Post Office to Deliver More Clean Trucks

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Facing unprecedented opposition to its plan to invest in polluting delivery vehicles, the U.S. Postal Service changed course today and said it would buy thousands more clean electric vehicles for its fleet.  

NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) and the United Auto Workers (UAW) sued the U.S. Postal Service in April over its unjustified and illegal previous plan.   

The following is a statement from Britt Carmon, federal clean vehicles senior advocate at NRDC: 

“The U.S. Postal Service finally got the message that cleaner vehicles are a win all around. Investing in more electric vehicles will deliver cost savings for the postal service, cleaner air for communities across the nation, and lower emissions for all of us.” 

“This change pushes the envelope in the right direction, but it’s also not nearly enough. To save money and protect our health, the Postal Service should go much further and electrify most of its fleet. As time goes on and the costs of these vehicles continue to fall, we fully expect that USPS will eventually increase the number of electric vehicles it buys.” 

Background 

The Postal Service decided earlier this year that it would purchase gasoline-fueled engines for up to 90% of its new fleet of 165,000 vehicles. USPS based this plan on undisclosed and unsupported assumptions about the environmental impacts of gas-powered vehicles and the cost of buying and operating electric vehicles. NRDC and the UAW sued to force the USPS to correct those errors and then use that accurate information to justify the purchase of tens of thousands more electric vehicles.  

For more details, see this blog.  

NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Since 1970, our lawyers, scientists, and other environmental specialists have worked to protect the world's natural resources, public health, and the environment. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Bozeman, MT, and Beijing. Visit us at www.nrdc.org and follow us on Twitter @NRDC.