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 ultimate regulatory requirement for its plan to switch its supply fleet with hundreds of gas-powered autos, forging forward with a choice that is drawn sturdy 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 updated and more detailed technical analysis and maintain a public listening to on its plan.
The group has now accomplished the analysis, placing it on monitor to ship the primary of the brand new autos subsequent 12 months, which can embrace at the very least 5,000 electric-powered autos.
Postmaster Common 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 car and security wants of our getting older fleet in addition to our fragile monetary situation,” DeJoy said in a statement on Wednesday.
DeJoy added that the Postal Service can buy extra electrical autos underneath the plan if further funding “from both inner or congressional sources turns into accessible.”
The Postal Service’s plan would blunt the Biden administration’s pledge to replace its federal fleet of 600,000 cars and trucks to electric power and lower the federal government’s carbon emissions by 65% by mid-century.
Regardless of a latest rise in electric vehicles gross sales within the U.S., the transportation sector is without doubt one of the largest contributors to the nation’s climate-changing emissions, comprising roughly one-third of whole emissions every year.
By reversing course on its plan and electrifying the brand new mail vans, the Postal Service may stop the federal government from burning 110 million gallons of gas every year, 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 gas financial system. We could as properly ship the mail with hummers,” Adrian Martinez, senior lawyer on Earthjustice’s Proper to Zero marketing campaign, mentioned in a press release.
“DeJoy’s environmental evaluate is rickety, based on suspect calculations, and fails to satisfy the requirements of the regulation,” Martinez mentioned. “We’re not accomplished combating this reckless determination.”
“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, mentioned in a press release.
“For the sake of fresh air and price financial savings, it is time to return this plan to sender,” Portillo mentioned.
