NEW CASTLE — The Delaware Department of Education has been awarded $809,000 through the federal Clean School Bus Program to purchase one propane and three electric buses for the Colonial School District.

The funding comes from the first $1 billion of the five-year, $5 billion nationwide program created by the bipartisan infrastructure law. The legislation was championed by Delaware’s congressional delegation and signed into law by President Joe Biden in November 2021.

The department submitted rebate applications for five school districts. It qualifies the same as a district as an applicant because the state is a funder, purchaser and title owner of almost 500 school buses. The award by the Environmental Protection Agency was generated randomly from applications around the country. Colonial was the first on the lottery list among the Delaware districts.

“Reducing transportation-related emissions is a key part of our Climate Action Plan, and we need to expand cleaner types of transportation across our state,” Gov. John Carney said. “Thank you to President Biden and our congressional delegation for supporting continued investments in cleaner transportation — an important step in our efforts to address greenhouse gas emissions.”

The Environmental Protection Agency’s rebate program incentivizes electric and propane school bus purchases, as both are cleaner than diesel engine buses; the Colonial district’s new vehicles will be the state’s first electric school buses. Currently, Delaware school bus fleets contain about 108 that use propane.

“Thanks to our historic investment in the bipartisan infrastructure law, electric school buses are soon coming to communities across our nation,” said Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del. “(This) announcement means that the Colonial School District will be able to replace dirty school buses with cleaner alternatives. Importantly, these updates are going to result in cleaner air for students to breathe, more good-paying jobs and a better future for our planet. I commend EPA administrator Michael Regan and the Biden administration for their continued commitment to deploying clean school buses, especially in disadvantaged communities.”

Added Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del.: “Investments in the historic bipartisan infrastructure law to modernize our school bus fleets will help us combat climate change and bring down fuel costs for schools, all while ensuring students in Colonial School District and every state across the country ride to class without breathing in harmful pollutants.”

The Clean School Bus Program will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address the outsized role of the transportation sector in fueling the climate crisis. It also will save districts money as they upgrade bus fleets, replacing older, heavily polluting buses with new clean vehicles, while freeing up needed resources.

“With the transportation sector representing the single largest source of carbon emissions in the United States, we know that we have a tremendous opportunity with fleet and large-capacity vehicles to help in our mission to reach net zero emissions. That’s why the EPA’s Clean School Bus Program — which I was proud to vote to create through the bipartisan infrastructure law — is such a critical tool to modernize the vehicles that bring our kids to and from school every day, while reducing our carbon footprint. I want to commend the Colonial School District for putting together a compelling plan to win this grant from the EPA, and I look forward to seeing these low- and zero-emission school buses out on the roads of Delaware,” said Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del.

The rebate program requires that the clean buses replace older buses, with the primary category for replacement being diesel buses from 2010 or earlier. Delaware has replaced older school buses with cleaner buses over the last few years, and 99% of the state-owned buses are already newer than 2010, with 76% from 2016 or later.