Washington (AP) – One year after being greeted for his plan to replace thousands of aging, gas mail trucks with a mainly electric fleetThe US postal service is confronted with Congress attempts to exceed billions of dollars in federal funds from VE.
In June, the Senate parliamentarian blocked a republican proposal in a large tax bill and spending to sell the agency New vehicles and electric infrastructure And revoke the remaining federal money. But the efforts to stop the passage from the fleet to clean energy continue in the name of cost savings.
Donald Maston, president of the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, said that the cancellation of the program would now have the opposite effect, wasting millions of dollars.
“I think it would be short-sighted for Congress to suddenly decide that they will try to retreat and withdraw money for electric vehicles or stop this process because it will just be a pile of money on the infrastructure that has been wasted,” he said.
Beyond that, many in the scientific community fear that the government can transmit an opportunity to reduce carbon emissions that contribute to global warming when urgent actions are necessary.
Electric vehicles reduce emissions
A 2022 University of Michigan study I found that new electric postal vehicles could reduce the total greenhouse gas emissions up to 20 million tonnes during the cumulative lifespan of 20 years planned and cumulative. It is a fraction of the more than 6,000 million metric tonnes issued each year in the United States, said Professor Gregory A. Keoleian, co-director of the university sustainable systems center. But he said that the thrust to electric vehicles is critical and must accelerate, given the Intensification of impacts of climate change.
“We are already do not To reduce emissions, “said Keoleian.” We have progressed, but the actions taken or proposed will really reverse progress in decarbonization that has been made to date. “”
Many GOP legislators share Critics of President Donald Trump Green energy thrust of the Biden era and say that the postal service should stick to the delivery of the mail.
Senator Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said: “He had no meaning for the postal service to invest so strongly in an entirely electric force.” She said she would continue legislation to cancel what remains of $ 3 billion in the inflation reduction law allocated to help cover the cost of 10 billion dollars of new postal vehicles.
Ernst described the EV initiative of “boondoggle” and “an example of waste manual”, citing delays, high costs and concerns about performance in cold weather.
“You always assess the programs, see if they operate. But the rate to which the company provides these vehicles is able to produce them, they are so far behind, they will never be able to fulfill this contract,” said Ernst during a recent appearance at the Fair of the State of Iowa, referring to the defense of Oshkosh based in Wisconsin.
“For the moment,” she added, “gas vehicles – use ethanol – I think it’s wonderful.”
Corn -based ethanol is a boon for Iowa farmers, but the effort to reverse the course has another republican support.
Representative Michael Cloud, R-Texas, a co-sponsor of the return effort, said that the Order of Electric Vehicles should be canceled because the project “has given only delays, defective trucks and the rowing costs”.
The postal service maintains that the production delay in next generation delivery vehicles, or NGDV, was “very modest” and not unexpected.
“The rise of the quantity of production was planned and intended to be very progressive in the first months to allow the resolution of production or modest potential suppliers to successfully resolve,” said spokesperson Kim Frum.
EVS helps in modernization effort
The independent and self -funded federal agency, which is paid mainly by shipping costs and sales of products, is in the midst of a modernization and financial stabilization plan of $ 40 billion. The EV effort had the full support of Democratic President Joe Biden, promised Move towards a fully electric federal fleet of cars and trucks.
The plan “Delivering for America” calls for the modernization of the fleet on the ground, in particular the vehicle of Grumman Long Life, which dates back to 1987 and which is at 9 MPG. Vehicles have exceeded their lifespan planned over 24 years and are subject to breakdowns and even fires.
“Our mechanisms are miracle workers,” said Mark Dimondstein, president of the American postal workers Union. “Parts are not available. They make them. They do their best. “
The postal service announced in 2022 it would deploy at least 66,000 electric vehicles by 2028, including standard commercial models, after years of deliberation and critical He was moving too slowly to reduce emissions. By 2024, the agency received a presidential durability prize for its efforts to electrify the largest fleet in the federal government.
Build new postal trucks
In 2021, Oshkosh Defense obtained a contract of up to 165,000 vehicles of the next generation of battery and internal combustion of Next Generation over 10 years.
The first of the strange trucks, with caps resembling a duck bill, started the service in Georgia last year. Designed for greater packaging capacity, trucks are equipped with airbags, monitoring blind versions, collision sensors, 360 -degree cameras and anti -lock brakes.
There is also new creature comfort: air conditioning.
Douglas Lape, special assistant of the president of the National Association of Transporters of Letters and former carrier, is among the many postal employees who had their say in the new design. It marvels at the way Oshkosh has designed and built a new vehicle, transforming an old Northern Caroline warehouse under the factory along the way.
“I was in this building when it was only shelves,” he said. “And now, being a completely functional plant where everything is built internally – they apply the bodies in there, they make all the assembly – it’s really incredible in my opinion.”
Where things are now
The agency has so far ordered 51,500 NGDV, including 35,000 vehicles powered by battery. To date, it has received 300 battery vehicles and 1,000 gas gases.
The former post officeman, Louis Dejoy, said that in 2022, the agency should mainly buy zero emission delivery vehicles by 2026. He still needs internal combustion engine vehicles that roam longer distances.
FRUM, the postal service spokesman, said that the planned purchases of the NGDV had been “carefully taken into account in a commercial point of view” and are deployed on the routes and the installations where they will save money.
The agency also received more than 8,200 of the 9,250 Ford E-Transit electric vehicles it has ordered, she said.
Ernst said it was good for the postal service to use electric vehicles already purchased.
“But what do you know? We have to be intelligent in the way we provide services by the federal government,” she said. “And it was not an intelligent decision.”
Maxwell Woody, principal author of the University of Michigan study, made the opposite case.
Postal vehicles, he said, have low average speeds and a high number of stops and begin that allow regenerative braking. The roads on average less than 30 miles and are known in advance, which facilitates planning.
“This is the perfect application for an electric vehicle,” he said, “and it is a particularly ineffective application for an internal combustion engine vehicle.”
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The writer Associated Press Hannah Fingerhut to monks, Iowa, contributed to this report.
