WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Service has finalized a contract to exchange its mail-truck fleet with nearly all gasoline-powered fashions, drawing an offended response from Biden administration officers who unsuccessfully pushed the company to purchase electrical automobiles as a substitute.
The file of determination signed Wednesday represents the fruits of a failed lobbying effort by the Environmental Safety Company and prime Biden administration officers to influence the Postal Service to shift course. The unbiased company can now transfer ahead with its $6 billion plan to start buying as many as 165,000 mail vehicles over the subsequent 10 years from Wisconsin army truck maker Oshkosh Corp.
As many as 90 p.c of these will run on gasoline as a substitute of batteries, in keeping with the plan.
EPA Affiliate Administrator Vicki Arroyo decried the transfer as a “essential misplaced alternative to be a pacesetter in lowering the carbon footprint of one of many largest authorities fleets on the earth.”
“Buying tens of hundreds of gasoline-fueled supply vehicles locks USPS into additional oil dependence, air air pollution and local weather impacts for many years to come back,” Arroyo mentioned in an emailed assertion.
The Postal Service beforehand rejected a bid from fledgling electric-vehicle specialist Workhorse Group Inc.
Postmaster Basic Louis DeJoy defended the choice, stressing that the fleet substitute is pressing whereas reiterating the Postal Service will purchase further battery-electric automobiles as extra funding turns into out there.
“Our dedication to an electrical fleet stays formidable given the urgent car and security wants of our growing older fleet in addition to our fragile monetary situation,” DeJoy mentioned in a information launch. “The method must maintain transferring ahead. The women and men of the U.S. Postal Service have waited lengthy sufficient for safer, cleaner automobiles.”
The authorization is unlikely to be the final phrase on the matter.
Environmental teams are getting ready to swiftly problem the transfer in federal court docket, arguing the Postal Service is illegally justifying its determination with a basically flawed evaluation of the acquisition plan that underestimates greenhouse gasoline emissions, depends on defective financial assumptions and fails to contemplate options.
“America Postal Service’s ill-informed and dear determination will lock People into an overwhelmingly gas-powered mail supply system for generations to come back,” the Zero Emission Transportation Affiliation, which represents electrical car makers similar to Rivian Automotive Inc. and electrical utilities similar to NRG Power Inc., mentioned in an announcement. “This determination instantly subverts federal rules and our worldwide commitments — and President Biden’s government order to affect the federal fleet.”
The Postal Service’s determination is a blow to President Joe Biden’s bid to shift the U.S. authorities away from gasoline-powered fashions towards plug-in hybrids and EVs that now make up lower than 1 p.c of the federal fleet. The Postal Service’s contract means as much as 23 p.c of the federal authorities’s fleet is past his attain, BloombergNEF mentioned Wednesday.
Though the Biden administration has restricted authority over the Postal Service as a result of it’s an unbiased company, federal courts have discovered the USPS continues to be certain by the Nationwide Environmental Coverage Act that requires evaluation of main coverage selections. And federal courts have beforehand invalidated authorities leases offered to personal firms after discovering that evaluation missing.
The USPS “is taking part in a really high-stakes recreation” by “going in opposition to what the legislation requires,” Adrian Martinez, an legal professional with the environmental group Earthjustice, mentioned previous to the announcement.
The Postal Service mentioned its strategy was finest as a result of it’s going to make sure the company has a “purpose-built right-hand drive car able to assembly efficiency, security, and ergonomic necessities for environment friendly provider deliveries to companies and curb-line residential mailboxes over your entire nationwide system.”