The U.S. Postal Service and its unions are pushing back against Republicans in Congress who want to block the service from deploying more electric vehicles.
The budget reconciliation bill that’s pending in the Senate would require the government to sell the post office’s electric vehicles, along with charging equipment, though the language may be on the way out.
In the House, an Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee is holding a hearing Tuesday on the Postal Service’s long-term plans. Discussion about the fleet is likely to come up.
Committee Republicans have frequently targeted former Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s decision to electrify most of the service’s fleet following pressure from Democrats.
The House hearing will feature testimony from at least one witness who has criticized the Postal Service for buying EVs — Paul Steidler, senior fellow at the conservative Lexington Institute.
Peter Pastre, the Postal Service’s vice president of government affairs and public policy, sent a letter to senators earlier this month defending the EV fleet.
“Summarily removing all electric vehicles and charging infrastructure would hobble our ability to deliver to the American people, it would directly harm our ability to serve your constituents, and it would waste crucial funds for no reasonable purpose,” wrote Pastre.
The postal EVs got a reprieve last week when the Senate parliamentarian said the GOP sell-off plans did not meet the rules for budget reconciliation.
It would cost $450 million to replace the 7,200 electric vans the Postal Service is already operating, and the service has spent $540 million on charging infrastructure, Pastre said. The agency’s long-term plan calls for buying 66,000 electric vehicles over 10 years.
The vehicles would likely fetch only a fraction of their value on the used-car market, and there’s no market for used charging equipment, Pastre wrote. What’s more, much of the charging infrastructure is already buried under parking lots at local post offices.
More broadly, Republicans and the Trump administration have been critical of the Postal Service for its financial performance and have floated the idea of privatizing the agency. The Postal Service is a quasi-government agency that funds most of its own operations, although it relies on Congress for capital funds and other expenses.
DeJoy, who stepped down in March, agreed in 2022 to convert most of the postal fleet to electric vehicles after a yearslong fight with Democrats, the Biden administration and environmental groups. Congress provided $3 billion for the electrification program in the Inflation Reduction Act.
The National Association of Letter Carriers helped design the service’s electric truck, known as the Next General Delivery Vehicle, and the battery-powered vehicles have been popular with rank-and-file postal workers. Many of the post service’s existing gasoline-powered trucks date to the 1980s and don’t have air conditioning or modern safety features.
“This ridiculous effort to slow down or stop the Postal Service from procuring new delivery vehicles for letter carriers threatens our safety and the service we provide,” NALC President Brian Renfroe wrote on social media. “New delivery vehicles are already long overdue. Gas, electric, hydrogen, or otherwise-powered — doesn’t matter.”
Renfroe will testify this week at the invitation of Democrats. Other witnesses include Jim Cochrane, CEO of the Package Shippers Association, and Thomas Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste.
This story also appears in E&E Daily.
