Board Backs Phaseout of Diesel School Buses

The Los Angeles Board of Education endorsed a proposed mandate Tuesday that would phase diesel engines out of school bus fleets, citing recent findings that schoolchildren breathe dirtier air on buses than on streets.

With its vote, the school board overseeing the area’s largest fleet signaled that it will comply willingly if the managers of the region’s air quality approve the rule next month.

“Since it is not going to cost us any more and it is not going to take any resources out of the classroom, we need to go with the cleanest form of technology that we can,” said school board member Valerie Fields, who introduced the motion at Tuesday’s meeting at Riverside Elementary School.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District will take up the latest in a series of rules to reduce vehicle emissions at its April 20 meeting. Already, the air quality board has required fleet operators of transit buses, trash trucks, taxis and other vehicles to shift from diesel to models powered by natural gas and other alternative fuels.

The proposed rule would require the same of school buses, but only if school districts can pay for the shift to the more expensive coaches. Buses powered by natural gas generally cost $30,000 more than buses powered by diesel, AQMD officials said.

About $16 million is currently available for the purchase of new, lower-emission school buses, the equipment to maintain them and the conversion of diesel buses, said Sam Atwood, spokesman for the AQMD. Gov. Gray Davis has frozen an additional $16.6 million in state funds while California struggles with its energy crisis, Atwood said.

Of California’s 24,000 school buses, about 70% are powered by diesel and release 13 tons of cancer-causing soot into the air statewide each day. A recent study of four of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s 2,600 buses found that air inside the coaches contained 8 1/2 times more diesel exhaust than the smoggy air outside.

For a resolution that has no effect on LAUSD bus fleets unless the air-quality board passes its rule, there was an unusually high turnout of speakers at the school board meeting. Supporters and critics alike were aware of the sway that the state’s largest school district could have with air-quality managers.

Fields and board member Julie Korenstein, who are both seeking reelection next month, along with Genethia Hayes and Victoria Castro co-sponsored the motion to support the proposed rule. Board members David Tokofsky and Caprice Young also voted for the motion. Mike Lansing abstained, concerned that money promised to help school districts pay for the cleaner buses will run out.

Real estate developer Matthew Rodman and businesswoman Marlene Canter, who are running against Fields, and Tom Riley, who is facing Korenstein, said they were inclined to support the rule.