The Postal Service said it will proceed with plans to order up to 148,000 new, majority gasoline-powered delivery trucks to replace its aging fleet, defying requests from the Biden administration, which had asked it to transition to electric vehicles.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said in a statement Wednesday that the USPS had finished its evaluation of environmental impacts under the National Environmental Policy Act and reiterated his argument that using the $11.3 billion program to purchase more electric vehicles is “unrealistic,” given the agency’s current financial condition. The USPS has the single largest civilian fleet of vehicles in the United States.
“As our financial position improves with the ongoing implementation of our 10-year plan, Delivering for America, we will continue to pursue the acquisition of additional [battery electric vehicles] as additional funding — from either internal or congressional sources — becomes available,” DeJoy said. “But the process needs to keep moving forward. 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.”
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Earlier this month, the EPA and the White House Council on Environmental Quality asked the USPS to reconsider the plan, with the EPA arguing that the environmental impact statement released by the agency was “seriously deficient” and that the agency had “systematically and substantially underestimated” the emissions from its new vehicles.
But DeJoy proceeded. On Wednesday, he defended the plan, saying the USPS is “compelled to act prudently in the interest of the American public” and cannot in its current state purchase more electric vehicles.
Vicki Arroyo, the EPA’s associate administrator for policy, said in a statement that the USPS’s decision represented “crucial lost opportunity.”
“Purchasing tens of thousands of gasoline-fueled delivery trucks locks USPS into further oil dependence, air pollution, and climate impacts for decades to come, and harms the long-term prospects of our nation’s vital mail provider,” Arroyo said.
In recent weeks, DeJoy’s decision has prompted sharp criticism and even calls for his resignation from environmental activists and some congressional Democrats. Earlier this month, Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia blasted DeJoy’s decision as “antediluvian” and said it posed a threat to the government’s ability to fight climate change.
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“The average age of the postal fleet is 30 years,” Connolly said in a statement. “They’re spewing pollution and they are guzzling gas. There is no question we have to replace the fleet, and it is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to take electric vehicle technology to the next level with the second- largest vehicle fleet in America.”
