It seemed like a no-brainer. The U.S. Postal Service announced plans to invest billions on a new fleet of vehicles — one of the largest government fleets in the world — and the Biden administration saw an opportunity to replace gas-powered vehicles with electric vehicles.
On Capitol Hill, Democratic Rep. Gerald Connolly, who leads the House panel that oversees the Postal Service, pushed a similar line. “The average age of the postal fleet is 30 years,” the Virginia congressman told The New York Times a few weeks ago. “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.”
Connolly added, “If we miss this opportunity, it sets back the whole thrust of the electric vehicle agenda.”
The Democrats’ position made sense for a variety of reasons. While some are concerned about the range of electric vehicles, such fears don’t apply to USPS delivery trucks that operate over limited, fixed routes. What’s more, the Postal Service would enjoy financial benefits over the long run.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has heard the appeals, but the USPS is going to purchase gas-powered vehicles anyway. Bloomberg News reported:
The U.S. Postal Service has finalized a contract to replace its mail-truck fleet with almost all gasoline-powered models, drawing an angry response from Biden administration officials who unsuccessfully pushed the agency to buy electric vehicles instead…. The Postal Service’s decision is a blow to President Joe Biden’s bid to shift the U.S. government away from gasoline-powered models toward plug-in hybrids and battery electric vehicles that now make up less than 1% of the federal fleet. The Postal Service’s contract means up to 23% of the federal government’s fleet is beyond his reach, BloombergNEF said Wednesday.
DeJoy said in a written statement that the USPS is still committed to electric vehicles, though 90 percent of the new vehicles will run on gasoline.
Bloomberg News report added that environmental groups are preparing for a legal challenge to the policy, “arguing the Postal Service is illegally justifying its decision with a fundamentally flawed analysis of the purchase plan that underestimates greenhouse gas emissions, relies on faulty economic assumptions and fails to consider alternatives.”
As for lingering questions about possibly getting a new postmaster general, President Joe Biden does not have the authority to fire DeJoy, though he’s tried to make changes to the USPS governing board in the hopes that its members would force DeJoy out.
To date, that has not happened. In fact, last month, the new chair of the U.S. Postal Board of Governors, Roman Martinez, endorsed DeJoy.
That said, DeJoy, a former Republican fundraiser and deputy RNC finance chair, is reportedly still facing an FBI investigation over a campaign-finance scandal, among other ethics allegations.
