Statement from Chair Mallory on the United States Postal Service’s Next Generation Delivery Vehicles
Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory today issued the following statement in response to the United States Postal Service’s (USPS) signing a record decision that moves the agency toward procuring an overwhelmingly gasoline-powered delivery fleet for its Next Generation Delivery Vehicles (NGDV), despite serious deficiencies and flaws in the agency’s environmental review for the contract.
“The Postal Service’s continuing push toward buying a mostly gas-powered fleet for the next thirty years is out of touch with technology and puts the agency at a major disadvantage to its competitors, who are all going electric,” said Chair Mallory. “The EPA identified major concerns with the environmental review for this contract, and the Postal Service should have corrected flaws with its approach before moving forward.”
“The Postal Service still has opportunities to change course, including by using its own significant cash reserves to improve its competitiveness by upgrading to electric vehicles. The Biden-Harris Administration also remains committed to helping the Postal Service implement this transition by working to pass the Build Back Better Act, which would invest $6 billion to help electrify the agency’s vehicle fleet and to deploy charging infrastructure.”
The procurement of the NGDV presents the USPS with a critical opportunity to harness modern clean technologies, improve air quality, advance environmental justice, and sustain competitiveness over the coming decades. Through NGDV, USPS has the option to achieve 70 percent electrification of the delivery vehicle fleet by the end of this decade.
Chair Mallory’s February 2, 2022 letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy provides additional information on the need for the agency to electrify its fleet and on the problems with the environmental review the agency conducted for the contract. The Environmental Protection Agency also submitted detailed comments describing the flaws with the USPS’s environmental review for its NGDV contract.
###
