16 States Are Suing the US Postal Service

The U.S. Postal Service received’t quit gasoline with out a combat, and now it’s getting one.

California Attorney General, Rob Bonta, is main the cost. He filed a lawsuit today towards USPS over the postal service’s plans to exchange about 165,000 growing old, fossil-fuel-powered supply automobiles with one other spherical of gas-guzzling vehicles. The swimsuit is backed by attorneys generals of 15 different states, and as a bonus, Washington D.C., New York City, and environmental teams.

In the authorized grievance, the states start their introduction with the next:

The United States Postal Service has one of many largest civilian automobile fleets on the earth. Its automobiles are on the street, six days every week, in each neighborhood within the United States. While they play a vital function delivering the nation’s mail, these automobiles additionally pollute the air within the communities the place they function and emit important quantities of greenhouse gases. As its present automobile fleet nears the tip of its helpful life, the Postal Service has been offered with an incredible alternative to transform its fleet to zero-emission, electrical automobiles, a change that will alleviate air pollution in overburdened communities and assist sort out the local weather disaster.

And they’re not unsuitable. Swapping the entire outdated automobiles with new, electrical ones would stop an estimated 537,415 metric tons of carbon dioxide from coming into the environment, from direct tailpipe emissions alone. And that’s in keeping with the USPS’s own environmental impact statement on the difficulty. For context, eradicating that quantity of CO2 from the equation is equal to nearly 9 million trees rising for 10 years.

On high of the carbon emissions, the USPS estimated that transitioning to an all-electric fleet would additionally stop nearly 1 million tons of harmful nitrogen oxides from coming into the air yearly, together with greater than 11,000 tons of carbon monoxide, and a whole bunch of tons of deadly particulate matter.

The Biden Administration has previously pledged to transition 100% of presidency automobiles to zero-emission fashions by 2035. But final 12 months, the postal service introduced a brand new, gas-powered design for his or her vehicles, that didn’t go over so nicely. Those upgraded automobiles would solely supply a .4-mile-per-gallon improvement (as much as a dismal 8.6 mpg) over the established order, in keeping with the EPA, which issued a letter urging the USPS to rethink its choice in February. The White House Council on Environmental Quality also weighed in, siding with electrical choices.

There are earnest conversations available concerning the vary of electrical automobiles for serving rural areas, or learn how to set up all these chargers, however finally, the USPS has mentioned it’s opting to not go along with EVs due to the associated fee. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy cited “dire financial condition(s),” in a February statement sustaining that the USPS can be retaining its foot on the gasoline pedal.

DeJoy additional acknowledged that 5,000 electrical automobiles is all his company can afford except they get more cash. “Absent such funding, we must make fiscally responsible decisions,” he mentioned.

For context: the added value to the USPS of choosing electrical automobiles over new, combustion-engine automobiles would solely be $2.3 billion—absolute chump-change for the federal authorities that spends $6 million dollars on every new, quasi-functional tank it builds, in keeping with a report by Forbes. Or, $13 billion alone on an unsure plane provider, in keeping with Bloomberg.

And, because the 30-year age of the present retiring fleet goes to indicate, choices made now to avoid wasting a pair billon bucks could have long-lasting impacts. “Once this purchase goes through, we’ll be stuck with more than 100,000 new gas-guzzling vehicles on neighborhood streets, serving homes across our state and across the country, for the next 30 years. There won’t be a reset button,” mentioned AG Bonta, in a statement. He added, “We’re going to court to make sure the Postal Service complies with the law and considers more environmentally friendly alternatives before it makes this decision.”