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Sixteen states sue Postal Service over plan to purchase gasoline autos


United States Postal Service (USPS) staff load mail into supply vans outdoors a submit workplace in Royal Oak, Michigan, August 22, 2020.

Rebecca Prepare dinner | Reuters

Sixteen states on Thursday sued the U.S. Postal Service over its plan to exchange its getting older supply fleet with thousands of gas-powered delivery vehicles over the next decade, alleging that the company hasn’t adequately accounted for the environmental hurt of the autos. They have been joined by a number of different authorities businesses, and environmental and labor teams.

The lawsuits argue that the Postal Service’s environmental evaluation to justify spending as much as $11.3 billion on the gasoline vans, which solely get 8.6 miles per gallon, was deeply flawed.

The Postal Service has about 230,000 autos, making up about one-third of the nation’s whole federal fleet. Its plan to purchase gasoline vans would blunt President Joe Biden’s pledge to replace the federal fleet of 600,000 cars and trucks to electric power and minimize the federal government’s carbon emissions by 65% by 2030. The administration has pledged to slash U.S. greenhouse gasoline emissions almost in half by the top of the last decade and transition the economic system to net-zero emissions by 2050.

In February, the EPA and the White Home Council on Environmental High quality urged the Postal Service to conduct an updated and more detailed technical analysis and maintain a public listening to on its plan.

Nonetheless, the Postal Service later that month completed a final regulatory requirement that will enable it to take supply of the primary of the brand new autos subsequent yr. The company’s plan converts solely 10% of its new vans to electrical energy, far beneath pledges from Amazon and UPS, which have massive supply fleets.

The lawsuit alleges the plan violated the Nationwide Environmental Coverage Act and must be put aside. The go well with argues that the Postal Service’s gasoline autos would cease states from reaching their very own local weather change pledges.

“The Postal Service has a historic alternative to spend money on our planet and in our future,” California Lawyer Basic Rob Bonta said in a statement. “As a substitute, it’s doubling down on outdated applied sciences which might be unhealthy for our surroundings and unhealthy for our communities.”

“As soon as this buy goes by way of, we’ll be caught with greater than 100,000 new gas-guzzling autos on neighborhood streets, serving properties throughout our state and throughout the nation, for the subsequent 30 years,” Bonta mentioned. “There will not be a reset button.”

Regardless of the rise in electric vehicles gross sales in recent times, the transportation sector is among the largest contributors to the nation’s greenhouse gasoline emissions, representing about one-third of complete emissions yearly.

Postal Service spokesperson Kim Frum mentioned the company “carried out a strong and thorough evaluation and totally complied with all of our obligations underneath NEPA.”

“We should make fiscally prudent choices within the wanted introduction of a brand new automobile fleet,” Frum wrote in an e-mail. “We are going to proceed to search for alternatives to extend the electrification of our supply fleet in a accountable method, per our working technique, the deployment of acceptable infrastructure, and our monetary situation, which we count on to proceed to enhance as we pursue our plan.”

Becoming a member of the state of California within the lawsuit are the attorneys basic of Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington; in addition to the Metropolis of New York and the Bay Space Air High quality Administration District.

Two separate lawsuits have been filed by environmental teams CleanAirNow, the Heart for Organic Range and the Sierra Membership, with authorized illustration from Earthjustice; and by the Pure Assets Protection Council with the United Auto Staff.



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