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WASHINGTON: A U.S. Postal Service plan to switch its large fleet of mail-delivery vehicles has too few electrical autos and falls in need of President Joe Biden’s targets to deal with local weather change, the Environmental Safety Company mentioned Wednesday.
In a sharply worded letter to the Postal Service, the EPA says its plan to make 10% of its next-generation fleet electrical underestimates greenhouse fuel emissions, fails to contemplate extra environmentally protecting possible options and inadequately considers impacts on communities with environmental justice issues.
It known as for a brand new environmental evaluation, saying the present proposal is a “essential misplaced alternative to extra quickly scale back the carbon footprint of one of many largest authorities fleets on the earth.”
A ten% dedication to scrub autos, with nearly no gasoline effectivity positive factors for the opposite 90%, is plainly inconsistent with” Biden’s plan to “transfer with deliberate velocity towards clear, zero-emitting autos,” Affiliate EPA Administrator Vicki Arroyo wrote in a five-page letter obtained by The Related Press.
The Postal Service didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
However Postal Service officers mentioned in a doc submitted to EPA that full electrification of the 230,000-vehicle fleet would value a further $3.3 billion over the present plan. Cash for a 100% electrical fleet is included in Biden’s sweeping, $2 trillion Construct Again Higher plan, however the proposal stays stalled in Congress due to objections by Republicans and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
Biden has set a objective to slash planet-warming greenhouse fuel emissions by at the very least 50% under 2005 ranges by 2030, with a objective to attain net-zero emissions by 2050.
The Postal Service plan to switch its growing older fleet of mail vehicles and different supply autos represents the only largest federal automobile procurement within the foreseeable future,” the EPA mentioned. The postal fleet is prone to keep in service for many years, making the choice of find out how to change it an “unparalleled alternative for the federal authorities to steer by instance on local weather and clear power innovation,” Arroyo wrote.
The Postal Service selected Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Corp. final yr to assemble 50,000 to 165,000 Subsequent Technology Supply Autos. The corporate has mentioned it can make the autos at a reconfigured warehouse in South Carolina, creating 1,000 new jobs.
The brand new automobile is greener than present fashions, which date to the Nineteen Nineties, however most nonetheless will likely be powered by gasoline. The fleet could have options reminiscent of local weather management, air baggage, backup cameras and collision avoidance. The vehicles are additionally taller to make it simpler for postal carriers to seize packages and parcels, which have been making up a far higher portion of their deliveries, even earlier than the coronavirus pandemic.
USPS described the deal as the primary a part of a multibillion-dollar, 10-year effort to switch its supply automobile fleet.
In a letter to EPA on Monday, the Postal Service mentioned it may well perceive why EPA needs the brand new fleet to be higher than 10% electrical, however says that’s past the scope of its evaluation.
Disagreement with a coverage determination … is neither a mirrored image of the adequacy of an Environmental Affect Assertion, nor a adequate floor” to hunt a brand new evaluation, mentioned Jennifer Beiro-Reveille, senior director of environmental affairs for the Postal Service.
The Postal Service final up to date its mail-delivery vehicles 30 years in the past, and there have been main adjustments within the companies operations since then. Conventional mail volumes have declined, whereas the service now delivers tens of millions of packages from on-line retailers like Amazon that didn’t exist when the earlier mail automobile was launched.
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