Lawmakers are ramping up pressure on the U.S. Postal Service to increase its use of electric vehicles after Congress provided the agency with $3 billion for expressly that purpose.
USPS has been slow to release its plans to spend that money and has yet to update its promised EV purchase rate since receiving the funds. The Postal Service is in the midst of replacing 165,000 trucks and vans from its fleet. It has so far ordered 50,000 vehicles through its multi-billion dollar contract with Oshkosh defense and said half of those would be electric. It announced it would buy an additional 35,000 EVs off the shelf,
“I am concerned that the Postal Service still appears to be many months away from finalizing a plan to use the $3 billion in new funding Congress appropriated for EVs,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., who will chair the House Oversight and Reform Committee until she departs Congress next year. “That delay will set back the effort to electrify the postal fleet, and I urge the Postal Service to move faster to produce a clear plan for using the resources appropriated by Congress and build a fully electric postal fleet.”