Democratic senator presses Postal Service on electric vehicle purchasing plans

The chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee pressed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy for answers on the progress of the electrification of the U.S. Postal Service’s vehicle fleet Friday, days after a similar request from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

In the letter to DeJoy, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) said the Postal Service has a “prime opportunity” to spearhead the federal government’s transition to electric vehicles and called for the agency to complete a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for its vehicle purchases.

“I am gravely concerned by recent communications from the EPA and CEQ [White House Council on Environmental Quality] that the USPS Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for Next Generation Delivery Vehicles (NGDV) provides a fundamentally flawed analysis that underestimates the long-term costs of operating and maintaining gasoline-fueled vehicles, and overestimates the costs of purchasing and charging electric delivery vans,” Carper added.

The Delaware Democrat also expressed concerns that the plan would hurt Postal Service competitiveness compared to the private sector, noting that Amazon has entered a contract to receive 100,000 electric delivery trucks from Rivian. FedEx, meanwhile, is planning to buy tens of thousands of electric vehicles by 2030, with a goal of carbon neutrality by 2040.

On Wednesday, both the EPA and the CEQ sent letters to DeJoy, a longtime donor to former President Trump, calling on him to cancel the planned purchase of up to 165,000 gas-powered vehicles for the Postal Service fleet. EPA Associate Administrator for Policy Vicki Arroyo noted in the letter that the plan approved by DeJoy would only require 10 percent of new Postal Service trucks to be electrified.

“A ten-percent commitment to clean vehicles, with virtually no fuel efficiency gains for the other 90 percent is plainly inconsistent with international, national, and many state GHG emissions reduction targets, as well as specific national policies to move with deliberate speed toward clean, zero-emitting vehicles,” she wrote.

Arroyo also wrote that the Postal Service’s plan is based on existing electric vehicle charging infrastructure, rather than planning around its likely expansion in the years ahead.

“Should USPS move forward on the basis of that EIS, it will be taking action that is not only unwise, but will also expose the service to significant legal jeopardy,” Carper wrote. “You have the ability to change paths before any vehicles are purchased.”

The Hill has reached out to the Postal Service for comment.