U.S. Postal Service going ahead with plan to buy mostly gas-powered vehicles in defiance of EPA and White House
The United States Postal Service announced Wednesday that it will proceed with a multibillion-dollar plan to modernize its fleet of mail trucks with mostly gas-powered vehicles — instead of the electric trucks that President Biden and the Environmental Protection Agency have called for.
Mr. Biden issued an executive order in January of 2021 calling for all federal vehicles to be zero-emission by 2035. Earlier this month, the Environmental Protection Agency sent a letter to USPS calling on the agency to conduct a new environmental review and hold a public hearing on its plan to modernize the fleet. The letter also claimed that USPS's greenhouse gas emissions calculations for the proposed new fleet were inaccurate. But neither the president nor the EPA have the authority to stop the Postal Service's plan, as it is an independent agency.
USPS announced it plans to purchase 50,000 to 165,000 new trucks, with "at least" 10% of the trucks being battery electric vehicles. USPS said this plan is "the most achievable given the Postal Service's financial condition."
The majority gas-powered mail fleet that Postmaster General and USPS Chief Executive Officer Louis DeJoy plans to purchase will have an improved fuel efficiency of just .4 mpg over the current fleet, which is nearly 30 years old, according to The Washington Post.
DeJoy said in a statement that "the men and women of the U.S. Postal Service have waited long enough for safer, cleaner vehicles to fulfill on our universal service obligation to deliver to 161 million addresses in all climates and topographies six days per-week."
Mark Guilfoil, USPS' vice president for supply management, added that the agency "determined that EPA's request for a supplemental EIS [environmental impact statement] and public hearing would not add value to the Postal Service's already year-long review. It is also important to note that a supplemental EIS and public hearing are not legally required."
Some environmental advocates disagreed with the Postal Service's assessment.
"DeJoy's environmental review is rickety, founded on suspect calculations, and fails to meet the standards of the law. We're not done fighting this reckless decision," Adrian Martinez, senior attorney for Earthjustice, a nonprofit that focuses on litigating climate issues, said in a statement.
Earthjustice also claimed that the new gas-powered trucks get worse gas mileage — 8.6 mpg — than the current trucks got when they were new.