AUSTIN, Texas — Friendswood Independent School District has received grants from the Texas Railroad Commission and Houston-Galveston Area Council for 12 propane-powered school buses.
The propane units will replace 12 diesel buses, and the grants include an on-site propane refueling station.
Railroad Commission Chairman Elizabeth Ames Jones said that the refueling station will enable the district to save 50 cents per gallon on propane through the federal alternative motor fuel tax credit.
"These grants will reduce smog-forming emissions of nitrogen oxides from Friendswood's buses by 16 tons," Railroad Commissioner David Porter added. "Black exhaust is history with these new ultra-low emission propane buses. They reduce exhaust soot — 'particulate emissions' — by 99 percent."
Funds for the Railroad Commission's vehicle and fueling station grants come from the U.S. Department of Energy under a Clean Cities stimulus grant and from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality through the Texas Emissions Reduction Plan.
Friendswood Independent School District's new propane school buses join nearly 1,700 other propane school buses on the road in Texas today, officials said.