States Sue Postal Service Over New Gas-Powered Mail Trucks

WASHINGTON — Attorneys normal from 16 states and the District of Columbia, together with 5 environmental teams and the United Auto Staff, launched a authorized problem in opposition to the US Postal Service on Thursday, claiming that it violated the regulation when it ordered hundreds of recent mail vehicles powered by gasoline as a substitute of electrical energy.

Collectively, the three lawsuits filed in two completely different federal courts increase the stakes of a battle over the local weather impacts of the Postal Service’s iconic supply vehicles that has roiled the administration for months.

Earlier this 12 months, a number one Home Democrat, Gerald Connolly of Virginia, referred to as for the resignation of Louis DeJoy, the postmaster normal, saying that he flouted President Biden’s government order to affect the federal fleet by putting an order price as much as $6 billion over 10 years for principally gasoline-powered vehicles.

The Postal Service is an impartial company that isn’t certain by the administration’s local weather guidelines. It additionally owns greater than 231,000 automobiles, one of many largest civilian fleets on the planet. The contract can be the Postal Service’s first large-scale automobile buy in three many years.

Environmentalists stated that Mr. DeJoy’s order of 165,000 gasoline-powered mail supply vehicles from Oshkosh Protection, a Wisconsin-based firm that manufactures army automobiles, may harm the nation’s effort to fight local weather change. The United Auto Staff stated that it breaks the president’s promise to advance environmental insurance policies that can develop union jobs, for the reason that new vehicles are anticipated to be in-built nonunion factories.

These criticisms may have political repercussions for the president, who relied on help from environmental activists and union staff to win the White Home in 2020.

However the transfer was additionally unlawful, in keeping with the courtroom filings of the environmentalists, the union and the Democratic attorneys normal of California, New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois and 10 different states in addition to D.C.

They wrote that the Postal Service violated the 1970 Nationwide Environmental Coverage Act, or NEPA, which required it to think about the environmental impacts of the automobile buy.

“As a substitute, the Postal Service first selected a producer with minimal expertise in producing electrical automobiles, signed a contract, and made a considerable down fee for brand spanking new automobiles,” the attorneys normal wrote. “In doing so, the Postal Service did not adjust to even probably the most fundamental necessities of NEPA.”

A spokeswoman for the Postal Service, Kimberly Frum, stated that rivalry was false. “The Postal Service carried out a sturdy and thorough assessment and totally complied with all of our obligations,” she wrote in an e mail.

Ms. Frum added that the choice to buy the gasoline-powered vehicles, moderately than costlier electrical vehicles, additionally took into consideration the monetary woes of the Postal Service, which is at present about $206.4 billion {dollars} in debt. Earlier this month, Mr. Biden signed a bipartisan regulation that can relieve a few of that debt.

“The Postal Service is totally dedicated to the inclusion of electrical automobiles as a major a part of our supply fleet regardless that the funding will price greater than an inside combustion engine automobile. That stated, as we have now said repeatedly, we should make fiscally prudent choices within the wanted introduction of a brand new automobile fleet,” Ms. Frum wrote.

The Postal Service estimated that the brand new automobiles would get 29.9 miles per gallon. A separate evaluation by the E.P.A. discovered the automobiles may obtain lower than half that: simply 14.7 miles per gallon. And with the air-conditioning working, the brand new vehicles would solely get 8.6 miles per gallon, the E.P.A. stated.

Whereas mail supply vehicles make up a tiny fraction of the roughly 280 million automobiles on the street within the U.S., environmental teams stated the choice to order new gasoline-powered replacements might be consequential. An all-electric fleet wouldn’t solely ship environmental advantages and assist an rising manufacturing sector, but additionally function a strong image of an administration that’s decided to hurry the transition away from fossil fuels.

“As a substitute of transferring ahead with commonsense and out there know-how to mitigate the local weather disaster, clear up our air, and create good union jobs, USPS has determined to maintain polluting communities at a time when federal companies needs to be main the best way on electrification,” stated Katherine García, a coverage knowledgeable with the Sierra Membership, one of many environmental litigants.