After intense pressure from progressives and purveyors of man-made climate change theories, the United States Postal Service (USPS) is finally going green. The organization announced that it will be replacing its aging mail trucks with 66,000 new electric vehicles in the quest to become a zero admissions entity by the end of 2026. The agency also admitted that, for the time being, fossil-fueled vehicles will be updated for long-distance deliveries across the nation. As Kermit sang, “it’s not easy being green.”
It makes sense to some degree: City vehicles can plug in for the night and manage their routes with ease. But don’t look to USPS as a leader in combating climate change. They were sued and finally caved in to cancel culture like other businesses. Executing a victory lap, Adrian Martinez, a senior attorney at the nonprofit Earthjustice, could not hide his excitement: “Ultimately, this shift will buffer us from volatile gas prices,” he said, “spur the growth of clean energy jobs, and have us all breathing easier.” Earthjustice is one of several complainant agencies that filed lawsuits over environmental policy laws.
President Joe Biden got in on the celebration as well. Several officials in the administration posed in front of the “Next Generation Delivery Vehicles.” They praised the Democrat leader for his $3 billion budget booster through the Inflation Reduction Act. The administration is powering forward on its mission to take America green, and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy preened during the presser:
“As our financial trajectory improved, as our delivery strategy evolved, and with the help of the congressional funds to facilitate our ambition, we were very well positioned to move forward with more favorable plans that everyone can rally around.”
All it takes is money.
Where Do Those Special EVs Come From?
Oshkosh is the defense contractor in charge of producing and overseeing the metamorphosis of mail delivery with “Next Generation Delivery Vehicles.” On order are currently 46,000 EV mail-carrying trucks with a plan to meet Biden’s expectations and goals in his mission to combat alleged rising global temperatures. France already has 40,000 electric post vehicles, and Germany has 20,000 on the road. That doesn’t make the Biden administration appear to be leading the world in much of anything.
(Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Other delivery services, including Amazon and FedEx, have committed to following suit – hoping to remake their fleet in the same eco-friendly image. But there are concerns. The USPS must come up with $9.6 billion to cover the replacement of the fleet. It’s not as if the post office suddenly became solvent. And Oshkosh, even with rising stocks, reminded people they would face engineering delays which then constitutes construction stagnation for the new trucks. And adding in training postal employees on their new rides would be “challenging.”
But It Looks Good
The optics of this announcement are excellent for progressives and the Biden administration – whether or not there is any real money available to retrofit and produce these “Next Generation Delivery Vehicles.” But those hysterical of the sky falling are high-fiving the president. As Adrian Martinez stated, “In the course of a year, we’ve gone from a USPS plan to buy trucks with the fuel economy of a late 1990s hummer to a visionary commitment to modernize mail delivery in the United States with electric trucks.”
DeJoy did pipe in with caution about the coming green wave: “Our mission is to deliver mail to 163 million addresses first, and to the extent that we can align with other missions of other agencies and the president, I want to do that.” That was a passive-aggressive message if ever there was one.
