Under the direction of Postmaster Louis DeJoy, the USPS is purchasing up to 148,000 gas vehicles, despite Biden’s pledge to fully electrify the fleet.
agency argues
that a largely gas-powered fleet would be cheaper than buying an all-electric fleet. But although this may be cheaper up front, gas vehicles would likely cost more in the long term; the EPA contends that the agency has been using completely inaccurate gas price estimates in their analysis. The USPS also had a chance in making the plan to buy lighter trucks that are more fuel efficient, but it opted to buy trucks that are nearly double the weight of the current vehicles.
Wednesday’s decision frustrated climate advocates. “DeJoy’s plans for the postal fleet will drag us back decades with a truck model that gets laughable fuel economy. We may as well deliver the mail with hummers,” Adrian Martinez, attorney for Earthjustice,. “DeJoy’s environmental review is rickety, founded on suspect calculations, and fails to meet the standards of the law.”
Martinez added that Earthjustice is prepared to fight the decision in courts, saying that electrifying the fleet entirely would avoid the burning of 110 million gallons of fuel annually. OtherClimate advocates say that the new fleet would needlessly lock in emissions for decades to come. Gas-powered mail trucks are especially inefficient energy-wise; according to the EPA, new gas trucks8.6 miles to the gallon, which is hardly an improvement over the current fleet’s average of 8.
Over the trucks’ 20-year life expectancy, the EPA wrote in a letter to the Postal Service, a 90 percent gas-powered fleet would emit as much carbon dioxide as 4.3 million passenger vehicles, or five coal power plants. They would end up costing climate damages of $900 million, according to social carbon cost analysis.
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