David Wegbreit | Assistant Editor

The state’s school transportation community was in the midst of the Texas Association for Pupil Transportation’s 34th Annual Conference and Trade Show in Waco when it learned Gov. Rick Perry vetoed a well-supported anti-idling bill.

The bill would have amended the state education code to prohibit school buses form idling while parked at a school except for the “minimum time necessary to heat or cool the bus before departure,” or when accommodating special needs students.

Jim Norman, TAPT’s outgoing president, was concerned that the bill would not have met the varied needs of all of Texas’ districts.

“I think the governor did the right thing,” Norman said.

But the decision also raised some eyebrows.

“That’s a strange one,” said Paul Youngjohn, Houston ISD’s director of public safety.

Supporters of the bill noted that no one voiced any opposition to the bill in either the house or the senate. But the bill also lacked clear support from the pupil transporters as it headed into the governor’s office. While representatives from environmental groups, teachers groups and boards of education testified before the house and senate on the bill, no pupil transportation professionals were included in either testimony.
In a note accompanying the veto, the governor said any anti-idling should be “a matter of policy decided on the local level” and “educators should be focusing on more pressing priorities.” Additionally, the governor was concerned that “schools would have a difficult time enforcing this law.”

One hundred miles from the capitol at the conference in Waco, Pam McCurdy, Texas’ acting director of pupil transportation, said most were relieved by the governor’s decision.

“Most people are already idling as little as possible, and we’ve encouraged this,” McCurdy said.

Audrey Barrett, a representative from the Texas office of Public Citizen, the non-profit consumer advocacy organization that initiated the bill, said districts in “non-attainment areas,” or areas that are subject to environmental mandates because they do not meet Environmental Protection Agency standards for certain pollutants, tend to be more aware of idling. The bill would have provided an avenue to discuss these issues in other districts.

Houston ISD and Dallas ISD are both in non-attainment areas and voluntarily adopted idling policies. The Houston policy is one of the most extensive in the state and was the basis for the bill, using GPS and 14 district safety monitors to ensure that none of the 950 buses idle for more than five minutes.

“We thought it was the environmentally moral thing to do,” Youngjohn said.

Districts in non-attainment areas have an added motivation. According to Terry Penn, the former executive director of transportation at Dallas, having a policy for the 1,450-bus fleet makes it easier to get grants.

Sam Davila, transportation director for Conroe ISD outside of Houston, said his district originally adopted the policy to qualify for Toyota’s “Clean Buses for Kids” grants.
But not all districts that have adopted anti-idling programs are within these areas.

David Morris, transportation director for Ector County ISD, in the west Texas city of Odessa, adopted a five-minute rule for his 175 bus fleet to save fuel after prices shot up,

Not all districts that have policies disagree with the governor, either.

Don Davenport, transportation director for Corpus Cristi ISD in southern part of the state, is not in a non-attainment area. Still, the districtvoluntarily adopted an anti-idling policy. Davenport thinks a state-wide policy would be difficult to enforce, because Texas’ districts have such different heating and cooling needs.

“It was a pretty good decision on his part,” Davenport said.

As the conference closed, Conroe’s Davila lead a small roundtable on a pollution and idling report conducted at his school. Among other things, the report found the highest levels of particulate matter pollution occurred after 10 minutes of idling and recommended idling reduction. An EPA study released in May found restarting a bus emitted fewer pollutants than continuous idling.

“Whether or not the state has a policy, our district is going to have one,” Davila said.
In May, Gov. Jim Douglas signed a bill prohibiting unnecessary school bus idling in Vermont.