minute pieces of particulate matter that can become lodged in residents’ lungs.

She admitted to experiencing a case of sticker shock when Lynchburg had to pay upward of $1 million for bus upgrades and the installation of the accompanying charging infrastructure.

That’s why Watts is relieved that Tablan and her colleagues introduced her to a Generation 180-initiated online exchange for school officials immersed in electrification.

Through SLICE — School Leadership in Clean Energy — Watts learned that Lynchburg is eligible to apply for federal IRA tax credits to take the financial sting out of the $775,000 cost for outfitting buses with premium tires, a second stop sign, GPS, cameras, air conditioning, wheelchair lifts and other necessities.

The same goes for the $297,000 Lynchburg spent on charging-affiliated conduit and trench-digging. The local investor-owned utility, Appalachian Power, installed necessary overhead lines at no cost, she said.

“I wouldn’t have a clue that this possibility existed without the SLICE network,” Watts said. “It’s fantastic to be able to compare notes because we’re all in this together.”

To ease her drivers into the idea of electrification and allow for training, Watts arranged for early delivery of one demonstration bus from Sonny Merryman last September. It officially joined the diesel fleet in December.

“Once they drive it that first time they love it and are always begging for it,” Watts said about the sleek bus. “And why wouldn’t they? This bus is comfortable, quiet as a mouse, and the heat and air conditioning work like a dream.”

Her company’s mantra, coined by executive chairman Floyd Merryman, is “electrification is the most exciting thing to happen to the school bus since yellow paint.”

Manassas City lauds public-private partnership

In Manassas City, Andy Hawkins was seeking a solution to the greenhouse gases his district’s 65 buses emit while transporting 7,700 students throughout a community measuring 10 square miles in the heart of Prince William County.

At first, he was skeptical when a colleague alerted him to a deal that schools in nearby Montgomery County, Md., signed with Highland in 2021. 

But the executive director of finance and operations became an enthusiast by the time he opted to sign a 15-year contract with Highland in 2022. Hawkins’ district pays only an annual lease fee of $30,000 per bus. In turn, the private company invests in the upfront costs of buying the buses and charging infrastructure, electrifying the bus depot and training drivers and mechanics. It also offers a charge-readiness guarantee.

Manassas City’s first three buses arrived in August 2023. Another three will be delivered this year and six more in 2025. After those first dozen, Hawkins anticipates a full fleet turnover within 15 years.

“It doesn’t really cost me anything,” he said, pointing out that maintaining and fueling a diesel bus costs at least $25,000 annually. “I’m the finance guy, so this deal had to make sense financially. And it did. Highland has done what it promised to do.”

Highland, active in 30 states, combines private capital with public funding. Its model mimics the power purchase agreements (PPAs) that have helped schools draw on solar energy without the burden of steep upfront costs of solar arrays.

As the largest buyer of electric school buses nationwide, Highland can eliminate overhead costs for districts and recoup that investment over time via decreasing bus prices, cheaper fuel and maintenance savings, said Matt Stanberry, Highland’s vice president of market development.

“Stack up those benefits and we can get better economics that we can pass along,” he said. “We’re trying to provide districts with at least price parity for operating their fleets, or better yet, savings.”

Highland is eligible to apply for tax credits available through the federal Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), as well an array of grants from utilities and federal, state and local sources, Stanberry said. 

Pollution-wise, Hawkins is elated that switching out those first three buses is the equivalent of removing 300 cars from the road for a year.

“It’s a healthier environment for students,” he said, adding that once-skeptical bus drivers “now complain that we don’t have enough electric buses.”

Fairfax’s outright purchase is unique 

A 2019 local mandate requiring all school buses be electric by 2035 spurred transportation leaders in sprawling Fairfax County to buy three electric buses that are scheduled to be integrated into routes this spring.

“We are fully committed to converting the fleet, but it has to be a staggered approach,” said Paul D’Andrade, the district’s assistant director of transportation services. “We’re fortunate enough to have the budget and my understanding is we’re the first district to buy electric buses outright.”

In addition to its 42 just-funded buses, the county had already acquired 28 electric buses from separate programs administered by the state Department of Environmental Quality and Dominion Energy. Each program provided money to cover the difference in price between an electric and diesel bus.

In 2019, Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam allotted more than $24 million of Virginia’s $93.6 million share of the Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Trust toward clean school buses. A subsequent DEQ-operated program helped schools statewide buy 96 buses.

Also in 2019, Dominion Energy started a pilot vehicle-to-grid program with schools in its service territory that traded 50 diesel models for electric ones. Fairfax received Dominion funding for eight buses.

That program played out when legislators — in 2020 and 2021 — rejected Dominion’s attempts to advance beyond phase one and add at least 1,000 more buses. Program costs were to be recoverable through the utility’s base rates. Opponents criticized most of Dominion’s measures to expand as monopoly overreach that would have raised customers’ bills and handcuffed public schools to the utility’s profit incentives.

“We’re looking at all avenues for funding,” D’Andrade said about Fairfax’s incremental approach. “We figure in five or six years, when we ramp up, prices will start to drop and the technology will be better.”

Advocates still pursue state e-bus funding

Climate change and students’ health and safety were driving forces for Monacella and other members of the joint environmental task force spurring Fairfax County to set a bus replacement deadline.

During that campaign, Monacella’s older daughter was in high school and her younger one was in junior high.

“Winning that was huge,” she said. “It was great to see everyone rally around it.”

Now, close to five years later, she’s eager to score another victory at the General Assembly level. That entails finding a source of money to help Virginia schools statewide offset the cost of electric buses.

In 2021, Mothers Out Front was instrumental in jumpstarting a bipartisan, ambitious and first-of-its-kind piece of legislation, House Bill 2118, that created a specific grant funding model for bus electrification over a 10-year span. However, a financing mechanism never materialized.

The bill that became law was sponsored by then-Del. Mark Keam, a Fairfax County Democrat who resigned in 2022. His original legislation was stripped of its original funding source, a tax on dyed diesel fuel, used in farm machinery and other non-highway vehicles. The substitute version directed the DEQ to hash out details for the grant fund via a workgroup.

While Monacella has had conversations with Keam’s successor, Del. Holly Seibold, also a Fairfax County Democrat, about seeking a sustainable source of dollars, she said “nothing is imminent” yet.

Virginia’s 302 electric school buses don’t even amount to 2% of the 16,000 school buses in service statewide. So Monacella has no intent of giving up. 

“Electric buses are absolutely worth putting money into,” she said. “They’re such a big bang for your buck on reducing emissions and taking care of kids’ health.”

Virginia districts roll on with electric school buses despite lack of state funding is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

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Community solar could be an important tool to lower electricity bills and bring clean energy to low-income communities. But even as federal incentives aim to lower the cost of building community solar arrays, big issues still stand in the way, advocates tell the Energy News Network.

When a community solar array is built, people in the area can sign up to receive electricity that’s often cleaner and cheaper than what they’d get from their utility. It’s ideal for residents who can’t put solar on their own roofs because of installation costs or other reasons.

Incentives introduced under the Inflation Reduction Act aim to boost community solar, with extra tax credits slated for arrays that benefit low-income people and areas. But it’s not easy to qualify a household as low-income. The process varies from state to state, but it often requires that people provide tax returns and other documentation to prove their income — something that could make customers reluctant to buy in.

Federal law does try to tackle this problem by letting LIHEAP eligibility count as a measure of eligibility for low-income community solar bonuses. The low-income heating assistance program has been around for decades, so it’s more familiar to many people. States can also designate whole areas as low-income to smooth the process.

Read more about the challenges holding up community solar, plus some solutions that are rolling out, at the Energy News Network.

More clean energy news

🚌 New school: The U.S. EPA announces nearly $1 billion in grants for schools to replace diesel buses with electric and low-emissions vehicles, with a vast majority going to schools in low-income, rural and tribal communities. (Guardian)

⚡ The grid’s big year: 2024 could be a make-or-break year for lawmakers, regulators and utilities to push through federal reforms aimed at making it quicker and easier to expand the power grid. (Canary Media)

💰 What’s stopping decarbonization: Upfront cost is the biggest barrier keeping people from making home energy upgrades like swapping out gas stoves, while lowering energy costs and environmental impact is a top motivator, a survey finds. (Canary Media)

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🔋 The sunshine neighborhood: Every residence in an 86-home Florida development comes with solar panels and a home battery, ensuring none of its homeowners pay electric bills and offering a model for sustainable building. (Washington Post)

☀️ Solar tax swap: First Solar enters two deals to sell $700 million worth of federal tax credits, a first-of-its-kind transaction that will let the U.S. solar panel manufacturer quickly bring in money from domestic production incentives it could otherwise only use to trim its tax bill. (Canary Media)

🚙 Big cars, big emissions: Several automakers’ average fuel efficiency dropped from 2017 to 2022, largely because of the growing popularity of SUVs and pickup trucks. (Washington Post)

🔌 The EV incentives list is here: The federal government published a list of electric vehicles that qualify for $7,500 and $3,750 incentives, which can now be redeemed at thousands of dealerships. (Inside Climate News)

🏗️ Gas bans meet their end: A federal appeals court reaffirms its decision to strike down Berkeley, California’s ban on gas hookups in new buildings, invalidating other local gas bans in the 9th Circuit’s territory of 11 Western states. (Grist)

🥾 Electrifying tourism: An Alaska carbon offset program uses tourists’ donations to purchase electric heat pumps for local residents. (Grist)

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The financial friction slowing low-income solar is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

👋 Hello and welcome back to Energy News Weekly!

A new year is here, and so are some big new clean energy developments, including the arrival of federal incentives that could boost the hydrogen and electric vehicle industries.

Here’s what you may have missed over the last two weeks:

🚗 Making EV incentives easier: New federal incentives for electric vehicles just took effect, allowing buyers to instantly access up to $7,500 toward a new EV and $4,000 toward a used one instead of waiting for a tax refund. At least 7,400 car dealers have signed up to offer the incentives. (Grist, The Hill)

💵 Hydrogen rules are here: The Biden administration released draft guidance for its hydrogen tax credit, which prioritize low- and zero-emission hydrogen production. Industry leaders say the rules go too far and will slow growth. (E&E News, Utility Dive)

☣️ Acknowledging coal ash dangers: A draft risk assessment published by the U.S. EPA for the first time says using coal ash as structural fill in road and other building projects can cause an elevated cancer risk from radiation, validating the concerns of residents and activists around the country. (States Newsroom, Energy News Network archives)  

🔥 A hot new normal: As 2023 becomes the hottest year on record, scientists predict its extreme temperatures will soon become normal and that 2024 will be even hotter than last year. (Axios, Washington Post)

🥇 States lead on climate: Clean electricity standards enacted in Minnesota and Michigan bookended a year of state-level climate progress that included gas hookup restrictions and new funding for clean energy manufacturing. (E&E News)

🕯️ How gas keeps its power: U.S. gas utilities serving more than 35 million customers offer builders and contractors incentives to keep fossil fuels in new buildings, part of a longstanding relationship that could impede electrification. (The Guardian)

🤝 Labor meets climate: Last year saw significant collaboration between the labor and climate movements as UPS drivers fought for extreme heat safety measures, and autoworkers demanded fair wages amid a transition to electric vehicles. (Grist)

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💸 Support our work: The Energy News Network is powered by support from readers like you. If you like Energy News Weekly, share it with a friend! Or give today and help us keep our news open and accessible for all.

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EV incentives just got easier is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.