The United States Postal Service (USPS) wants to add 165,000 new trucks to its fleet, which hasn't been upgraded in over 30 years. The agency says it must upgrade its trucks due to their "inefficient gasoline engines" and lack of "modern safety features." But now congressional Democrats hope to stall the agency's plan because it won't add enough electric vehicles, even though forcing the USPS to purchase an entirely "green" fleet would cost the financially troubled agency billions more than its proposed plan.
As required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the USPS submitted its environmental impact statement for Next Generation Delivery Vehicle acquisitions in January 2021. The agency plans to purchase 50,000 to 165,000 new trucks over the next 10 years, of which 5,000 would be battery electric vehicles. This means that 10 percent of the new USPS vehicles will be emissions-free and the remaining 90 percent will be gas-powered.
