State Senator George Borrello, State Republicans, call for halt to electric school bus mandate (February 12, 2024)
Republican State Legislators are calling for a pause on the statewide implementation of the electric school bus mandate.
The electric school bus mandate, enacted in 2022, requires new school bus purchases to be zero emission by 2027 and all school buses in operation to be electric by 2035.
State Senator George Borrello said with 800 school districts in New York State and about 50,000 school buses, it will cost about $20 billion to buy the electric school buses, “Each one about triple (the cost) of what a standard school bus would run. But, on top of that, the reliability of these things are incredibly poor. On good, sunny, 70 degree day it’s a 100 mile range. But we’re seeing now, like we saw in Chicago recently with all these dead Teslas, that in cold weather, particularly in Upstate New York and rural areas, that 100 miles is not going to be achievable.”
Borrello noted that the state has allocated just $500 million in the most recent Environmental Bond Act to assist schools with the conversion costs.
He said Assemblyman Phil Palmesano and Senator Thomas O’Mara are sponsoring legislation that would require the Commissioner of Education to complete a cost-benefit analysis for each school district that takes into account the costs necessary to comply with the zero-emission school bus mandate.
Borrello added that in his proposed legislation, the mandate would be rescinded and replaced with a state-funded pilot program that would allow schools to test how these buses perform. A condition of the pilot program is that buses be sited in all three types of settings, rural, urban and suburban, so that their performance can be evaluated. At the end of one year, a report on the program would be presented to the executive and legislature.
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