WASHINGTON – Facing unprecedented opposition to its plan to invest in polluting delivery vehicles, the US Postal Service reversed course today and said it would buy thousands more clean electric vehicles for its fleet.
The NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) and the United Auto Workers (UAW) sued the US Postal Service in April over its previously unjustified and illegal plan.
Below is a statement from Britt Carmon, senior federal clean vehicle attorney at NRDC:
“The US Postal Service finally got the message that cleaner vehicles are a win everywhere. Investing in more electric vehicles will bring cost savings to the Postal Service, cleaner air for communities across the country 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 needs to 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 the USPS to eventually increase the number of electric vehicles it purchases.”
Background
The Postal Service decided earlier this year that it would buy gasoline 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 purchasing 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.
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NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is an international non-profit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and activists online. 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, DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Bozeman, MT and Beijing. Visit us at www.nrdc.org and follow us on Twitter @NRDC.
