The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) announced on August 1 that the agency has issued the first 11 contracts as part of the Texas Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Trust settlement.
Contracts are made with entities – mostly school districts – that have applied for funds from the trust and will use the money to replace aging diesel school buses, shuttle buses, or transit buses with new models. The contracts specify the funds each applicant will receive as part of the settlement, how they will use the money to achieve the goals of the VW Beneficiary Mitigation Plan for Texas, and requirements for receiving the funds.
Each contract will also include a commitment to operate new buses in one of the seven priority areas identified in the VW Beneficiary Mitigation Plan for Texas. The priority areas are areas monitoring ozone concentrations near or above the National Ambient Air Quality Standard.
The settlement is a result of litigation over emissions control defeat devices that were found to have been installed on vehicles manufactured by Volkswagen (VW) and its subsidiaries. Approximately 590,000 light-duty diesel vehicles in Texas were affected.
As part of settlement agreements, VW must pay approximately $2.9 billion into a trust to be distributed to each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Gov. Greg Abbott designated TCEQ the lead agency for the distribution of Texas’ portion of the settlement funds, which totals approximately $209 million.
These initial 11 contracts are awarded as follows:
- $5,704,160.70 to four entities in the Austin area;
- $5,945,993 to two entities in the San Antonio area;
- $1,391,480 to two school districts in the Houston area;
- $811,800 to two school districts in the Dallas/Fort Worth area; and,
- $729,073 to a school district in Bell County.
The TCEQ plans to issue up to $58.6 million in contracts to applicants who have applied for funds from the trust to repower or replace school buses, shuttle buses, or transit buses. This is the first of multiple grant rounds to spend the $209 million in settlement funds allocated to Texas.