Little money to clean up polluting school buses

Clean bus advocates hail California as the leader on the issue. Voters there approved $200 million last year to clean up its school bus fleet.

“There were studies done about the health risks for children riding in diesel-powered buses,” said Patricia Rey, a spokeswoman for the California Air Resources Board. “The governor and Legislature found it to be a priority. And Californians agreed with that.”

But in Pennsylvania, Louisiana and elsewhere, state money to help schools retrofit buses has been nonexistent.

Congress passed the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act, a bipartisan initiative that authorized $1 billion to help states clean up diesel fleets. But states have seen none of that money. The Bush administration proposed modest funding for DERA in its last two budget requests, but Congress has not acted.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, is continuing to push for funding. The Democratic presidential hopeful has accused his colleagues of “foot-dragging.”

The Clean Air Task Force in Boston put electronic monitors in students’ backpacks to test air quality inside school buses. The organization said it found that the diesel exhaust levels were on average five times greater than they were outside.

Experts say children are particularly vulnerable because soot particles can disrupt development of their respiratory systems. Also, children breathe more quickly than adults and take in more air per pound.

EPA spokesman Dave Ryan said the agency has no independent measurements of diesel soot inside school buses, and he would not comment on the other studies. But the EPA acknowledges diesel emissions can be hazardous to children.

Not everyone is convinced that the air in school buses is a threat.

Texas state Rep. Warren Chisum, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said it doesn’t make sense to spend huge sums on a cleanup, because the “science is not very good.”

But Larry Soward, commissioner of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said the dirtiest diesel buses are likely to last another 20 years or more, and “I, for one, don’t think we can wait two decades.”

“It’s going to cost money,” Soward said, “but the health of our children demands that we commit the funds.”

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