SALT LAKE CITY — A $60 million secured by the Utah Division of Air Quality will be used to fund the purchase of 171 zero-emission vehicles, 120 of which will be school buses with the goal of reducing pollution and helping clear the state's air, especially during the winter inversions.
“We know that some of this funding for clean energy solutions will potentially go away with the next administration, and so huge thanks to our state leaders for making sure that this funding was secured for our local communities while we still have it,” said Rebekah Ashley with the Sierra Club.
The grant comes from the Clean Heavy-Duty Vehicles Program established through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. It will distribute a total of $1 billion over the next eight years to more than two dozen states and tribal communities, in efforts to replace fossil fuel, as well as heavy-duty vehicles like garbage trucks and school buses.
Ashley calls it a huge win for Utah.
“There’s about 30 electric buses that are either on the roads or they’ve been funded through the federal dollars," she said. "So to go from 30 up to 150 with this new award, it’s a huge, huge milestone!”
Utah students played a big role in advocating for the grant, according to Ashley, and their work has been long and hard but they refused to give up.
“I think the times when we thought, maybe we should think about other campaigns, other advocacy work, the students have been really committed to this work and said no, let’s keep doing this work in our schools,” she explained.
The new zero-emission school buses and other heavy vehicles should be hitting Utah roads sometime next year.
