Biden officials push to hold up $11.3 billion USPS truck contract, citing climate damage

 

The Environmental Protection Agency warns Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to halt his plan to replace the aging delivery fleet with thousands of gas-powered vehicles.

The Biden administration launched a last-minute push Wednesday to derail the U.S. Postal Service’s plan to spend billions of dollars on a new fleet of gasoline-powered delivery trucks, citing the damage the polluting vehicles could inflict on the climate and Americans’ health.

The dispute over the Postal Service’s plans to spend up to $11.3 billion on as many as 165,000 new delivery trucks over the next decade has major implications for President Biden’s goal of converting all federal cars and trucks to clean power. Postal Service vehicles make up a third of the government’s fleet, and the EPA warned the agency last fall that its environmental analysis of the contract rested on flawed assumptions and missing data.

The EPA and the White House Council on Environmental Quality sent letters to the Postal Service on Wednesday that urge it to reconsider plans to buy mostly gas-powered vehicles and conduct a new, more thorough technical analysis. The EPA also asked the Postal Service to hold a public hearing on its fleet modernization plans, a request the agency had rejected when California regulators made it Jan. 28.

...Transportation is the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, and even rising sales of electrical vehicles have yet to make a dent. Electric vehicle proponents had hoped the Postal Service purchase would provide a boost for the industry...MORE

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

No, the snow, rain or heat won't stop them, but the "gloom" of the DC Deep Thinkers sure might.

Perhaps Pat Paulsen said it best:

The federal government spends millions to run the Postal Service. I could lose your mail for half of that.