Sec. 2608. Sense of Congress regarding electric vehicle transition strategy
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/bill/117/hr/3684/pcs/section-2608·A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.
Congress finds the following: The transition to a modern electric fleet managed by the nation’s transit agencies represents a key opportunity to modernize and green the public transit fleets. The impending fleet transition presents difficult workforce challenges for the transit agencies and their frontline workers as they prepare for the differences in purchasing, maintaining, and managing new electric buses and the related maintenance systems. The maintenance of electric engines requires fewer mechanics than does the maintenance of diesel and natural gas engines, which make up more than 99 percent of bus fleets in the United States.
Although approximately 400,000 people work in public transportation, and of that figure, 90 percent work in the frontline occupations, because of retirements and a massive transition in the transit workforce, large changes are bound for workers, transit agencies, and the communities that the transit workforce serves. Based on the Department of Transportation and the Department of Labor data from 2014, transit systems needed to hire, train, and retain approximately 126 percent of their workforce over a 10-year period.
The Department of Transportation, the Federal Railroad Administration, and sister Federal agencies like the Department of Energy and the Department of Labor can offer resources, strategy, and a research and development plan to prepare and assist in the upcoming transition to electric and clean vehicle systems. It is the sense of Congress that the transit industry needs an integrated, cooperative, and forward-looking workforce development strategy in order to help frontline workers and the transit agencies prepare for and mitigate the workforce disruption challenges posed by the transition to electric vehicles and electric buses.