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The Iowa Department of Transportation is awarding 4.6 million dollars to help transit fleets replace buses. The money comes from Volkswagen as part of its settlement for 2015 Clean Air Act violations.
The largest amount of money will partially fund 107 new school buses across the state. Half of these buses will use a propane engine.
Zac Bitting (BIT-ting rhymes with hitting) is the DOT’s grant manager and says propane fuel generates less pollution than diesel.
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Which is the main component of this Volkswagen settlement program is to try to reduce the amount of vehicle and engines that are currently out on the road and to replace them with engines and vehicles that will reduce the nitrogen oxide.
School districts will receive their money this year and they have two years to spend it.
This is the first of three grant cycles. The next one in 2020 will focus on electric vehicles.
Iowa's court system has blocked public access to online records detailing Gov. Kim Reynolds' 2000 drunk driving arrest, saying they inadvertently exposed her sensitive personal information for nine months.
The records contained the governor's Social Security number, driver's license number and other information that should not have been made public under court rules. After an inquiry from The Associated Press last week, the court system removed public access to the files after determining that they should not have been accessible online even though had been since last September.
