School officials in northwestern St. Louis County, Missouri, threw a party earlier this month to celebrate the delivery of three new electric school buses.
Funding for the buses was made possible by the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, and their arrival at the Ritenour School District was met with confetti — and the expectation of something more. Another 21 electric buses were supposed to join the district fleet within a few weeks.
But those hopes have been put on hold.
When Ritenour school officials went to pay for the remaining 21 buses, they couldn’t access the EPA’s grant system, because the Trump administration has frozen payments for the bus program. The remaining buses are still sitting at a supplier’s lot, across the state line in Illinois.
