What's New List Serve Post Display

Please consider the following ARB press release announcing the
strategy to disburse $200 million for Cleaner School Buses.  You
can as well read the release online here:
http://www.arb.ca.gov/newsrel/nr032708.htm .
Thank You
Dimitri Stanich
ARB/PIO


_________________________________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 27, 2008
	  	  	
Patricia Rey
916-322-2990
www.arb.ca.gov

ARB approves $200 million for Cleaner School Buses from
Proposition 1B Funding

Program will reduce exposure of children to pollution from high
emitting buses

SACRAMENTO - The Air Resources Board approved today the
allocation of nearly $200 million to replace the remaining 74
oldest school buses still circulating in California, and to
replace or retrofit an additional 4,500 high polluting buses
serving public schools.

Proposition 1B, approved by voters in 2006, provides funding for
the ARB Lower-Emission School Bus Program. These monies will
allow school districts to replace or retrofit diesel school
buses in another effort to reduce diesel particulate matter
emissions in California. Since established in 2000, the program
has provided over $100 million to replace 600 school buses and
retrofit another 3,800 vehicles.

"I can't even begin to describe the significant health benefits
that this program will bring into California and particularly
for our most precious sector of the population, our children,"
said ARB Chairman Mary D. Nichols. "The additional funding
originated by Proposition 1B will be well put to work by
providing safe and clean transportation to public schools
throughout the state, creating a much healthier environment for
everyone."

As approved by ARB, this year's allocation of nearly $200
million will be distributed among the local air districts as
follows:

Local Air Basin 	Allocation* (in millions)
South Coast 	$70
Ventura 	$5
San Diego 	$5.6
Monterey 	$7
Bay Area 	$8.4
Sacramento 	$9
San Joaquin Valley 	$39
Other air districts 	$47
* Allocations have been rounded. Program administration and
outreach costs are not included.

The Lower-Emission School Bus Program will cover the cost to
replace all 74 still-in-service pre-1977 buses and approximately
one thousand 1977-1986 buses. Those replaced buses must be
scrapped to comply with established guidelines. Finally, the
full cost of about 3,500 retrofits will be paid under this
program. Retrofits provide the greatest health benefit in
emission reductions per dollar spent.

A 2003 study sponsored by the ARB confirmed that children can be
exposed to harmful diesel emissions from the buses they ride to
and from school. The same study also stated that exposure to
that pollution is worse in pre-1987 vehicles, which have
deteriorating engines as well as interior cabins that allow
toxic emissions into the bus.

The goal of the program is to reduce the exposure of school
children to both cancer-causing and smog-forming pollution by
reducing diesel particulate matter emissions from school buses.
With the replacement and retrofitting of the vehicles funded by
the Lower-Emission School Bus Program, the reductions estimated
through 2020 are 3,000 tons of oxides of nitrogen, 200 tons of
diesel particulate matter and 22,000 tons of carbon dioxide.

For more information on the ARB Lower-Emission School Bus
Program, please visit
http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/schoolbus/schoolbus.htm.

The Air Resources Board is a department of the California
Environmental Protection Agency. ARB's mission is to promote and
protect public health, welfare, and ecological resources through
effective reduction of air pollutants while recognizing and
considering effects on the economy. The ARB oversees all air
pollution control efforts in California to attain and maintain
health based air quality standards.

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