FREDERICKSBURG FREE LANCE-STAR, KEITH EPPS

The Fredericksburg school system has been awarded nearly $3.5 million in rebates to add 10 additional electric buses to its fleet, it was announced Thursday.

Representative Abigail Spanberger said the Environmental Protection Agency awarded the funds as part of its Clean School Bus program. The program incentivizes school systems to replace older, diesel-powered buses with new electric and environmentally friendly ones.

Culpeper County’s school system was awarded $800,000 to help purchase four new electric buses, Spanberger said in a press release. Fredericksburg and Culpeper are two of 530 school systems nationally and 18 in Virginia who are receiving the rebates, she said. To date, the program has funded about 8,500 new electric buses nationwide at more than 1,000 schools.

“These new buses will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save schools money and better protect students’ health,” Spanberger said. “Every Virginia child deserves to live in a healthy community and breathe clean air, and this investment will help us protect our environment.”

At the start of the just-completed school year, Fredericksburg school bus fleet added 10 electric buses as part of its 37-bus fleet. Ten more would mean that about half of the city’s fleet would be electric. The new buses replaced older ones, some that had no air conditioning.