Sixteen states, along with several prominent climate activists, this week sued the United States Postal Service over its plan to buy 148,000 gas-guzzling vans over the next decade, claiming the agency failed to consider the environmental impact of its decision.
The states accuse the USPS of only conducting a “perfunctory environmental assessment to justify the decision to replace 90 percent of its delivery fleet with fossil-fuelled internal combustion engine vehicles despite other available greener alternatives,” the lawsuit says. “The postal service did not even meet the most basic requirements [National Environmental Policy Act].”
The lawsuit was filed by the attorneys general of California, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon and Rhode Island in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Vermont, State of Washington, Washington, DC and the City of New York.
USPS, led by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, has clashed with environmentalists over the need to electrify the agency’s fleet. After a year-long bidding process, the USPS unveiled its next-generation mail truck in February 2021, to be manufactured by Oshkosh Defense. They will replace the current mail trucks, which have been in service for more than two decades and were built by another defense contractor, Grumman.
Originally, the Post announced plans to purchase 165,000 next-generation mail trucks, only 10 percent of which would be battery-electric vehicles. President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats urged the agency to increase the number of electric vehicles, but USPS determined there was no legal reason to change its plans. But earlier this year, the service said it would increase its initial EV order from 5,000 to 10,019, noting that it “makes sense from an operational and financial standpoint.”
“Ongoing Environmental Balance”
Still, the states accuse the USPS of relying on flawed judgment and an incomplete process to acquire gas-powered vehicles that achieve just 8.6 miles per gallon while using air conditioning, compared to an industry average of 12 to 14 MPG for fleet vehicles.
In response, the USPS defended its practices, noting that it remains willing to increase its order for more electric vehicles in the future should additional funds become available to do so.
“The Post is fully committed to including electric vehicles as a significant part of our delivery fleet, even though the investment will cost more than an internal combustion engine vehicle,” a spokesman said in an email. “However, as we have stated repeatedly, we need to make tax-prudent decisions when we need to introduce a new fleet of vehicles.”
Congress recently approved a $50 billion bailout for USPS, which has lost more than $90 billion since 2007. DeJoy has proposed cutting billions of dollars in funding and slower deliveries of first-class mail as new standards.