Texas PTA Partners With Government for Cleaner School Buses
by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY 
on 08.12.08
With those lazy days of summer soon to be gone and the promise of school days on the horizon, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the Texas Parent Teacher Association have teamed up to distribute funding to clean the air and protect school children from harmful particulate matter by retrofitting school buses.
The funding comes from a portion of penalties assessed by the commission that is used to support Supplemental Environmental Projects and it turns out the amount of funding the PTA can receive is up to a maximum of $5 million per year, though the number of locations and projects may vary.
Retrofitting School Buses Leads to Large Cuts in Particulate Emissions Accordingly, the Texas school districts can install pollution control devices on diesel school buses. No small improvement considering that many of the buses currently expected to be in use for years are build prior to 2007, when new models cut particulate emissions by 90% or even greater.
But to my mind the best part of this collaboration is just that; the collaboration itself. Using the PTA as the administrative body to decide where the money can be best utilized, and ensuring that parents become a part of the process.
Perhaps this could serve as a model for other government collaborations with the PTA in the future to ensure best environmental practices are implemented in a sustainable fashion?
Via: ENS
More on School Buses
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Congress Drags Feet While Kids Breathe Polluted Air on School Bus
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school buses and green school school buildings strike me as the biggest no brainers in terms of where we should be cleaning up our environmental acts. aside form the fact that -- duh -- we should be valuing our children's health above probably all else, most of the green measures being discussed are in the end cost-saving, too. we must stop looking at up-front costs and instead think of the life-cycle costs of all that we do, including, but not limited to, looking at the cost of retrofitting school buses, but also considering the healthcare costs of particulate-filled air, which affects not just kids, but entire communities. if human beings insist on worshipping the dollar above all else, the least we can do is look the true monetary cost of things over time.