Lawmakers join fight against USPS gas-powered vehicles
A group of Democratic lawmakers has joined the increasingly loud chorus urging the U.S. Postal Service to reconsider its plan to spend billions of dollars on a new fleet of gasoline-powered vehicles.
In a letter released Friday to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and board of governors Chair Roman Martinez, the lawmakers said USPS’s fleet procurement plan subverted both the National Environmental Policy Act and the country’s climate and public health commitments.
In response, the Postal Service touted the plan including 5,000 electric vehicles and said there was a possibility it could ask for more. The Postal Service, however, stressed the need for more funding.
“Our commitment to an electric fleet remains ambitious given the pressing vehicle and safety needs of our aging fleet as well as our dire financial condition," said DeJoy.
President Biden last year committed to electrifying all 645,000 federal vehicles — of which postal delivery cars and trucks account for a third — to boost the electric vehicle market and help curb the largest source of planet-warming emissions in the country.
“After an unjustifiable, truncated, and deficient process, it is unacceptable that the USPS intends to cling to an overwhelmingly fossil fuel-powered fleet whose emissions are endangering our planet,” the lawmakers wrote.
The letter was spearheaded by Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and signed by 17 others, including Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) and Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.).
Carper chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee. Castor chairs the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. And Tonko chairs the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and Climate.
Their letter comes as the House is set to vote on a bill, H.R. 3076, the "Postal Service Reform Act," that would relieve the Postal Service of much of its debt, which exceeds $200 billion.
“Should USPS continue to refuse to acknowledge the serious legal concerns its current process has raised, we will urge the Administration to take any strong steps available to it, in order to remedy these issues,” the lawmakers wrote.
They urged the Postal Service to conduct a supplemental environmental impact review, host a public hearing on the matter and abandon its “faulty procurement plan.”
Last year, DeJoy awarded a contract to Oshkosh Defense LLC, a Wisconsin firm that primarily makes military vehicles, to replace the agency’s aging fleet with 90 percent fossil fuel-powered trucks over the next decade.
The new vehicles would replace the decades-old, gas-guzzling Grumman Long Life Vehicles (LLVs), which are known to catch on fire and lack air bags and air conditioning. LLVs debuted between 1987 and 1994.
Today, they have a fuel economy of about 10 mpg. But because the new models would be air-conditioned, the average fuel economy would actually decrease to 8.6 mpg.
Environmentalists, regulators and union advocates have increasingly been calling on the Biden administration to block the Postal Service from moving forward with the contract. They say USPS did not conduct proper environmental reviews in choosing gasoline-powered cars, a decision that could harm the climate and people’s health.
They asked EPA to use a seldom-deployed tactic and refer the dispute to the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which would trigger a mediation between the federal agencies. Instead, EPA and CEQ sent letters last week to the Postal Service urging it to reconsider its plan (Climatewire, Feb. 3).
Brenda Mallory, CEQ chair, said a major concern is that USPS reportedly gave Oshkosh Defense $480 million to begin engineering and factory construction of the new postal vehicles before the agency started the environmental review, a potential NEPA violation.
EPA took issue with the Postal Service’s environmental impact analysis, which it said relied on incomplete or inaccurate data. The postal agency, for example, did not account for predicted price drops in EV batteries and charging infrastructure.
Green groups like the Center for Biological Diversity are weighing legal action, as the White House runs out of ways to intervene (Greenwire, Feb. 3).
USPS spokesperson Kimberly Frum said the agency believes it has fully satisfied NEPA requirements to consider environmental impacts and reasonable alternatives. Accusations that the agency has not complied with NEPA “stem from policy disagreements,” she said.
The lawmakers’ letter was supported by a coalition of industry and environmental groups, including the Zero Emission Transportation Association (ZETA), which represents clean-tech companies like Tesla and Rivian.
“We commend our allies in the U.S. Senate for fighting to make sure that the USPS reverses its absurd decision to lock generations of Americans into carbon-intensive mail delivery,” said Dan Zotos, ZETA’s communications director.
“As the Postal Service faces mounting pressure from Congress, the EPA and the CEQ, we hope it will finally recognize the gravity of this decision and swiftly change course.”
Last week, ZETA published a report showing how the Postal Service relied on incomplete or inaccurate data in conducting its environmental review, a stance EPA has echoed.
In his statement yesterday, DeJoy said that absent more funding, "we must make fiscally responsible decisions that result in the needed introduction of safer and environmentally cleaner vehicles for the men and women who deliver America’s mail."
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), who also signed the letter, introduced H.R. 1636, the "Postal Vehicle Modernization Act," which calls for 75 percent electrification and a $6 billion investment in the agency.
By: Arianna Skibell
Source: Climatewire
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