Don's Tuesday Column

THE WAY I SEE IT by Don Polson         Red Bluff Daily News 5/20/2025

    Wheels on the bus go ‘round and ‘round

It’s a cute, cherished children's sing-along about the primary vehicle going to and from school—the school bus. It’s safe to say everyone can recall a memory of climbing the yellow school bus steps, finding a seat, hopefully near a friend, avoiding whatever occasional unpleasantness arose, and alighting at school for the short journey to class.

The sing-song lyrics go on to mention the wipers, the signals, the horn, the people, the babies, the mommies, and the daddies—going “all through the town.” However, the only other bus-related verse is: “The motor on the bus goes vroom, vroom, vroom...all through the town.” Without that motor, none of the other items in the song will work, will they?

An April 24 Daily News article on the Sacramento beat, “CA expands its electric school bus fleet,” contains tip-offs to the futility of trying to replace the century-long, marvelously reliable diesel school bus fleets with battery-powered busses.

For the math-challenged, two monetary quotes suggest the budgetary lunacy: “California is spending $500 million to put an additional 1,000 electric school buses on the road as federal cuts and freezes paused efforts in other states to replace aging diesel-fueled fleets that are more polluting.” and “California has the largest fleet of electric school buses in the country after pumping more than $1.3 billion into such efforts and funding more than 2,300 of the buses.”

Both of those quoted figures break down to around $500,000 per bus; I’ve seen other numbers that approach $700,000 to $800,000 per bus, which may include charging infrastructure. A quick Google search confirmed that diesel school busses typically cost between $125,000 and $160,000.

So, for the price of one EV school bus, you could by at least three, maybe even five, diesel school busses. It’s nothing short of ludicrous to try to switch from diesel busses, whose replacement can be factored into local education budgets, to EV busses that cannot possibly be afforded by school districts without heavy subsidies from Sacramento politicians.

It mirrors the fallacy of trying to force consumers into EV passenger cars, which is only possible with thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars of subsidies, tax credits, etc. Even then, EV manufacturers lose up to tens of thousands of dollars per vehicle.

It’s no surprise that “GM Is Pushing Hard to Tank California’s EV Mandate—Senate to vote as early as next week on measure to revoke the state’s emissions waiver” (WSJ.com, pay-walled). “General Motors went all in on electric cars. Now it is racing to reverse the nation’s most aggressive EV mandate.”

“We need your help!” GM said in an email it sent this past week to thousands of its white-collar employees. “Emissions standards that are not aligned with market realities [meaning: everyone who wants one has already bought it] pose a serious threat to our business by undermining consumer choice and vehicle affordability.” (DP: I’ll admit that if I won the lottery, I’d buy a Tesla just to thumb my nose at the Musk-deranged crowd.)

Did you catch the little half-truth slipped in: “...diesel fleets that are more polluting”? 1) Children’s bus cabins don’t allow diesel exhaust into their air; 2) Current busses, like gasoline-engine cars, have the least tail-pipe pollution in history; 3) The environmental damage from EV cars and busses extends from the horrific mining conditions for lithium and other trace elements, to the impossibility of recycling the massive batteries, to the greatly increased particulate matter from excessive tire wear from the increased weight of the vehicles;

4) EVs’ reduced “tail pipe” emissions are canceled out by the reliance (in many cases) on coal-fired power plants. The “net zero,” climate cultists will rail about the non-polutant CO2, which, for busses and cars, is practically irrelevant in the world’s giga-tons of naturally-produced CO2.

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Another example of the upside down, anti-property-owner mentality of Democrats down south: “California quashes bill to more easily remove squatters, trespassers—Supporters said bill would have made it easier for property owners to remove individuals who don’t have leases without having to go through lengthy court battles (Justthenews.com, 4/26).

Like the blind squirrel finding an acorn, Gov. Newsom found a message—“Newsom calls on California cities to ban homeless encampments”—that he must think will help his future political goals. Anybody buying his supposed “conversion” to common sense? No, me neither.

If that were the case, Newsom would not have weaseled his way to continue providing free healthcare coverage to illegal aliens, while calling for $100 monthly premiums and wanting to block all new adult applications as of Jan. 1 (5/14, LATimes.com). No dent in Newsom’s $12 billion deficit budget proposal.

A popular former LA County Sheriff, Alex Villanueva, has ditched the party of “paid protests, Purple Hair, and Pronouns” for common sense—meaning he’s switched parties to be a Republican.

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Republican Red, White, and Blue Dinner tix are at https://givebutter.com/TehamaGOP for the June 7 event. Details at the web site. Phone: 530-949-2761.