{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/king-introduces-bill-to-promote-electric-school-buses-improve-grid-stability", "King Introduces Bill to Promote Electric School Buses, Improve Grid Stability", "2022-09-30", "2022", "2022-09", "Independent", "Senate", "ME", "Angus S. King, Jr.", "K000383", "www.king.senate.gov", "angusking", "https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/table", "scraper", "BRUNSWICK, ME \u2013 U.S. Senator Angus King, a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has introduced legislation to promote electric school buses and improve electrical grid stability and reliability for Maine towns. The BIDIRECTIONAL Act would create a Department of Energy program dedicated to deploying electric school buses with \u201cbidirectional vehicle-to-grid (V2G) flow capability,\u201d or the ability to use the bus batteries to power the electrical grid when they\u2019re not in use. Electric school buses work well for vehicle-to-grid because they have large batteries, sit idle for long, predictable periods, and operate in fleets. If properly deployed, the technologies have the possibility to discount the upfront cost of an electric school bus by returning energy to a school district or town.\n\n\u201cVehicle-to-grid school buses are another common sense tool that can help to create a reliable grid, promote clean energy, and cut costs for local towns and school districts,\u201d said Senator King. \u201cThe BIDIRECTIONAL Act will assist school districts across Maine and America transition to electric buses and make sure these vehicles provide greater stability to their communities. Combined with electric bus investments in the Inflation Reduction Act, this will be an important step towards unlocking America\u2019s clean energy future. It\u2019s a simple, win-win bill and I hope it can get bipartisan support across Congress.\u201d\n\nThe BIDIRECTIONAL Act is supported by Advanced Energy Economy, Blue Bird, bp Pulse Fleet (formerly Amply), Community Organization for Resource Efficiency (CORE), EDF, Electrification Coalition, Environment America, Highland Electric, Lion Electric, La Plata Electric Association, NRECA, Nuvve, PIRG, Proterra, and Xcel Energy. For quotes from supporting organizations, CLICK HERE.\n\nThe BIDIRECTIONAL Act would:\n\nCreate a Department of Energy program dedicated to deploying electric school buses with bidirectional energy flow capability with priority given to applications that demonstrate economic viability and seek to use V2G buses in regions or applications where V2G is promising but not yet deployed.\n\nThese buses could be used for V2G, vehicle-to-building (V2B), and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) applications, which includes grid balancing, microgrid services, offsetting building energy use, and resiliency applications such as using an electric bus as a mobile power station after natural disasters.\n\nRequire DOE to provide a report on the existing V2G school bus pilot programs, and would require states\u2019 public utility commissions to consider measures to promote V2G integration.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T03:08:33Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/king-introduces-bill-to-promote-electric-school-buses-improve-grid-stability"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.411460805684328, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}