At a Gla 24-P-0012 December 27, 2023 The EPA Clean School Bus Program Could Be Impacted by Utility Delays Why We Did This Audit To accomplish this objective: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General conducted this audit to determine whether potential supply chain or production delays could impact the EPA's efforts to disburse and manage Clean School Bus Program funds pursuant to section 71101 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act amended the Clean School Bus Program established by section 741 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. It provides $5 billion over five years, or through 2026, for the replacement of existing school buses with clean and zero-emission school buses. The 2022 Clean School Bus rebate was the first funding opportunity for the program. What We Found We concluded that there were no significant supply chain issues or production delays that impacted the EPA's efforts to disburse funds through the first round of the Clean School Bus Program's funding. However, the Agency may be unable to effectively manage and achieve the program mission unless local utility companies can meet increasing power supply demands for electric school buses. The EPA provided utility resources during the rebate application process but did not require applicants to contact their utility provider to coordinate potential changes needed to connect charging stations to utilities. While early coordination with utilities is not a requirement, it could prevent the Agency from achieving its objective to remove older diesel buses and replace them with clean buses. The increased demand on utility companies may impact the timeliness of replacing diesel buses. While utility infrastructure is not funded through the program, we found that there could be delays in utilities constructing the needed charging stations to make the buses fully operational in a timely manner. The EPA needs to ensure that utilities have constructed and connected charging stations in a timely manner so that school districts' school bus fleets, purchased through the EPA's 2022 Clean School Bus Rebate Program, are functional. Utility installation delays must be addressed for taxpayers to reap timely health and environmental benefits of the $5 billion invested in this program through the IIJA. We did not make any recommendations in this report. Increased power supply demands could delay electric school bus deployment. To support these EPA mission- related efforts: • Improving air quality. • Operating efficiently and effectively. To address this top EPA management challenge: • Managing grants, contracts, and data systems. Address inquiries to our public affairs office at (202) 566-2391 or OIG.PublicAffairs@epa.gov. List of OIG reports. ------- |