Illinois lawmakers are advancing legislation that would require all newly purchased school buses in the state to be equipped with lap/shoulder seatbelts. Now entering its third reading in the Senate, the bill marks the state’s latest and most promising step toward aligning with national safety recommendations for student transportation.

If enacted, Illinois would become the seventh state to mandate three-point restraints on school buses, joining Arkansas, California, Iowa, Nevada, New Jersey, and Texas.

SB191 is sponsored by Sen. Julie A. Morrison with Sen. Mike Simmons (D–Chicago) as co-sponsor. Rep. Bob Morgan has pre-filed companion legislation in the Illinois House.

A second amendment under discussion would change the effective date of the mandate to Jan. 1, 2031, from the original date of Jan. 1, 2028. According to legislation advocates, this adjustment is being considered to address concerns from previous opponents and help move the legislation forward.

It also does not require school districts, private schools, or school bus contractors to require student passenger seatbelt usage and only applies to owned vehicles.

SB191 with the amendment was referred Wednesday to the Senate Transportation Committee.

The effort to draft and promote the bill has been spearheaded in part by Kimberly Loughlin, an Illinois-based curriculum designer and certified child passenger safety technician (CPST) with the additional eight-hour school bus endorsement. She collaborated with the National Safety Council on revising its 2022 revision of Child Passenger Safety on School Buses course for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The seminar taught at the STN EXPO East, STN EXPO West and TSD Conference each year is widely taught as an advanced supplement to the national 32-hour CPST certification course.

Loughlin became involved in legislative advocacy after a series of personal incidents her family encountered while she was rewriting the eight-hour course. Her son was involved in two separate school bus crashes just a month apart while attending summer camp field trips offered through their local park district. While none of the children were seriously injured, her son was thrown forward and struck his head. The buses lacked seatbelts.

Only a few months later, Loughlin and her son were involved in a separate car crash, suffering concussions and lingering injuries. The experiences reshaped her perspective on injury reporting and the long-term effects of non-fatal trauma, especially for children.

Although her local school district contracts with transportation providers that include two-point lap belts, Loughlin observed that children often didn’t wear them, leading to behavior issues and unsafe conditions. When she encouraged the district to implement safer lap-and-shoulder belts and a seatbelt usage policy, she was told ity would not act unless legally required. That led her to connect with Sen. Morrison, who made the effort to advance state-level legislation.

In developing the bill, Loughlin worked with Denise Donaldson, editor and publisher of Safe Ride News, and Charlie Vits, formerly with IMMI/Safeguard, to draft policy language modeled on similar laws in other states. Donaldson is a CPST instructor for the NHTSA course. Dr. Kristin Poland, Deputy Director at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), also collaborated with Loughlin in support of the bill.

The team of advocates credit recent industry developments, such as Blue Bird Corporation’s announcement that lap-and-shoulder belts would be standard on all new buses starting last fall, with shifting the conversation around cost. With one of the major manufacturers standardizing the passenger restraint systems, the economic argument against seatbelt mandates has lost momentum, they claim.

In addition to the NHTSA eight-hour seminar, Donaldson is scheduled to present at this year’s STN EXPO West Conference in Reno, Nevada, on the top 10 safety concerns in school transportation—including the ongoing lack of lap/shoulder seatbelt use.

While school bus compartmentalization can reduce injuries in frontal crashes, it is insufficient in side-impact or rollover events. Decades of data including that from the National Transportation Safety Board on high-profile school bus crashes support the efficacy of lap-and-shoulder belts, which also contribute to improved behavior, reduced driver distraction and more effective emergency evacuations.

“Something so simple as a seatbelt can make all the difference in the world,” Loughlin said. “It shouldn’t take a catastrophic event to realize the importance of protecting kids in this very basic way.”

Related: Updated: NAPT Issues New Position on School Bus Seatbelts
Related: School Bus Safety Act Renews Call for Seatbelts, Other Safety Improvements
Related: Oklahoma Latest State to Introduce School Bus Seatbelt Bill

The post Illinois Bill Advances to Require Lap/Shoulder Seatbelts on New School Buses appeared first on School Transportation News.

U.S. Domestic Solar Production Reaches Historic Milestone Washington, D.C. – The United States has surpassed 50 GW in domestic solar energy manufacturing capacity for the first time in history, enough to power approximately 37.5 million homes. This milestone marks an impressive progress—bolstered by clean energy investments in the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law—by the renewable energy …

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Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers used his seventh State of the State speech Wednesday to urge the GOP-controlled Legislature to enact a wide range of proposals Republicans have rejected in the past, including numerous gun control measures just a month after there was a school shooting not far from the state Capitol.

Republicans were quick to dismiss his proposals, much as they have the past six years.

Here’s what to know about the speech from Evers, a Democrat who may run for a third term next year in the battleground state:

Bipartisan approach to immigration and health care

Evers, without mentioning President Donald Trump by name, said “there is a lot of angst about what may happen in the days, months and years ahead.”

“I have always been willing to work with anyone who is willing to do the right thing for the people of Wisconsin,” Evers said. “And that has not changed. But I will not compromise on our Wisconsin values of treating people with kindness, dignity, empathy, and respect.”

Evers called for bipartisan efforts to address immigration.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said Republicans would next week introduce a bill that requires cooperation with federal law enforcement officials who are working to deport people who have committed a crime and are in the country illegally.

“He didn’t pay attention to what happened in this state in the election in November,” Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August said of Evers. “President Trump won Wisconsin, and one of the cornerstones of his campaign was about illegal immigration. … He’s clearly pushing back against the president.”

Wisconsin is one of 22 states suing the federal government over Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship.

Wisconsin is one of the “blue wall” states that Trump won in 2016 but lost in 2020. Trump carried Wisconsin in 2024 on his way back to the White House.

Gun control is renewed priority despite Republican opposition

Evers called for a series of gun control measures five weeks after a school shooting just 6 miles from the Capitol left a teacher and a 14-year-old student dead. The 15-year-old shooter shot and killed herself.

Evers called for universal background checks for gun purchases and restoring a 48-hour waiting period for gun purchases, a law that Republicans repealed in 2015.

He also called for banning the purchase of “ghost guns” and closing a loophole that allows for domestic abusers to own firearms.

Evers also called for incentives and new requirements to safely secure firearms and a “red flag” law that would allow judges to take guns away from people determined to be a risk to themselves or others.

Republican legislative leaders said that all of the gun control measures would be rejected.

The governor last week created a state office for violence prevention, which Republicans vowed not to fund after federal funding runs out in two years.

Evers, a former teacher and state superintendent of schools, also called for spending $300 million to provide comprehensive mental health services in schools statewide. That would be 10 times the amount the Legislature approved for school mental health services in the last budget.

Republicans vow to reject proposals, push for cutting taxes instead

Republican leaders immediately rejected the bulk of what Evers called for, saying they instead would be pushing for a tax cut of nearly $1,000 for every taxpayer in the state.

Evers’ speech “was chock full of liberal wishes, empty promises and a whole lot of things that are not going to happen in Wisconsin,” Vos said.

Declaring 2025 as “The Year of the Kid,” Evers called on Republicans to approve $500 million to lower the cost of child care. The bulk of that would go toward funding the Child Care Counts program for the next two years. Without more funding, the program — which was created during the COVID-19 pandemic — is slated to end in June.

Republicans said they would not support that additional funding.

Evers also called for creating new programs designed to set price ceilings for prescription drugs and improve oversight of drug companies, removing the state sales tax on over-the-counter medications and capping the copay on insulin at $35.

In an emotional moment, Evers welcomed the widow and parents of former state Rep. Jonathan Brostoff, who died by suicide in November. Evers, his voice cracking with emotion, talked about Brostoff’s death when introducing a new program that would allow people to temporarily and voluntarily register to prevent themselves from purchasing a firearm.

Vos said that invoking Brostoff was a “cheap political stunt” and “kind of sad.”

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

State of the State: Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers urges gun control measures, bipartisan approach to immigration is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Updated Western Solar Plan to guide responsible development in 11 Western states WASHINGTON — The Department of the Interior today announced an updated Western Solar Plan to help guide efficient and environmentally responsible solar energy permitting on public lands across the West. ?The plan will guide the siting of solar energy proposals in areas with fewer resource conflicts,  advance the nation’s growing clean energy economy, help lower energy costs …

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A new study on behalf of Milliken has identified the top U.S. states for sustainable energy production. The rapid rise of the sustainable energy sector worldwide has been one of the most important technological and economic stories of recent years. Continued urgency to mitigate the impact of climate change has spurred governments and companies to speed the transition …

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