A Democratic state lawmaker introduced a bill late Friday that would delay California’s zero-emission school bus purchasing mandate by a decade.
What it would do: AB 1111, from freshman Central Valley Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria, would push back the state’s 2035 ban on fossil fuel school bus purchases to 2045. The proposal would also allow rural educational agencies to apply to the California Air Resources Board for five-year extensions due to feasibility concerns related to terrain and route constraints, rather than the annual extensions currently included in state law.
The bill would also allow school districts to transfer buses that are less than 25 years old to other educational agencies after replacing them with zero-emission models rather than having to scrap them.
“As someone who represents rural school districts throughout the Central Valley, these timelines are simply not practical,” Soria said in a statement. “These rural districts don’t have the resources, capacity, or infrastructure to meet these state-mandated requirements.”
