Schools Fight Proposal for Low-Emission School Buses

Orange County school officials are fighting a proposal that would require them to buy buses that use alternative fuels, arguing that millions of dollars would be diverted from classrooms to pay for the more expensive vehicles.

The regulation proposed by the South Coast Air Quality Management District would require the cleaner-fuel buses in Orange County and three adjoining counties. The districts would be required to buy the buses when their diesel school buses are replaced.

But the South Coast Clean Air Partnership, a Santa Monica-based coalition of transit and school districts, says the proposed regulation will only hurt schools, despite assurances that districts will not have to buy the buses unless funding is provided.

“The hidden, untold truth is that their idea of ‘funding’ is totally inadequate,” said Scott Macdonald, spokesman for the coalition, which held a press conference Thursday in Santa Ana.

He and other local school district representatives delivered a letter Thursday to the office of Orange County Supervisor Jim Silva, the county’s representative on the AQMD board of directors, urging him to oppose the proposed rule. Silva was on vacation Thursday.

The AQMD, which covers Orange, Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties, will consider the new regulation at its April 20 meeting.

In its letter, the coalition asserts that the AQMD’s proposed regulation would force school districts into an expensive changeover to buses that use compressed natural gas.

Among those listed in the letter as opposing the regulation are the Orange County Department of Education, the Assn. of California School Administrators, the California Assn. of School Transportation Officials, Fullerton School District, Huntington Beach City School District and Newport-Mesa Unified School District.

The coalition is calling on the AQMD to follow the example of the California Air Resources Board, which allows schools to choose between compressed natural gas and new, cleaner diesel technology. The two fuels provide comparable emissions benefits, the coalition says.

But AQMD spokesman Sam Atwood said that lower-emission diesel buses “are still not as clean as natural gas buses, and that’s why we’re proceeding with this rule.”

Atwood said the coalition’s charge that millions of dollars will be drained from classrooms is a misrepresentation.

“We’ve designed the rule with pains that not one dollar is taken away from the classroom,” he said.