By Ray Cardello for June 4, 2024, Season 26 / Post 43

Vice President Kamala Harris has given us dozens of videos and sound bites worthy of SNL skits but not of the second-highest-ranking member of the Executive Branch. From giggle sessions to sitting with young professional actors posing as interested students as the VP talked about the marvels and mysteries of outer space, these sessions gave fodder to comedians and talking heads. Unfortunately, we do not have many digital clips of our Vice President interacting meaningfully with any other person. One of Harris’ most viewed clips was her trip to Seattle to announce funding for electric school buses to replace our diesel fleet.

I concede that an electric bus will operate on the road in a cleaner fashion than its diesel counterpart, but it offends me when the administration professes the fact less claim that electronic buses will increase test scores for student riders. There is never a discussion of what goes into generating the electricity required to charge these buses for three hours. They want you to not think about that element of the debate. I drive a school bus and am not interested in driving an electric one. It concerns me that there have been reports of incredible car fires when the EV battery ignites—the thought of 40 children on a bus with two massive rechargeable lithium batteries keeps me up at night. We are not ready to put our most precious cargo, our children, on an electric bus.

Let’s look at the numbers. There are nearly 500,000 diesel school buses in America. The cost of these buses is about $100,000, while the replacement cost of a new electric bus is $400,000. To replace the American fleet with Buses would cost the people of the United States $200,000,000,000. That is $200 billion, and it does not include the charging stations and the retraining of our techs from diesel engine experts to electric motor mechanics. We are not prepared to make this transition at this time. That is a significant issue with this administration. They do not think through the ramifications of their lousy decisions. Their plan is tantamount to putting cars on the road before the invention of tires. Their need to satisfy the Green faction of the Left is more urgent than a sound plan Americans can embrace. By the way, what will we do with 500,000 retired diesel buses? Maybe we can dig a giant crater in New Mexico and bury them. Again, we don’t have a plan.

The American people are not prepared to spend that massive amount of money on a bus program that is not suited to the various climates of our country. Here in New England, we have documentation of an entire fleet of a district’s buses sidelined in the winter because the harsh winters are not a friend of battery-operated motors. There is another major problem for the government issuing grants to facilitate this diesel to battery conversion. Some buses are owned by cities and towns, but far more are owned by private companies under contract with specific school districts. Is it legal for taxpayer dollars to fund vehicles given to private companies, or will they be forced to absorb $400,000 per bus to make their fleet conform to government regulations?

There are far more questions than answers on the yellow school bus that Kamala loves so much, but that is what we have with all of Joe Biden’s half-baked plans. I work with many bus drivers and have yet to find one excited about driving an E-bus. It’s too bad Kamala didn’t come to us to ask about Joe’s earth-saving program. We love our buses, but we also love the sound of a dependable diesel engine.