WASHINGTON — Congress plans to alter a U.S. Postal Service electric delivery vehicle contract in a way that would drastically cut the number of electric vehicles and increase the number of carbon-emitting vehicles built under the contract.
At a House Oversight Committee meeting on Tuesday, Rep. William Timmons, R-S.C., grilled Postmaster General Louis DeJoy on his decision to deviate from his original plan in 2021 to fulfill the Postal Service’s Next Generation Delivery Vehicle (NGDV) contract with 90% internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and 10% electric vehicles to a plan closer to 70% EV and 30% ICE.
“When I came [to lead the Postal Service in 2020], we needed vehicles, the purchasing department made the selection, we ordered 50,000 vehicles under a 90/10 ratio, and I said let’s dip our toe to see what EVs could do for us,” DeJoy said.
He had also received pushback from Democrats in Congress to align the NGDV contract, with Oshkosh Corp. [NYSE: OSK] subsidiary Oshkosh Defense, closer to the goals of President Joe Biden, who had issued an executive order in January 2021 to move federal fleets to zero emission. The Oshkosh Defense contract — $480 million over 10 years — is expected to result in up to 165,000 new trucks to replace the Postal Service’s aging fleet.
On Tuesday, DeJoy defended the current plan for the higher ratio of EVs.
“I did not agree to put EVs into our fleet until we had appropriate cost benefits to the organization,” he told lawmakers, noting that the cost benefit after including over $3 billion in vehicle and battery charging stations provided for by the Inflation Reduction Act “does in fact work for the Postal Service.”
But Timmons called the agency’s revamped NGDV plan reckless and expensive. “And guess what: Congress is about to fix it,” he told DeJoy, by reverting back to a 90% ICE and 10% EV ratio.
“I look forward to working with the incoming Trump administration to right this ship and be good stewards for taxpayer dollars. I want to protect the environment as much as anybody, but we have $36 trillion in debt. We need to be competitive in the global economy, and we can’t do that if we spend money we don’t have.”
Timmons, whose district includes Oshkosh Defense’s Spartanburg, S.C. facility where the NGDVs will be made, said the company told him that it “can switch back to 90/10; they don’t care.”
Unnamed sources in a recent news report claimed that Donald Trump’s transition team is considering canceling the NGDV contract entirely as part of an array of executive orders targeting electric vehicles.
However, “I think it was inaccurate,” Timmons told DeJoy. “I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. You need new vehicles, and there’s no reason that we should spend a billion-plus more dollars to impose a Green New Deal mandate on the post office. I think a very reasonable policy is on the horizon that I’m actually excited about.”
