In recent weeks, Lion has initiated bankruptcy proceedings, laid off all employees tasked with building its buses, and paused manufacturing operations.
Lion's financial demise leaves dozens of school districts—including those in California, Montana, North Dakota, Iowa, Alabama, and Maryland—questioning whether they will receive the buses the Biden administration promised them. Lion has yet to deliver $95 million worth of electric buses to 55 districts across the country, according to federal data reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
"At this time we are working through the proper channels and keeping our attorneys abreast of the situation," Dawn Wallace, the superintendent of Ohio Valley School District in Adams County, Ohio, which ordered buses from Lion, told the Free Beacon. "No buses have been delivered to our district. We are on hold."
"The district has been in contact with both Lion Electric and the EPA to gather details on the situation and explore available options moving forward," added Jason Stabler, the superintendent of Bureau Valley School District in Manlius, Illinois, another district promised buses.
The situation puts a renewed spotlight on the Biden administration's behemoth climate programs, raising questions about whether the recipients of billions of dollars in green spending were properly vetted—or whether federal officials looked the other way when doling out funds to Lion, which had financially struggled for years.
It also underscores a familiar dynamic surrounding such programs—green energy companies like Lion are dependent on government funding and often fail even after winning lucrative government contracts. In the case of electric school buses, 67 percent of the planned electric school buses in the United States have been funded by the federal government, according to an analysis conducted by the World Resources Institute.
"The problem is they were dealing with so much money and they were trying to get it out so fast that they probably cut a lot of corners," Andrew Wheeler, who led the EPA during the first Trump administration, told the Free Beacon in an interview. "It doesn't surprise me at all that companies that received funding are going bankrupt or are going under."
Between October 2022 and May 2024, the Biden administration awarded Lion a total of $159 million to manufacture 435 buses under the EPA's $5 billion Clean School Bus program. That makes Lion the third-largest beneficiary of the program, which was created by Democrats' 2021 infrastructure bill and later emerged as a hallmark climate initiative of both Joe Biden's presidency and Kamala Harris's vice presidency.
Lion received the funding and became a Biden administration favorite even as it struggled to turn a profit and took on millions of dollars in loans. In fact, less than two weeks before the EPA gave Lion $82.7 million in October 2022 as part of the first tranche of Clean School Bus program awards, the company reported to investors that it had lost $17.2 million during the prior three months.
Since 2020, Lion has reported staggering net losses totaling $301.6 million and, since January 2021, its stock price has plummeted from $33.48 per share to $0.08 per share. The company abruptly stopped reporting its share price on its website in December.
In addition to its poor performance, Lion received a slap on the wrist from the Securities and Exchange Commission last year after the company misreported several key figures in its financial disclosures. And in March 2024, a group of investors hit Lion with a class action suit, alleging the company withheld the truth about supply chain problems it faced and misled investors using "grossly unrealistic financial projections."
Amid its struggles, the company assured investors during a November earnings call that it remained "well positioned to benefit from continued strong regulatory tailwinds," pointing to both the Clean School Bus program and EPA's $3 billion clean port program. One month later, Lion filed for bankruptcy protection in Canada, initiated bankruptcy proceedings in Illinois federal court, and weeks after that laid off all its employees excluding 150 tasked with customer service and maintenance duties.
Lion also halted production at its 900,000 square-foot manufacturing facility in Joliet, Illinois, which opened less than 18 months earlier in a ceremony that featured Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D.) and Illinois Sens. Dick Durbin (D.) and Tammy Duckworth (D.). Pritzker said during the ceremony the "future of Illinois relies on dependable clean energy jobs" and local officials said the plant would bring 1,400 jobs to the region.
Paulina Martinez, Joliet's economic development director, told the Free Beacon that the city hadn't given Lion the incentive package it promised since the actual number of jobs created at the plant fell short of expectations. "A situation like this is concerning for any municipal government because now we have in our community a large space that is potentially going to sit vacant for a while," Martinez added.
Lion did not respond to requests for comment.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, has promised to conduct broad reviews of past green energy spending. In a statement to the Free Beacon, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin noted an undercover video published by Project Veritas in December that showed Biden official Brent Efron admitting the EPA frantically pushed billions of dollars to favored industries and groups before leaving office.
"They knew they were wasting hard-earned American taxpayer dollars," Zeldin said. "Given documented problems from press reports and the Office of Inspector General, the American people deserve answers. I am committed to delivering for them."
House Energy and Commerce chairman Brett Guthrie (R., Ky.), whose panel investigated the Clean School Bus program over fraud concerns, blasted the Biden administration's handling of green spending programs.
"The Biden-Harris Administration spent four years wasting taxpayer dollars pursuing its Green New Deal agenda, which led to failed policy outcomes and soaring inflation for American families," Guthrie told the Free Beacon. "Communities across the country are paying the price for the EPA’s decision to provide grants and rebates for electric school buses that may never be delivered."
