Caterpillar Inc has announced support for a major initiative by the United States Environmental Protection Agency to reduce emissions from school buses across the United States. The EPA's Clean School Bus USA initiative will seek federal funding and industry technology support to retrofit existing school bus engines with new emission reduction technology.
The EPA unveiled the Clean School Bus USA initiative at events April 7 in Philadelphia PA and Washington DC attended by EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and industry leaders, including Caterpillar Vice-President Sherril West. The EPA program will help school districts and school bus fleet operators either replace older buses with newer models or install low-emission control devices on existing buses.
Caterpillar recently won an agreement to supply the majority of new engines to Blue Bird Corp, a supplier of school buses in North America. In addition, Caterpillar is the largest engine supplier to Thomas Built, a subsidiary of DaimlerChrysler's Freightliner Division.
Caterpillar recently formed the Emissions Retrofit Solutions Group to provide emissions reduction options for machines, trucks, and buses used in both on- and off-road applications. The company is already involved in several school bus retrofit programs around the nation. Most recently, Caterpillar won a contract to supply the Boston Public School District with technology that will reduce diesel particulate emissions on school buses by more than 90%.
The company says it has reduced on-highway diesel emissions in trucks and buses by nearly 90% since 1988 and will reduce those emissions another 90% by 2007. It recently launched a new line of engines equipped with low-emission ACERT technology that will power school and transit buses and on-highway trucks.