Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, announced that 15 percent of the Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Trust will be used to deploy electric transit buses across Virginia, according to an Oct. 31 press release. The Department of Environmental Quality which is tasked with implementing Virginia’s allocation of $93.6 million from the Volkswagen settlement will provide the funding through a new program that will replace the heavy and medium-duty vehicles with cleaner ones. The project will be implemented under the Department of Rail and Public Transportation’s annual public transportation capital grant cycle, which begins Dec. 1 and runs through Feb. 1, 2019. In August, the department selected charging station company EVgo for a contract to develop a statewide public electric vehicle charging network. The two announcements account for 30 percent of state’s total allocation from the settlement. Last year, Volkswagen agreed to criminal penalty and pleaded guilty for selling vehicles that turned on full emissions controls during testing but lowered them during normal driving.