The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has this year alone awarded over $5 million to retrofit some 5,000 school buses with eco-friendly, diesel oxidation catalysts and lower emission fuels.

The investment has come as part of the EPA's two-year-old Clean School Bus USA demonstration programme.

No less than 21 federal grants were awarded to school systems across the US in order to create an actual real-life showcase for cleaner technologies for road vehicles, and in particular school buses.

EPA administrator Mike Leavitt said the initiative had proved successful, and said that further work on reducing fleet emissions was likely.

"By retrofitting these buses, we bring tomorrow's technology to today's children. We'll cut harmful emissions from these buses by 20 to 50 per cent, and that means that kids and parents alike can breathe a little easier," he commented.

Others who have participated in the scheme have also welcomed its impact - such as officials at the 30,000-student Paradise Valley Unified School District in Arizona.

The school won $300,000 to retrofit 20 buses with particulate-matter filters and fuel 114 buses with ultra-low sulphur diesel, with district transportation manger Jeff Cook telling eSchool News the strategy had already produced "a noticeable decline" in harmful emissions.

The scheme is one of the key tenets of the Bush regime's assault on global climate change through reducing harmful vehicular emissions, and it is hoped that the success of the programme will prompt Congress to grant the President's 2005 budget request.

Included in the request is a $65 million proposal to retrofit and upgrade the nation's entire school bus fleet.