Seven months after a mail carrier’s heat-related death in Woodland Hills, U.S. Rep. Tony Cárdenas introduced a bill Friday that if enacted would require all U.S. Postal Service delivery vehicles to be equipped with air conditioning within three years.
U.S. Postal Service carrier Peggy Frank, 63, was found dead in her non-air-conditioned mail truck on July 6, a day that temperatures soared to 117 degrees. The North Hills resident died of hyperthermia, an abnormally high body temperature caused by a failure of the body to deal with heat coming from the environment.
“Peggy Frank would have benefitted from us putting this in place perhaps 10, five, or three years ago and her grandchildren would have a grandmother today,” Cárdenas, D-Panorama City, said in an interview with the Southern California News Group.
The bill, co-sponsored by U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) and dubbed the Peggy Frank Memorial Act, would require any delivery vehicle “owned or leased” by the Postal Service to include an air conditioning unit no later than three years after the bill becomes law.
“We look forward to reviewing the bill as introduced by Rep. Cárdenas,” U.S. Postal Service spokesman David Walton said via email.
He said the agency had no further comment at this time.