Bill would upgrade USPS truck fleet
$6B earmarked to decarbonize federal vehicles
WASHINGTON – Congress is trying to deliver an oversized package to the U.S. Postal Service: roughly $6 billion to accelerate the electrification of the agency’s vehicles by the end of the decade.
The money, tucked into the Democrats’ Build Back Better bill of social spending programs being negotiated in Congress, would represent the most ambitious step to decarbonize the federal fleet and provide a down payment on President Joe Biden’s efforts to confront climate change.
Transportation makes up 29% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, more than any other sector, and gas-guzzling Postal Service trucks – some more than 30 years old – comprise nearly one of every three vehicles operated by the federal government outside the Pentagon.
The new trucks – as many as 165,000 – will be larger, more suited for the Postal Service’s transition from a letter-centric agency to one focused on parcels to adjust to shifting economic trends. Dubbed “Next Generation Delivery Vehicles,” they’re projected to start hitting neighborhood streets in 2023 under a contract the USPS awarded to Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Defense, a company that manufactures military vehicles. The $6 billion in the Build Back Better plan would help speed production of the mail trucks.
The trucks will be equipped with 360-degree cameras, air conditioning, advanced braking and air bags, extras designed to improve safety for drivers and vehicles. Over the past decade, hundreds of trucks have caught fire.
U.S. taxpayers will foot the cost for the Postal Service, which is otherwise self-funded and perennially in debt. A modern fleet is expected to reduce fuel and maintenance costs, a welcome development for an agency that reported a net $9.2 billion loss in 2020.
James O’Rourke, professor of management at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, called the proposal “a very big deal” for
the Postal Service and its customers.
Equally important, he said, is the bipartisanship between Democratic lawmakers, led by California Rep. Jared Huffman, who put the legislation together, and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump appointee and former GOP fundraiser who has sparred with lawmakers over postal policy.
“It’s an uncommonly important demonstration of cooperation and collaboration between Republicans and Democrats,” O’Rourke said. “They have reached across the aisle to say, ‘Something that we really regard as beloved, and terribly important, is facing failure. And we ought to step up and do something.’ This isn’t gonna fix everything. But it’s a very nice first step.”
A decade-long push
Climate activists have pressured the USPS for the better part of a decade to retool its fleet.
The proposal in the Build Back Better Act would require at least three-quarters of the vehicles purchased to be electric. The remaining could be traditional gas-powered trucks. O’Rourke expects many of those would be 18-wheelers carrying heavy loads that battery-powered engines are not as well-equipped to handle.
The real game changer, he said, would be a ban on the Postal Service
from buying any non-electric/non-zero emission medium or heavy-duty vehicles after Jan. 1, 2040, a plan Huffman introduced in his own bill.
Huffman said the Postal Service under DeJoy has been transitioning far too slowly toward electrification, especially given the speed at which its delivery competitors have deployed the technology. Even with the $6 billion infusion, Huffman worries the USPS contract that allows for the production of gas-powered vehicles undercuts climate goals.
“Everyone knows we need to do this. All you have to do is look at the private fleets and what they have done. So you’ve got Amazon and FedEx, UPS. They’re all just doing this on the business case,” Huffman told USA TODAY. “And the outlier is the U.S. Postal Service under Louis DeJoy that has decided it wants to buy a new generation of internal combustion vehicles. That will literally be the last ones on the road 15, 20 years from now.”
The electrification of the postal fleet would build on the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill Congress passed last week.
The measure would provide $7.5 billion to build thousands of electric-vehicle charging stations around the nation and upgrade the power grid to accommodate the expected influx of batteryoperated cars and trucks. Additional billions are slated to electrify transit vehicles and school buses.
Consumers are slowly trading their vehicles powered by internal combustion engines for ones with batteries. The Build Back Better Act has $13.5 billion to support charging infrastructure in publicly accessible locations, including outside apartment buildings, workplaces and underserved areas.
The USPS is perfectly suited to electrification, said Jonna Hamilton, policy director for the clean transportation program with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Routes are short and structured so the Postal Service can “right-size” the battery for each truck. The frequent engine idling, which wastes gas and spews carbon, is not an issue for electric vehicles. And they all return to a central depot at night to recharge.
And the Postal Service will save money.
“Electric vehicles have fewer moving parts. You need to do less maintenance. There are no regular oil changes, and you’re using electricity as a fuel, which is much cheaper,” Hamilton said.
Most trucks built in South Carolina
The contract Oshkosh was awarded in February to build the “Next Generation Delivery Vehicles” has been a source of controversy.
The contract is the first part of a multibillion-dollar, 10-year effort to replace the Postal Service fleet, one of the world’s largest with more than 230,000 vehicles. Approximately 190,000 of those are used to deliver mail six, and often seven, days a week in every U.S. community.
In June, Ohio-based Workhorse, a competing bidder that specializes in electric vehicles, filed a formal complaint against the Postal Service’s award to Oshkosh, citing unspecified issues. That challenge was withdrawn in September. Members of Ohio’s congressional delegation also raised concerns, saying the contract didn’t go far enough in requiring the percentage of vehicles that had to be electric.
Oshkosh said it would produce the vehicles in South Carolina, a right-towork state, instead of its home, unionfriendly state of Wisconsin. The decision will translate to a $155 million investment and more than 1,000 new jobs, according to the South Carolina Department of Commerce.