LOS ANGELES -- Community leaders throughout the Los Angeles basin sent a joint letter to the South Coast Air Quality Management District urging them to vote against SCAQMD Rule 1195, which require South Coast school districts to buy natural gas buses.

The leaders assert that the rule would force schools to divert much-needed funds from classrooms to purchase higher priced natural gas buses, when an affordable clean diesel alternative exists. Currently Green DieselT has been certified as a low-sulfur diesel technology by the California Air Resources Board, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Clean diesel is comparable on emissions and less expensive than natural gas, allowing school districts to retire older diesel buses from the road sooner, the letter points out.

One section reads: "If the ultimate goal is to clean the air and get polluting buses off the road, fuel neutral options should exist so that school districts can purchase clean buses without exhausting precious classroom dollars."

Calculations based on a $9.9 million annual cost increase of CNG buses vs. clean diesel buses, show that savings from converting to Green Diesel Technology could purchase 321,211 textbooks, or 3,983 computers, or pay the salaries of 248 teachers annually. (Cost calculations are based on estimated costs of $31 per textbook, $2,500 per computer, and $40,000 per new teacher).

According to the letter, increased cost for converting to natural gas rather than clean diesel in the first year would be nearly $14 million, and over 10 years the total cost balloons to in excess of $197 million. Therefore the number of books, computers or teachers salaries would be significantly higher than estimated based on $9.9 million increase.

The SCAQMD is scheduled to vote on Rule 1195 on April 20.

The Coalition for Books and Buses is a group of school officials, community activists, environmental, labor and business leaders united in support of fuel neutrality, and opposed to Rule 1195 unless amended, in the South Coast air management district. The coalition includes the former president of the Los Angeles Board of Education, executive director of El Centro Del Pueblo, president of the Korean Consumer Protection and Reform Council, chairman of Los Angeles Annenberg Metro Project, a board member of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, and chairman of the California Postsecondary Education Commission.