“Pump the brakes, slow it down, stop ignoring the STOP signs!!”
A weekly COLUMN by NY State Senator Tom O’Mara,
Now that Governor Hochul and Albany’s Green New Deal Democrats appear ready to finally rethink their strategy of imposing far-reaching energy mandates on all New Yorkers – a strategy that up to now has recklessly ignored affordability, feasibility, and reliability — it will be important for the rest of us to keep highlighting exactly what needs to go back to the drawing board in the months ahead.
Right near the top of any list, in my view, is a mandate we have repeatedly spotlighted that, if left in place in its current form, could prove to be the most costly unfunded state mandate ever imposed on New York’s local school districts and school property taxpayers – which is truly alarming in a state already recognized as one of the most heavily mandated in the nation.
Specifically, in 2022, Albany Democrats enacted a new law mandating that, starting in 2027, all school buses purchased in this state will have to be electric. Over the past few years, our Senate and Assembly Republican conferences have joined school district representatives and others to warn, repeatedly, about the consequences of that action and what the fallout would be, which, in a word, can only be called dire.
As Governor Hochul and her energy czars begin readying the release of an updated draft energy plan later this summer – one that many of us believe must recognize the alarming shortcomings of the current strategy — it’s worth repeating and renewing our call to reject the current timeline for implementing this specific mandate on schools.
Key reminders are in order:
- It will be enormously expensive. Electric buses cost up to three times as much as conventional diesel buses. Additionally, schools will be required to undertake significant electrical infrastructure and distribution line upgrades, as well as address major workforce transitions. The cost of the conversion has been conservatively estimated at between $8 billion and $15.25 billion more than the cost of replacing them with new diesel buses.
- It’s simply unworkable right now. The existing electric grid can’t support it. Electric vehicles are showing an inability to operate or charge in frigid temperatures, and it does get cold in New York. Designed to operate best in 70-degree temperatures, electric vehicles lose up to 40 percent of their traveling range in extreme cold and the time required to charge them is much longer. A pilot program in Vermont found traveling range decreased by 80 percent in some instances and oh, by the way, running the heater on the bus will reduce that poor performance even more.
- It will have yet another, enormously costly impact on the upkeep and maintenance of local roads. A diesel school bus weighs about 10 tons per axle while an electric school bus carries about 14 tons on its front axle and 25 tons on its rear axle. We have seen estimates, for example, that a town’s cost for pavement maintenance would increase from a range of $20,000 to $50,000 per mile to about $550,000 per mile for reconstruction. New York’s towns could see at least a ten-fold increase in the cost of maintaining their roads from this mandate.
In short, it seems reasonable and fair to reassess and reexamine the current timeline and its potential impact on school districts, students and families, and local communities. While the current state budget did include a provision that would allow the state education department to authorize limited exemptions from the current timeline, it doesn’t go far enough to afford the broader protections necessary. We need to do more.
For example, I have already joined Assemblyman Phil Palmesano to introduce and sponsor legislation (S8220/A8447) that, among other provisions, would delay the mandate’s implementation until at least 2045 and require additional cost-benefit and safety analyses before it can take effect.
Our Western New York colleague, Senator George Borrello, has also introduced similar legislation (S8467) to rescind the mandate and replace it with a state-funded pilot program that would allow schools to test how these buses perform in a range of transportation responsibilities.
One of the school superintendents who has joined us over the past few years to help sound the alarm, Dr. Thomas J. Douglas, Superintendent of Horseheads Central School District in my legislative district, has summed it up very effectively, “The total cost will ultimately be borne by the local tax base since this is really an unfunded mandate. The sad fact is that there is no guarantee that this technology will work predictably in Northeastern winters. All the governor, NYSERDA, and PSC need do is look to the Midwest this past winter to see electric vehicles and chargers not being able to run in frigid temperatures. We cannot risk that with our children. Put simply, the state must pump the brakes on electric busing.”
The current timeline for implementing New York State’s all-electric school bus mandate raises far too many troubling questions on affordability, as well as on reliability and safety for student transportation.
Pump the brakes. Slow it down. Stop ignoring the STOP signs. Bring it in for a complete overhaul. Take your pick. Anything will be better than allowing this electric school bus mandate to keep moving forward as it stands right now.
