The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) just approved plans to deploy a new delivery fleet consisting almost entirely of gasoline-powered trucks, even as Amazon, UPS and FedEx are going all-in on climate-friendly electric vehicles (EVs). Although Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is willing — eager, even — to put more EVs in USPS’s Next Generation Delivery Vehicle (NGDV) fleet, he has consistently said he needs Congress to cover their higher upfront cost, and the $6 billion the House approved for that purpose is part of the stalled Build Back Better (BBB) bill.
But as Dorothy Robyn writes in RealClearEnergy, Congress and the Biden Administration should find the funds for postal EVs. Despite USPS’s flawed environmental review of NGDVs and ongoing Republican opposition to taxpayer support for electric ones, electrification of the USPS fleet is the single most effective way the federal government can use its vast buying power to drive the market for clean energy technology.
