Advanced Energy Perspectives

When Californians send their kids to school, we want them to be safe and cared for, but the bright yellow buses we rely on every day are surprise offenders when it comes to the air students breathe. Even though students only spend a few hours each week on school buses, kids’ lungs are particularly susceptible to the asthma-causing particle pollutants that get trapped inside these vehicles, making those rides more harmful than they might appear. Fortunately, a safe alternative is available with electric school buses.

Despite contentious political circumstances in legislatures across the country, fiscally responsible legislation to support advanced energy technologies can draw bipartisan support. An example of this came in Arizona this summer, where both sides of the aisle came together to pass smart legislation that gives schools and students access to cleaner transportation. The Arizona bill also shows another way to open up opportunities for electric school buses in states of every political stripe.

With 2022 more than halfway through, AEE returns with the latest edition of its biennial top utility regulatory trends roundup. Utility regulatory commissions across the country have been off to a busy start, navigating supply chain hurdles, inflationary pressures, extreme weather events, and the accelerated adoption of clean energy technologies. With PowerSuite, AEE’s policy tracking platform, we cut through the noise to provide insights on the trends shaping utility regulation this year and in years to come.

Note: some links in this post reference PUC filings and other documents in AEE's software platform, PowerSuite. Click here and sign up for a free trial. PowerSuite – policy tracking by policy professionals.

Since the start of this year’s legislative sessions, Advanced Energy Economy has been tracking energy legislation across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Congress through its online PowerSuite platform. PowerSuite provides policy tracking by policy professionals. In the process, we have identified several trends in how states are contemplating the future of their energy, transportation, and building sectors. The bills described in this post, which range from simply introduced to fully signed into law, by no means represent every bill in the country filed this year, but are rather indicative of the attention being devoted to each topic by lawmakers. What follows represents the top 10 state energy legislative issues of 2022.

Today, 95% of school buses in the United States are powered by diesel, emitting more than 40 toxic chemicals from their exhausts each day. The 24 million children who ride these school buses are exposed to five to 15 times more air pollutants than those who do not. In order to eliminate these harmful emissions, mitigate their health impacts on school-aged children, and reduce the effect of school transportation on climate change, policymakers should take action to electrify school bus fleets. This transition would be especially beneficial in regions prone to electricity supply disruptions caused by natural disasters, because electric school buses can also provide emergency backup power in the event of a grid failure. The challenge now is how to get it done – fast.