A U.S. Postal Service employee prepares packages for supply throughout Cyber Monday within the SoHo neighborhood of New York, on Monday, Nov. 29, 2021.
Angus Mordant | Bloomberg | Getty Pictures
The U.S. Postal Service on Wednesday accomplished a last regulatory requirement for its plan to interchange its supply fleet with 1000’s of gas-powered autos, forging forward with a choice that is drawn robust opposition from the Biden administration and environmental teams.
The Postal Service operates roughly 230,000 autos, making up one-third of the nation’s complete federal fleet. Earlier this month, the EPA and the White Home Council on Environmental High quality urged the Postal Service to conduct an up to date and extra detailed technical evaluation and maintain a public listening to on its plan.
The group has now accomplished the analysis, placing it on observe to ship the primary of the brand new autos subsequent 12 months, which is able to embody at the very least 5,000 electric-powered autos.
Postmaster Normal Louis DeJoy, a Trump ally who was nominated to the place in 2020, pledged final 12 months to transform 10% of its new vans to electrical energy.
“Our dedication to an electrical fleet stays bold given the urgent automobile and security wants of our growing old fleet in addition to our fragile monetary situation,” DeJoy said in a statement on Wednesday.
DeJoy added that the Postal Service should buy extra electrical autos underneath the plan if extra funding “from both inner or congressional sources turns into accessible.”
The Postal Service’s plan would blunt the Biden administration’s pledge to interchange its federal fleet of 600,000 automobiles and vans to electrical energy and minimize the federal government’s carbon emissions by 65% by mid-century.
Regardless of a latest rise in electrical autos gross sales within the U.S., the transportation sector is likely one of the largest contributors to the nation’s climate-changing emissions, comprising roughly one-third of whole emissions annually.
By reversing course on its plan and electrifying the brand new mail vans, the Postal Service may forestall the federal government from burning 110 million gallons of gasoline annually, in line with the environmental nonprofit Earthjustice.
“DeJoy’s plans for the postal fleet will drag us again many years with a truck mannequin that will get laughable gasoline economic system. We could as effectively ship the mail with hummers,” Adrian Martinez, senior lawyer on Earthjustice’s Proper to Zero marketing campaign, stated in an announcement.
“DeJoy’s environmental assessment is rickety, based on suspect calculations, and fails to fulfill the requirements of the regulation,” Martinez stated. “We’re not achieved combating this reckless choice.”
“Neither rain, nor sleet, nor monetary good sense will cease the leaders of the U.S. Postal Service from attempting to purchase soiled, polluting supply vans,” Patricio Portillo, transportation analyst on the Pure Sources Protection Council, stated in an announcement.
“For the sake of unpolluted air and price financial savings, it is time to return this plan to sender,” Portillo stated.