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| Arctic blast fuels scrutiny of Biden's $8B electric bus push as watchdogs cite oversight failures |
| 2026-02-06 |
| [FoxNews] Federal subsidies for electric buses face scrutiny after cold weather exposes performance failures and oversight gaps, raising questions about $8 billion in spending The Arctic blast that snowed in much of the East exposed not only the need for road salt but the possibility that untold taxpayer dollars were wasted on risky electric bus subsidy programs under the Biden administration, according to critics of those initiatives. That’s the claim from Power the Future, a top energy advocacy and watchdog group that also compared the disbursement of more than $8 billion over at least two related federal subsidy programs to oversight failures by the Minnesota government involving its Medicaid and childcare entitlement crises recently exposed. E-buses have been purchased by transit agencies in part through a "Low-No" emissions grant program mainly through the Federal Transit Administration that received a $1.6 billion infusion during the Biden years. "Given the scale of this investment, there must be an examination into whether taxpayers are receiving the reliable, deployable transit assets capable of serving the communities for which they were funded," Power the Future (PTF) President Daniel Turner said. Similarly, PTF highlighted a 2024 EPA Inspector General audit that found the agency failed to meaningfully track the deployment of electric school buses under a 2022 rebate program through which $836 million was handed out by federal officials. Lee Zeldin and Democratic senator yell over EPA grants on Capitol HillVideo Only about 7% of participating school districts had completed the processes needed to put the buses into service, such as installing charging infrastructure. "When hundreds of millions of dollars are awarded without confirmation that buses are delivered, operable or in service, the absence of oversight echoes the failures that are being highlighted in Minnesota," PTF wrote. PTF said the Biden administration’s "broader record" on "green infrastructure" spending is further exposed by these and other disbursements and requires Zeldin’s immediate attention.I It cited an additional $7.5 billion spent on the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, under which fewer than 400 charging ports were built as of late. "When this failure is viewed alongside electric buses that cannot operate in cold weather, school buses that sit idle and grants producing little to no functional infrastructure, a troubling pattern emerges," PTF said. "Taken together, these outcomes raise the same red flags now familiar from the Minnesota daycare fraud scandal: large federal payouts with minimal verification, poor oversight and taxpayers left holding the bill." An EPA Inspector General statement from October regarding the school bus program said "three material weaknesses so significant that they could lead to material misstatements in the Agency’s financial statements" were found. "The EPA did not monitor bus deployment status and recipient use of over $836 million of 2022 Clean School Bus, or CSB, Program rebates, despite the Agency stating it would do so," another OIG report from 2024 said. "At a minimum, these programs warrant immediate scrutiny to determine whether incompetence alone explains the results or whether fraud and misrepresentation are also at play," PTF wrote. Related: Electric school bus 08/25/2025 School Districts Ditch Hard-to-Repair Electric Buses for Diesel Buses Electric school bus 12/30/2024 Illinois Board of Education to Use Nearly $20 Million in Federal Grants on Electric School Buses Electric school bus 07/31/2024 Kamala Harris' $5 billion green bus failure shows she can't even handle the small stuff |
| Posted by:Skidmark |
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