What is that exhaust coming out of the back of most of our school buses?

Talk about heavy pollution. Why is it that our school buses are among the worst when it comes to spewing choking pollution into the environment? Is it because we don't care about the health of the environment? We don't care about the health of our students? Or, the bus companies are given a pass because they have some kind of political clout?

Here's a video I shot recently behind a school bus that was pouring out pollutants and choking exhaust. It is "whitish" in color but the fumes were horrible.

People familiar with school bus pollutions say that poor air quality is particularly hard on children, whose lungs are fragile and still developing. Many yellow school buses, because they are run on diesel fuel, are particularly lethal to their hundreds of thousands of riders. The exhaust may include "Particles" that can be filtered out using special filters on the exhaust systems. These particles from diesel exhaust are carcinogenic

The fact is truck and car emissions can lead to heart disease.

Air pollution aggravates allergies, asthma and other respiratory illness.

Major airborne pollutants such as lead, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide, contribute to the city’s high incidence of asthma (double the New York State average, in some neighborhoods, and up to six times the national average) and other respiratory ailments.

So why are we not doing something about this? The school system receives probably 60 to 70 percent of the taxes we pay (high school and elementary school, just look at your tax bill if you live in District 230 or District 135. Mine was more than $3,600 out of a $5,000 tax bill.

What are we paying for?