The Environmental Protection Agency has picked school districts in the Great Lakes region as the first to receive its so-called “Clean School Bus” grants this year. The money will be used to help diesel-fueled school buses pollute less. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland has more:
Transcript
The Environmental Protection Agency has picked school districts
in the Great Lakes region as the first to receive its so-called
“Clean School Bus” grants this year. The money will be used to
help diesel-fueled school buses pollute less. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Michael Leland has more:
(sound of bus accelerating)
When a diesel school bus accelerates, it often leaves behind a black puff of
smoke. Health experts say that pollution can cause or aggravate respiratory
problems in young children. The EPA has given a couple of Michigan school
districts money to install devices on 160 buses, to reduce carbon monoxide and
small particle emissions. EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt says the government
wants to retrofit or replace all of the country’s 400,000 diesel school
buses by 2010. The agency is also working to develop cleaner-burning fuel
for all diesel vehicles.
“That black puff of diesel smoke that we’ve been accustomed to seeing
coming out of the tailpipe of not just school buses but big trucks and
construction equipment is going to be a thing of the past.”
The Union of Concerned Scientists says the government will have to spend billions
of dollars to meet its goal. Congress has allocated five million dollars for this
fiscal year’s round of grants.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Michael Leland.