Palm Beach State College will start training students for high-paying electric vehicle mechanic jobs starting in 2026, thanks to millions of dollars from the federal government that Congresswoman Lois Frankel requested in the spring.
PBSC hosted Frankel on Thursday, Sept. 5, on its campus west of Lake Worth Beach. Flanked by seven students, she announced that the public college would get more than $4.1 million to build garage bays, classrooms and labs to train students to work on electric vehicles, hybrids and other autos that burn little, if any, gasoline or diesel fuel.
Frankel requested the money in March as part of a $1.2 trillion package of bills Congress passed to keep the federal government from shutting down.
Frankel: Give students the opportunity ‘to be part of the fight against carbon emissions’
“One of the best parts of this job is being able to give opportunities to young people,” Frankel said at a news conference at the school.
The electric vehicle training would give students the chance “to be part of the fight against carbon emissions,” she added. Those pollutants, spewed by the burning of petroleum, keep the sun’s heat from escaping the Earth’s atmosphere, smothering the planet with record-high temperatures recorded in recent years.