USPS rejects Biden’s plea to buy more electric mail trucks

The United States Postal Service decided to replace its mail truck fleet with all gasoline-powered vehicles, rejecting a request from President Joe Biden to include more electric vehicles in its purchase.

The independent agency's decision to move forward with a controversial plan to purchase 165,000 next-generation mail trucks, only 10 percent of which will be battery-electric vehicles, was announced Wednesday. There was no reason for the USPS to delay its plans.

Postmaster Louis DeJoy said in a statement that the agency would consider adding more EV's in the future.

The USPS unveiled its next-generation mail truck in February 2021. The defense contractor will make $500 million of the vehicles by 2023. The mail trucks that have been in service for more than two decades were built by defense contractor Grumman.

In congressional testimony last year, DeJoy said that only 10 percent of the new vehicles would be electric.

The EPA and White House Council on Environmental Quality sent letters to the postal service to reconsider their plans. President Biden wants to use the power of the government to purchase electric vehicles, upgrade federal buildings, and shift to cleaner forms of electricity in order to make the federal government carbon neutral by the year 2050.

The USPS holds out for the possibility of adding more EV's to its fleet in the future, despite rejecting those pleas. It would likely cost more to convert gas-powered vehicles to electric than it would to just buy EV upfront, as critics have noted.

Mark Guilfoil, USPS's vice president of supply management, thanked the federal agencies for their input. It is important to note that a public hearing is not required.

The USPS process for approving the next-generation fleet has been criticized by the EV industry. The Zero Emission Transportation Association slammed the move as "ill-informed and costly" and environmentalists were also upset.

Biden can't order the USPS to buy more EVs. The agency could get extra funding if Congress passes a law requiring it to do so.