Letter to Hon. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House - Congressman Tim Ryan Urges President Biden and Speaker Pelosi to Make U.S. Postal Fleet 100% Electric

Letter

Dear Speaker Pelosi:

We write to ask you to support funding in the upcoming infrastructure package to enable the Postal Service to purchase an all-electric delivery fleet and the needed infrastructure to support that fleet. There has never been a more critical time to ensure that all federal vehicles produce zero emissions, including the over 228,000 delivery vehicles operated by the Postal Service.

On January 27, 2021, President Biden issued an executive order calling for a comprehensive plan to acquire only "clean and zero-emission vehicles" for the entire federal fleet, including the Postal Service fleet. We support this goal, and we strongly support President Biden's proposal to include funding for electrification of the Postal Service fleet in the American Jobs Plan.

The Postal Service owns and operates one of the world's largest civilian vehicle fleets, composed of more than 228,000 vehicles. Over 140,000 of these vehicles are decades old, average only ten miles per gallon, and have reached the end of their 24-year operational lifespan. Maintaining these aging vehicles comes at a high environmental and financial cost--the Postal Service spends $2 billion and over 30,000 hours per year on delivery vehicle maintenance, and in fiscal year 2019 fuel costs alone for these vehicles totaled $491 million. Many of these vehicles also pose risks to the frontline workers who drive them. They have neither airbags nor anti-lock brakes, and there have been numerous accounts of these vehicles catching fire.

On February 23, 2021, the Postal Service announced the selection of Oshkosh Defense to produce the new Next Generation Delivery Vehicle (NGDV) for the Postal Service. Although the NGDV will provide much-needed modernization of the delivery fleet, unfortunately, this fleet will not be fully electric. The Postal Service has informed the Committee that although it supports the creation of a fully zero-emission fleet, it cannot currently afford the acquisition of solely electric vehicles. Under its current financial constraints, the Postal Service can only commit that 10% of the up to 165,000 vehicles planned for purchase under this contract over the next ten years will be electric or zero-emission. The Postal Service has indicated that it would require an additional $8 billion to acquire all electric vehicles and build the necessary charging infrastructure to support an electric fleet.

The Postal Service simply cannot afford to lock in another 25 years of reliance on primarily fossil fuel delivery vehicles--to do so would be short-sighted and fiscally disastrous for the already struggling agency, which has lost $69 billion over the last 11 years. It would also add another 25 years of unacceptable emissions at a time when the world is rightly moving away from combustion engines.

To ensure that any federal funding appropriated to the Postal Service for fleet acquisition is used appropriately, we would also include a requirement in the legislation that at least 75% of the Postal Service's new fleet must be electric or zero-emission. Further, we would require the Postal Service to acquire only electric or zero-emission vehicles after 2040.

The Postal Service has the potential at this critical moment to be an innovative leader in fleet acquisition and make bold investments in climate-focused reform. We ask that you support this critical funding in the upcoming infrastructure package.

Sincerely,