[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 93 (Tuesday, July 12, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1460-E1461]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               INTRODUCTION OF THE HEALTHY SCHOOL BUS ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ROBERT MENENDEZ

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 12, 2005

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. Speaker, today I am pleased to be joined by several 
of my colleagues in introducing the Healthy School Bus Act, which calls 
attention to a serious but overlooked health threat that our children 
face every day that they ride to school in a bus.
  Congress passed the Clean Air Act and subsequent amendments because 
we recognized the tremendous health risks of breathing polluted air. 
Children are particularly at risk because their lungs are still 
developing and

[[Page E1461]]

they breathe more air per pound of body weight than adults do. Nearly 
4.5 million American children suffer from asthma, and air pollution is 
believed to be a serious contributing factor in asthma attacks, 
bronchitis, and emergency room visits.
  One of the most insidious forms of air pollution is diesel exhaust, 
which contains over 40 potential carcinogens, as well as fine soot 
particles that can get lodged deep in the lung. The Clean Air Task 
Force recently released a report which found that fine particle 
pollution shortens the lives of nearly 21,000 people each year, and 
leads to lung cancer, heart attacks, and asthma attacks. For New 
Jersey's children alone, the report linked diesel pollution to over 540 
emergency room visits due to asthma and nearly 1,300 cases of acute 
bronchitis each year.
  Although school buses are far and away the safest way for children to 
travel to school, the diesel exhaust from school buses puts our 
children at unnecessary risk. A number of programs already exist to try 
to cut down our children's exposure to school bus exhaust, such as New 
Jersey's ``Stop the Soot'' initiative to reduce bus idling, and the 
Environmental Protection Agency's Clean School Bus campaign, which 
provides grants for school districts to purchase new, cleaner buses, or 
to retrofit old buses with pollution control equipment.
  These programs are doing an excellent job reducing the amount of 
pollution our children are exposed to while they're waiting for the bus 
or just playing outside. But some recent studies have made it clear 
that our children have more to worry about inside a school bus than 
just who to sit next to. Researchers from Yale University, the 
University of Connecticut, the University of California, and Purdue 
University have found that the concentration of air pollution inside 
school buses can in some cases be far higher than outside the bus. And 
the evidence suggests most of the pollution is coming from the bus' own 
exhaust. One study published in March of this year suggests that in 
some cases the amount of exhaust inhaled by children on a school bus is 
greater than the amount of that bus' exhaust inhaled by all other 
people in a metropolitan area.
  We know a lot about how to control emissions from the tailpipe. But 
we don't know a lot about how to control emissions inside the bus. We 
don't know how the pollution gets into the bus, and we don't know the 
best ways to stop it. That's why I'm introducing this legislation, 
which will direct EPA to do a comprehensive study of air quality inside 
school buses, and come up with the most effective strategies for 
keeping the pollution out. This bill also greatly increases the 
authorization level of EPA's Clean School Bus program, and makes sure 
that school districts can use grant money from that program to 
implement the strategies that fight in-bus pollution.
  Mr. Speaker, this bill calls attention to an overlooked aspect of our 
fight for clean air, and it is targeted at those people who are most 
vulnerable to air pollution--our children. It creates no new 
requirements on school districts or municipalities; it simply gives 
them the tools necessary to make their school buses as healthy for 
children as possible. I ask my colleagues to join in me supporting this 
legislation, because dirt in a school bus should mean mud in the 
aisles, and not soot in the air.

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