NRDC: No Breathing in the Aisles: Diesel Exhaust Inside School ...

APPENDIX H
Sample School Board Resolution in Support of an Alternative Fuel
School Bus Policy
WHEREAS diesel exhaust has been identified by a growing number of health authorities,
including the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the state of
California, as a pollutant known or likely to cause cancer, and over 40 individual chemical
components of diesel exhaust separately have been identified by the EPA as compounds that
cause cancer or reproductive harm;
WHEREAS the state of California concluded that more than 70 percent of the risk of cancer
from air pollution comes from diesel exhaust alone, and the State and Territorial Air Pollution
Program Administrators and the Association of Local Air Pollution Control Officials—two
national public health organizations—estimate that diesel exhaust is responsible for 125,000
cancers nationwide;
WHEREAS diesel exhaust is also known to be a major source of fine particles, which
aggravate heart and respiratory problems, increase the risk for asthma attacks and cause
premature death, and of oxides of nitrogen (NOx), which combine with hydrocarbons to form
smog and have been connected to decreased lung function growth in children;
WHEREAS children are known to be among those most susceptible to the negative health
effects of diesel exhaust exposure because, among other things, a child’s developing body is
less capable of defending itself against pollutants such as diesel particulate; children typically
breathe at twice the rate of an adult, thereby receiving and retaining greater doses of pollution,
and children tend to breath through their mouths, thereby bypassing the natural filtering
protections of the nose;
WHEREAS cleaner alternatives to new diesel school buses exist that are widely available,
have been proven to be durable, and emit less NOx, particulate matter and air toxics than a
new diesel school bus.
BE IT RESOLVED THAT:
We hereby adopt a policy to purchase, lease, or contract only school buses that run on cleaner,
alternative fuels, such as natural gas, instead of on diesel fuel.
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