What's diesel as a total percentage of fuel oils used?

I don't seem to see it on the DoE petroleum page.

By the way, I know we use over 12,000,000 barrels of oil in transportation each year.

And I think we use 880,000 barrels of diesel, if I read this DoE (pdf) correctly.

In other words, as good as it is to reduce oil demand, lessening it 2 or 20% in a market that is less than 5% of the total... well... good job for getting something done.

Let's aim bigger, though!

Bless Amtrak. Republicans who are trying to smash it deserve our scorn.

You’re off by three orders of magnitude. Figures in the reports are in thousands. So that’s 37,103,563,000 gallons of on-highway diesel in 2003 (or 883 million 42-gallon barrels).

But you’s right. 2% is just a start, and we can do much more.

Check the EIA’s Petroleum Supply Annual here as a general source.

Praise for this assumes that B20 (not made from waste oil) will actually reduce total petroleum demand.  This may or may not be the case; it appears likely to have a much bigger effect on farm income than imports.

If the school district wants to reduce petroleum demand and health effects to students, they should take a slightly different course:

1.  Modify several buses to burn waste vegetable grease (fuel heaters, dual-fuel system).  Supply them from the school cafeterias and local restaurants, to minimize transport and processing overhead.
2.  Ban idling of buses at schools; an engine that isn't running is neither using fuel nor putting out particulates.

Mike, obviuosly you haven't driven a bus in below zero weather. The lack of supplemental heaters means the only way to avoid hypothermia is fast idling the engine while it is in gear. I have personally experienced hypothermia due to engine failure when the temperature was about -10F.
Better engineering means higher prices. Higher prices mean higher school and transit system taxes. What are the odds of that happening when the GOP wants to eliminate public schools and mass transit systems?

Who are you addressing, Tom?

If I wanted to address hypothermia issues on the cheap, I'd add electric block and space heaters to the buses and plug them in at their loading/unloading areas.  Besides, Ohio doesn't usually get that cold in the winter; it extends from Michigan (which gets lake-effect warmth) down to Kentucky.

It gets back to who is going to pay for block heaters and the added electrical capacity for the parking lot. Its cheaper to buy diesel fuel.
I recall many schools back in the 90's that had 100's of computers donated to them which went unused because lack of electrical capacity in the schools wiring. There was no way the schools could afford the upgrades.
Maybe there is something in that 7400 page energy bill to electrify shool parking lots.