Report - Clean School Bus

There’s no warning sign on the back of diesel school buses that the black smoke coming out of the tailpipe could be hazardous to children’s health – but there should be. Diesel fumes can cause or exacerbate asthma, lung disease, and cancer, and have even been linked to premature death.

UCS’s report, School Bus Pollution Report Card 2006, assesses the pollution performance of school buses by state, gives grades for soot pollution (the most important criteria in assessing the risk to child health), then ranks efforts to clean up their bus fleets as well as the level of smog pollution. While the distribution of grades varies across the country, all states rely upon high-polluting school buses, primarily fueled by diesel, to transport children. Cleaner alternatives do exist from replacing older buses with natural gas or cleaner diesel, to cleaning up newer buses with retrofits. School districts need additional federal assistance getting cleaner buses into our communities. Click here for some personal stories from schools that took part in the most recent grant cycle of the Environmental Protection Agency’s excellent, but underfunded, Clean School Bus USA program.

STATE	SOOT POLLUTION GRADE	CLEANUP PROGRAM RANK	SMOG POLLUTION RANK
Alabama	B	Poor	Above Average
Alaska	B	Above Average	Above Average
Arizona	D	Above Average	Poor
Arkansas	D	Poor	Poor
California	C	Good	Poor
Colorado	D	Above Average	Poor
Connecticut	B	Above Average	Above Average
Delaware	B	Incomplete	Above Average
District of Columbia	B	Incomplete	Above Average
Florida	C	Poor	Average
Georgia	C	Above Average	Average
Hawaii	D	Incomplete	Poor
Idaho	C	Incomplete	Average
Illinois	C	Average	Average
Indiana	B	Average	Above Average
Iowa	C	Above Average	Above Average
Kansas	C	Incomplete	Incomplete
Kentucky	C	Poor	Average
Louisiana	D	Incomplete	Poor
Maine	B	Above Average	Above Average
Maryland	B	Poor	Above Average
Massachusetts	B	Average	Above Average
Michagan	C	Poor	Average
Minnesota	D	Average	Poor
Mississippi	C	Average	Poor
Missouri	B	Average	Above Average
Montana	D	Poor	Poor
Nebraska	D	Average	Poor
Nevada	B	Above Average	Above Average
New Hampshire	C	Poor	Average
New Jersey	B	Poor	Above Average
New Mexico	C	Poor	Average
New York	B	Above Average	Above Average
North Carolina	C	Above Average	Average
North Dakota	C	Poor	Poor
Ohio	C	Average	Average
Oklahoma	D	Incomplete	Poor
Oregon	C	Above Average	Average
Pennsylvania	B	Average	Above Average
Rhode Island	C	Average	Average
South Carolina	D	Above Average	Poor
South Dakota	D	Incomplete	Poor
Tennessee	B	Average	Above Average
Texas	C	Above Average	Average
Utah	D	Poor	Poor
Vermont	C	Incomplete	Average
Virginia	C	Average	Average
Washington	D	Good	Poor
West Virginia	C	Poor	Average
Wisconsin	C	Average	Average
Wyoming	B	Incomplete	Above Average