[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 3253 Introduced in House (IH)]






109th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 3253

To study and improve the air quality inside school buses, and for other 
                               purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             July 12, 2005

Mr. Menendez (for himself, Mr. Owens, Mr. Grijalva, Mr. Stark, and Mr. 
  Lipinski) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
 Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committee on 
Education and the Workforce, for a period to be subsequently determined 
 by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as 
        fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To study and improve the air quality inside school buses, and for other 
                               purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Healthy School Bus Act of 2005''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds as follows:
            (1) Although air pollution is a health hazard for people of 
        all ages, children are potentially more vulnerable because 
        their lungs are still developing and they breathe 50 percent 
        more air per pound of body weight than adults.
            (2) Diesel exhaust is considered to be a probable human 
        carcinogen by the Environmental Protection Agency and the World 
        Health Organization and contains a high concentration of fine 
        particles and 40 compounds that are listed as hazardous air 
        pollutants by the California Environmental Protection Agency.
            (3) Fine particles from diesel exhaust have been implicated 
        as a potential cause of heart disease, respiratory disease, and 
        stroke.
            (4) Diesel exhaust aggravates asthma, a disease that 
        affects approximately 4.5 million American children in 
        kindergarten through twelfth grade.
            (5) Nearly 24 million children in the United States spend 
        an average of an hour and a half each day in a school bus.
            (6) Because of the protection school buses provide in the 
        event of a crash, they are the safest way for children to 
        travel to school.
            (7) The Environmental Protection Agency's Clean School Bus 
        USA program, designed to help school districts replace aging 
        bus fleets or install pollution control equipment, received 
        nearly $60 million in proposals, but could only award $10 
        million in grants.
            (8) Recent studies have indicated that the concentration of 
        diesel exhaust inside a school bus can be considerably higher 
        than in the ambient environment, and that some, if not most, of 
        that pollution may be coming from the bus itself.
            (9) Although activities designed to curtail emissions from 
        the tailpipes of school buses appear to have a positive effect 
        on the air quality inside the bus cabin, it is not clear how 
        pollution enters the cabin or what the best strategies are for 
        combating such pollution.

SEC. 3. STUDY OF AIR QUALITY INSIDE SCHOOL BUSES.

    (a) Study.--The Administrator of the Environmental Protection 
Agency shall--
            (1) conduct a study on the air quality inside school buses; 
        and
            (2) not later than 12 months after the date of the 
        enactment of this Act, submit a report to the Congress on the 
        results of such study.
    (b) Strategies.--The Administrator of the Environmental Protection 
Agency shall--
            (1) develop strategies for improving the air quality inside 
        school buses;
            (2) conduct or support research to evaluate the 
        effectiveness of such strategies; and
            (3) not later than 15 months after the date of the 
        enactment of this Act, submit a report to the Congress 
        describing such strategies and the results of such research.
    (c) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized to be 
appropriated $750,000 to carry out this section.

SEC. 4. ADDITIONAL FUNDING FOR CLEAN SCHOOL BUS USA PROGRAM.

    There is authorized to be appropriated to the Administrator of the 
Environmental Protection Agency $55,000,000 for fiscal year 2006 and 
each subsequent fiscal year to carry out activities, including 
expansion of the Clean School Bus USA program, to reduce the amount of 
air pollution emitted by school buses and to improve the air quality 
inside of school buses.

SEC. 5. SENSE OF CONGRESS.

    It is the sense of the Congress that local educational agencies and 
schools--
            (1) should assign less polluting buses to the longest 
        school bus routes; and
            (2) should adopt and implement policies to decrease school 
        bus idling.
                                 <all>