The Biden-Harris administration’s signature climate initiative just hit a massive roadblock.
School districts across the country are discovering what happens when woke ideology meets mechanical reality.
And school districts gave Biden one reality check about electric buses that devastated the green agenda.
Biden’s $159 million electric bus boondoggle goes up in flames
Biden’s Clean School Bus program handed Canadian company Lion Electric a whopping $159 million contract to build 435 school buses over a two-year period starting in 2022.
The massive taxpayer-funded deal made Lion Electric one of the biggest beneficiaries of Biden’s $5 billion green energy push.
Now the company is bankrupt, school districts are stuck with undelivered orders, and Lion Electric admits it can’t fix the buses already in service.
After being worth nearly $5 billion just four years ago, Lion Electric got bought out of bankruptcy court for a pathetic $6 million.
The company shut down factories, laid off workers, and broke its promises to American school districts about warranties and future deliveries.
School districts that believed Biden’s promises about reliable electric transportation are learning an expensive lesson about trusting government promises.
Districts are stuck with buses they can’t get repaired and warranties that are worthless.
School superintendents forced to abandon Biden’s electric bus experiment
Mike Leskowich, superintendent of the Homer Community School District in southern Michigan, watched his $2.8 million federal investment in seven Lion buses turn into a maintenance nightmare.
"All of our contacts from Lion that we worked so closely with to ensure the project’s success have been fired," Leskowich told the Free Beacon.
Leskowich, whose district received $2.8 million in federal funding to procure seven Lion buses in 2022, added that Homer schools have started sourcing their own parts to repair their buses.
He told the Free Beacon that it "does hurt" that the buses’ warranties are no longer valid.
"We are going to keep our electric fleet on the roads for as long as possible. Eventually, however, we will return to diesel, as the cost of the vehicle is far less than electric," Leskowich said.
Charlie Butler, superintendent of the Madison Parish School District in northern Louisiana, said the 14 Lion buses his district received are still new, but that he is struggling to find companies that can repair them.
"Some of the issues do require funding, which we are managing at this time," Butler told the Free Beacon.
Several school districts across the country have completely removed their Lion buses from service over mechanical and safety concerns.
A superintendent for a Midwest school district told industry publication Clean Trucking the district’s buses could not heat up in cold weather, lost steering and braking ability at times, had defective frames, and regularly displayed error messages that forced drivers to reset the vehicles.
"The buses do not run for more than a month before needing more repairs," Coleen Souza, assistant to the superintendent of Winthrop Public Schools in Maine, told Clean Trucking.
Jason Stabler, superintendent of the Bureau Valley School District in Manlius, Illinois, echoed Wallace’s concerns.
"The situation remains unresolved at this time, and we are currently waiting to see how it will be addressed and resolved by the court system," Stabler said.
"We have not received any buses," Dawn Wallace, superintendent of the Ohio Valley School District in Adams County, Ohio, told the Free Beacon. "At this point, we are not really hopeful that we will. We will maintain our diesel-powered fleet and, yes, continue to purchase those in the future."
Kamala Harris sold this green energy disaster to the American people
The Clean School Bus Program emerged as one of the Biden-Harris administration’s signature climate initiatives after being established by the Democrat Party’s 2021 infrastructure bill.
Then-Vice President Kamala Harris personally promoted the program in 2022 with typical Democrat Party spin.
"Who doesn’t love a yellow school bus, right?" Harris asked. "It’s part of a nostalgia, a memory of the excitement and joy of going to school to be with your favorite teacher, to be with your best friends, and to learn. The school bus takes us there."
Harris conveniently left out the part about electric buses costing more than $350,000 on average compared to around $100,000 for new diesel buses.
She also didn’t mention that school districts would need to invest in expensive high-powered charging infrastructure and new driver training.
Climate activists have advocated for school districts to transition from their diesel-powered bus fleets to electric ones to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
They cost more than $350,000 on average, whereas new diesel-powered buses typically cost around $100,000, according to environmental think tank Resources for the Future.
But the real world had other plans.
What Biden’s electric bus disaster really means
This isn’t just another government program gone wrong – it’s a perfect example of what happens when the Biden-Harris administration puts woke ideology ahead of practical solutions.
Think about it.
School districts were essentially forced to gamble with taxpayer money on unproven technology from a foreign company that couldn’t deliver.
Now kids are stuck riding broken buses or watching their districts waste even more money reverting to diesel.
The Environmental Protection Agency is "actively monitoring" Lion’s bankruptcy proceedings and "evaluating all options," but the damage is already done.
Travis Fisher from the Cato Institute called this outcome predictable.
"For anyone who thought the transition to EVs would be easy or even profitable, this is yet another example that perhaps there will be large bumps in the road," Fisher explained.
The Biden-Harris administration spent $159 million of your tax dollars to prove that reliable diesel buses work better than expensive electric ones.
School superintendents across America could have told them that for free.
But the Democrat Party was too busy virtue signaling about climate change to listen to the people who actually have to keep school buses running.
Now those same school districts are quietly returning to diesel because they care more about getting kids to school safely than appeasing environmental activists.
The green energy lobby won’t admit it, but this electric bus disaster just proved that American common sense beats woke ideology every single time.
¹ Thomas Catenacci, "Back to Gas: School Districts Revert to Diesel Because Biden’s Electric Buses Can’t Be Repaired," Washington Free Beacon, August 22, 2025.
