Established by Democrats’ 2021 infrastructure bill, the Clean School Bus Program emerged as one of the Biden administration’s signature climate initiatives. It was a complete failure.
The Wheels Came Off
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 that the district’s buses could not heat up in cold weather, sometimes lost steering and braking ability, 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.
In Maine, multiple Lion Electric buses — part of the U.S. EPA’s $5 billion Clean School Bus Program — were found to have misaligned or incorrect side markings, leaky windshields, and power steering failures within months of delivery. In Vinalhaven, a bus had broken rivets, missing wheel chocks, and other structural concerns that raised safety alarms.
The districts went back to gas.
JB Pritzker boasted it would create 745 jobs in Illinois. Like everything else Democrat big government titans do, it is a complete failure. It was one of many wasteful Green Energy projects.
WOW 🚨 Head of the EPA Lee Zeldin says the Biden Admin sent $160 million dollars to a Canadian electric vehicles company. They pocketed the money, didn’t send the school busses promised and then declared bankruptcy
Textbook money laundering. People need to go to prison
“There… pic.twitter.com/I8jSpyoU7D
— Deep Leaks (@DeepLeaksHQ) September 9, 2026
The Details
In June 2023, JB Pritzker, Dick Durbin, Tammy Duckworth, and a mob of Democrat lawmakers flocked to Joliet. They wanted praise and photo ops as they cut the ribbon on Lion Electric’s electric vehicle plant.
Two years later, Lion Electric’s disastrous tenure in Illinois came to an end. The results of Pritzker’s “EV Flop”:
- In December 2024, Lion Electric shuttered its Joliet plant and laid off hundreds across the United States and Canada.
- Quebec announced it would not invest $24 million to help Lion relaunch
- The company’s equipment went up for auction.
In December 2023, Pritzker announced that $19.9 million of our taxpayer dollars would be used to build 70 electric school buses in nine school districts — over $284,000 per bus.
The company was contracted to produce and deliver 435 electric school buses worth about $95 million to 55 U.S. school districts. Instead of phased payments tied to production, the Biden EPA sent the full $160 million at once.
Lion Electric has been in deficit since 2020, losing over $301 million and seeing its stock drop nearly 100%. The company shut down, laid off workers, and stopped manufacturing.