16 States, DC, Climate Activists Sue USPS To Block Purchase Of Gas-guzzling Trucks

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Sixteen states, the District of Columbia and environmental activists are suing the US Postal Service to block purchases of 148,000 gas-guzzling delivery trucks over the next decade because the agency grossly underestimated the costs and negative environmental impact of the vehicles.

The lawsuits, filed by Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council, allege the Postal Service relied on flawed assumptions and miscalculations to justify spending up to $11.3 billion on 8.6mpg gas-powered vehicles, which is only slightly is better than the 30-year-old vehicles now in use.

Postal officials hoped the truck procurement would go smoothly and signal that the postal agency was evolving to capture new business opportunities and compete with its private-sector competitors. But the agency’s purchase plan would only allocate 10 percent of the new fleet to electric power, well below benchmarks set by FedEx, UPS and Amazon. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.)

Transportation is the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, but electric vehicles have yet to make a significant inroad. EV advocates had hoped the postal service contract would give a boost to electric cars, which account for about 5 percent of all new car sales.

Although there is broad consensus on the need for new mail trucks, the deal the agency has struck with Oshkosh has drawn criticism from environmental groups, who said its 10 percent commitment to electric vehicles was insufficient. Meanwhile, organized labor groups resented the company’s decision to shift production away from unionized operations.

Postal service spokeswoman Kim Frum said in an emailed statement the agency “conducted a robust and thorough review and fully complied with all of our obligations under NEPA.”

The Postal Service began studying the environmental impact of the vehicles — which federal agencies estimate would emit about the same amount of earth-warming carbon dioxide each year as 4.3 million passenger cars — after paying Oshkosh $482 million to start production. The lawsuits allege the agency conducted its analysis to retrospectively justify its sourcing decision.

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Postmaster General Louis DeJoy placed the agency’s first order for 50,000 trucks in March. 10,019 of those vehicles will be electric, roughly double DeJoy’s original commitment. They should be on the road by the end of 2023.

“The Postal Service has a historic opportunity to invest in our planet and in our future. Instead, it relies on outdated technology that is bad for our environment and our communities,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D), whose office is leading the states’ case in the Northern District of California.

“Once this purchase is complete, we will be stuck on neighborhood streets with more than 100,000 new gas-guzzling vehicles for the next 30 years. There will be no reset button,” he said in a statement. “We will go to court to ensure the Postal Service complies with the law and consider greener alternatives before making this decision.”

Regulators from the Environmental Protection Agency and the White House Council on Environmental Quality have identified serious shortcomings in the Postal Service’s environmental study. They said the agency significantly underestimated the cost of gas-powered vehicles — it forecast fuel prices of $2.19 a gallon, almost $2 below the US average this week — and how their emissions could worsen the climate crisis.

In an interview last month, DeJoy said that “the economics my team has developed” are solid and supportive of his agency’s acquisition plan.

“That’s the math we’re going with,” he said.

The 10 percent commitment to electric power also falls well short of the targets set by the White House and environmental activists. President Biden has called for the entire federal civilian fleet to be electric by 2035. The Postal Agency’s 217,000 vehicles make up the majority of the government’s non-military vehicles.

“The crux of the matter in this case is that the postal service has done its job [environmental] Analysis too late and even the analysis produced was incomplete, misleading and biased towards cleaner vehicles,” Earthjustice attorney Adrian Martinez wrote in his complaint. The group is suing on behalf of the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and Clear Air Now, a Kansas-based nonprofit.

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“Amazingly, the Postal Service signed a contract and first paid millions of dollars for these vehicles before beginning its environmental analysis to justify its action, which is a flagrant violation [the National Environmental Policy Act]’ the suit continues. “The Postal Service’s improper handling will not only unnecessarily pollute every American community for decades to come, but also cost millions more in taxpayer dollars and leave the agency vulnerable to fluctuating fuel prices.”

Attorneys general also argue that the Post’s trucks would prevent states from meeting their own environmental obligations. The other jurisdictions that have joined the case are Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington State, the District of Columbia, New York City and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, an environmental agency in Northern California. The states’ lawsuit and Earthjustice’s lawsuit were filed in the Northern District of California.

The United Auto Workers union, which has nearly 1 million members, joined NRDC’s lawsuit in the Southern District of New York. UAW leaders have objected to the contract since Oshkosh announced it would build the trucks at a new non-union South Carolina plant rather than at its flagship Wisconsin union facility.

“What we’re asking of the court is that they go back and repeat the environmental analysis,” said Frank Sturges, an attorney for NRDC. “What the Post actually buys, who it contracts with, is a decision that should come out of the analysis after a win in our case.”

DeJoy has said his agency will buy more electric trucks if Congress allocates the money or if the postal service’s financial situation improves. The agency has long struggled with its finances after years of declining mail revenues, but Biden recently signed into law to free $107 billion in past-due and future balances from his debt load.

Biden’s Build Back Better social spending package included $6 billion for electric mail trucks and battery chargers. Biden’s proposed budget for 2023 includes $300 million for electric mail vehicles and charging stations.

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DeJoy told the Post in March that when the Postal Service took office in June 2020, it didn’t have enough EV knowledge or experience to pursue more EVs in truck procurement.

Meanwhile, he said, the agency operates trucks that don’t have airbags or air conditioning and have been known to catch fire from years of overuse. “We had to buy trucks,” DeJoy said.

16 states, DC, climate activists sue USPS to block purchase of gas-guzzling trucks

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