Arizona advocates call on Ducey to upgrade state’s school buses
Arizona advocates are calling on Gov. Doug Ducey to use state money from a March settlement involving Volkswagen to replace the state's diesel school buses.
(AP Photo/Seth Perlman, File)
(AP Photo/Seth Perlman, File)
PHOENIX — Arizona advocates are calling on Gov. Doug Ducey to use money from a March settlement involving Volkswagen to replace the state’s diesel school buses.
The League of Conservation Voters held a rally on Thursday to ask the governor to use $57 million — Arizona’s share of the Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Trust — to replace the state’s diesel-powered buses.
The rally was part of the group’s Clean Buses for Healthy Niños campaign, which launched in April.
(Photo by Corbin Carson/KTAR News)
Arizona was given $57 million to put toward clean air initiatives after Volkswagen pleaded guilty to three criminal counts for its vehicles that cheated federal emissions tests.
The company was forced to pay out nearly $15 billion total.
Rep. Raul Grijalva, who was at Thursday’s rally, also called on Ducey to do the right thing. “This $57 million that’s coming to the state is as a consequence of cheating. So let’s use that money correctly.”
John B. Gomez, president of the Cartwright School District, said replacing the school buses will help schoolchildren with asthma and other health issues.
Advocates for clear-air buses argue that diesel buses expose children to dirty air and cancer-causing pollutants, but the electric ones have zero emissions.
Gomez said Maryvale has the largest concentration of respiratory issues and many children in the area can’t afford or don’t have access to proper medication for their asthma.
“Community leaders are working together to try to get those funds to purchase the clean-air buses, or to modify those buses to ensure that they are non-pollutant,” Gomez said.
Related
Contractor to lay off multiple workers at Chandler Intel facility
15 people unaccounted for after flash flooding at Grand Canyon
Closure of northbound SR 51 extended for pavement improvement project
Man dead after chain reaction crash involving 3 vehicles in west Phoenix
Child dies after rollover golf cart crash near Anthem
Flood watch in effect as storms, rain expected to hit Valley
Comments
11 Comments
The best bet for improving Arizona air quality for everyone -- school kids and others is to target the oldest and largest sources of NOx emissions in the state with the VW settlement dollars.
School buses operate only a tiny fraction of the annual mileage of commercial vehicles, and as a category have the lowest emissions already!
The settlement dollars will benefit far more students and districts if Arizona replaces pre-2010 school buses with the latest clean diesel models that are near zero emissions. That means more school districts will get more new clean buses.
Electric buses - if even available in configurations like current buses - will cost 4 to 5 times more than a single new diesel bus, and may not be able to deliver the same amount of service and range as a diesel bus.
Investing in electric buses might make for a good press conference but ultimately spending the dollars that way will have a negligible impact on Arizona air quality and benefit far fewer districts and students.
"Our kids might be dumb as rocks, but by golly--they'll be asthma free!"
GED Guru
Science denier Ducey would prefer to use the money to promote the teaching of religious creationism if he could find a way to do that.