School buses may not be top of mind when you think about solving the climate crisis, but the

EV school bus is the front line for winning the hearts and minds of a lot of

suburban communities with respect to ditching a fossil fuel vehicle.

One company says it's taking on the financial risk for school systems to electrify their bus fleets.

And it's not just for a cooler planet.

Most of these school buses today are diesel.

And the height of the tailpipe is the same height as second grader's mouth.

This is pretty dramatic when you think about the health benefits and what electric can do for these kids.

I'm Naila Boodoo and from Axios, this is one big thing. President Biden's 2021 infrastructure deal included a major push for communities to

electrify their school bus fleets. There was about a billion dollars that went into making sure that

school districts have the resources to get an EV school bus.

JL Holtzman is a climate and energy reporter for Axios.

Before that, the primary driver of people using EV school buses was actually the settlement

with Volkswagen.

I don't know if you remember this dear listener, but there was that whole cheating device scandal

where Volkswagen was found to be misleading regulators around the diesel emissions of their vehicles.

That was driving it now.

It's the infrastructure law.

The EPA has now distributed about $2 billion in clean school bus funding so far.

And advocates say there's a compelling case for why school buses are a good place for cities

and towns to put local climate dollars.

Transportation accounts for about a third of our nation's carbon emissions.

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