Stop in the name of environmental law.
That’s what prosecutors across the U.S. are telling the U.S. Postal Service in a lawsuit that aims to stop the agency from replacing most of its vehicle fleet with more fossil-fuel burning vehicles.
Led in part by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, attorneys general in 15 states and the District of Columbia as well as the city of New York and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, filed suit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Northern California.
“The Postal Service has a historic opportunity to invest in our planet and in our future,” Bonta said in a statement. “Instead, it is doubling down on outdated technologies that are bad for our environment and bad for our communities.”
More than 100,000 new “gas-guzzling” vehicles will be on neighborhood streets for the next 30 years, if the purchase goes through, Bonta said.
The Postal Service is replacing the vehicles because they are nearing the end of their useful life.
The state prosecutors allege that the Postal Service is not complying with the National Environmental Policy Act, even its basic requirements.
“There won’t be a reset button,” Bonta said. “We’re going to court to make sure the Postal Service complies with the law and considers more environmentally friendly alternatives before it makes this decision.”
In the Bay Area, transitioning to zero-emission vehicles is vital to improving air quality and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, said Damian Breen, senior deputy executive officer of operations/enforcement at the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.
“The impact of the Postal Service’s purchasing decision would be felt for decades and have real and lasting health impacts on local communities – many of whom are communities of color that are already overburdened by air pollution,” Breen said. “This decision cannot go unchallenged.”
Not only are postal vehicles on the streets six days a week, polluting the air, but many postal facilities are in communities facing substantial pollution already, the prosecutors allege.
West Oakland residents, for example, suffer from air pollution from the nearby freeways as well as the Port of Oakland. The Postal Service operates a major mail distribution center in West Oakland.
Another Postal Service distribution center is in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood, historically a community of color and one where residents have suffered from pollution from multiple sources.
“Given the transformational nature of this change and its significant environmental and public health implications, the Postal Service was obligated to follow a process mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act,” the lawsuit says.
The Postal Service was obligated “to take a ‘hard look’ at the impacts of its ‘Next Generation Delivery Vehicle Acquisitions’ program – to look before it leaps,” the lawsuit says. “The Postal Service failed to do so here.”
Prosecutors allege the Postal Service signed a contract and put a down payment on new vehicles even before publishing a cursory environmental review, which the Postal Service denies.
“The Postal Service conducted a robust and thorough review and fully complied with all of our obligations under NEPA,” Postal Service spokesperson Kim Frum said.
Frum said the Postal Service placed an order on March 24 for 50,000 vehicles and at least 10,019 will be battery electric vehicles or BEVs.
The Next Generation Delivery Vehicle Acquisitions program is flexible, Frum said, allowing “for future increases in the mix of BEVs should additional funding become available from internal or other sources, and if the use case for BEVs continues to improve.”
Frum cited the need to make “fiscally prudent decisions in the needed introduction of a new vehicle fleet” and said battery electric vehicles cost more than gas-powered vehicles.
Prosecutors are seeking to stop the acquisition of vehicles until the Postal Service follows NEPA. Prosecutors are also asking for, among other things, a ruling that the Postal Service violated NEPA.
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NEPA is a public process and information process. The Act does not require mitigation.
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Bonta, like his predecessors and left wing ilk, is misinterpreting laws for political purposes.
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Wow!…The Postal Service is racist, who knew?
A struggling business and they don’t factor in the operating cost to go green. I doubt over the long run they will be able to afford operating it if forced to switch over to the green dream
PO is struggling because the Republicans want to kill and privatize it. That is why in 2006 they made a law requiring the PO to fund its retirement accounts for the next 75 years.
Doh you blindly follow anything that is Democrat. The fact is at this point wanting to use unproven electricity trucks is a risk that will more than likely cost a lot to maintain and operate with no real benefits to anything
Yeah, right Doh blame the Republicans for all the Postal service failures, and while your’e at it, might as well blame The Beatles breaking up in1970 for the reason we do not have World peace today.
Just another way for the government to have control.Where are they going to charge all those vehicles?And there goes the price of postage.And most importantly let’s bring race into the picture.But wait what about the white people?Oh that’s right we are racist.
Get ready for $5.00 stamps. How much is it going to cost to put electric charging stations at every post office? And if there is a power failure no mail.
The USPS can’t even get the mail delivered within budget.
Now more regulations?
Do we see a $5 stamp in our future plus regular bailouts?
Yes, the postal service could definitely be doing more to help the environment. I suggest that letter carriers be required to have a pointy stick, and pick paper trash as they walk their route. They could also use large tricycles instead of motor vehicles, and collect recycled cans and bottles along the way.
Martinezmike, you forgot the part about issuing rakes to them to Save the Forests…
OK.
Unlike most of us here that live in a very suburban environment, many parts (much) of the Country live in very rural areas. These areas experience very extreme temperature ranges in the winter and summer, and the USPS carriers also have to travel much, much longer distances to complete their route. These vehicles (unlike a family auto) also operate 6 days a week, every week, every year for a period of 6-8 hours, which will likely require recharging at a significant level. Batteries also do not like extreme temperatures and have a tendency to “fade” and/or fail very quickly in extreme temperatures (especially the cold, icy temperatures experienced regularly in 2/3’s of the Country during the winter), also likely requiring recharging at a significant level.
So you hate to say it, but a gas combustion motor is much more reliable and efficient mode of transport for our mail than the “politically correct” electric moter (which still req.
U.S. Postal Service To Do More For Environment = higher postage costs = failure.
The lib looneys never grasp basic economics.
“Fiscally prudent decisions”.
Translation: Roll over for the climate change fanatics or else.
The Bayview district suffers from additional pollution because certain residents periodically light stacks of old car tires on fire. It’s their recreation, a social thing.
Best equip those electric mailtrucks with body armor for that area, as they’ll certainly need it. On the bright side, you could say it’s part of the authentic San Francisco experience.
The postal service only needs to deliver residential mail 2x a week. That would be environmental. Stop delivering junk mail. That’ll save trees, besides I just throw it in the recycling bin without reading anyway. That’ll be environmental too. Are they going to do these two things to be environmental, nope, because the USPS is a wasteful jobs program.
I agree 2x a week is more than sufficient or even 2x a month would be MUCH better. Oh and now that the city of New York is functional again, what do those hoods have anything to do with us ???
If the USPS is forced to go “green”. it will take no time at all for all prices to go up, and all services to go down. This insanity needs to stop.
More political smoke. How do you expect postal carriers to safely drive anywhere alongside all these zombies that hog the roadways nowadays ? How about everyone turn in their license privileges and fly kites ? Obviously the Earth has more intelligence and experience in these matters. Why doesn’t the attorney Generals simply crack down on all the pre printed bogus advertising and flyers as well as all the post dated or past ads that are purely gimmicks ? That alone would save billions and Trillions of pollution generated non sense. The postal carriers are human beings and not machines.
Great! So here in Northern California, when PG&E has rolling blackouts, we’ll get no mail delivery??
Oop its Bonta again. Spending taxpayer dollars to create meaningless legislation that only serve to stir the woke cockles of his voting base.
Bonta should focus on junk mail.
“Environmental Effects of Junk Mail
5.6 million tons of catalogs and other direct mail advertisements end up in U.S. landfills annually.
44 percent of junk mail is thrown away unopened, but only half that much junk mail is recycled.
The average American household receives 848 pieces of junk mail, which equals 1.5 trees every year and more than 100 million trees for all U.S. households combined. That’s the equivalent of deforesting all of Rocky Mountain National Park every four months.
Largely due to deforestation, junk mail manufacturing creates as much greenhouse gas emissions annually as 3.7 million cars.”
https://thinkbynumbers.org/government-spending/usps-uses-18-billion-in-taxpayer-subsidies-to-subsidize-junk-mail-killing-100-million-trees-and-irritating-millions/
Bonita should focus on crime and make efforts to reduce it. Get hard on crime .
You can sign up to opt out of receiving junk mail. Look it up on Google, how to opt out of junk mail. The junk mail will stop about four weeks after you opt out.
Maybe if they ‘feel good enviro” crowd can shut down the Main PO in Oakland they can also get their meat hooks into the AmTraK base next door to it and shut them down also.
Air is now racist? Goodness.
Wow ……all these responses, and only one (usual) dumazz thinks it’s the Republicans fault?
Stop 6 day a week delivery to residences, it is totally unnecessary. I don’t need to receive junk mail that often. If you have medications you need, time them so they arrive timely.
I’d rather they buy hybrid vehicles than EV or gas only. Since our mailman seems to have to drive to every house on the residential streets, it makes sense to use hybrid vehicles.
The biggest Methane polluters are wetlands. Wetlands produce 30% of methane which impacts the Earth. Not to mention, NASA launching rockets contributes to Soot and aluminum oxide in rocket oxide depletes upper-atmosphere ozone, which shields the Earth’s surface from damaging ultraviolet rays. So…the green deal is not so green..now is it? Keep buying into the Donkeys agenda and we will be living back in caves. All these battery operated vehicles are made by communists as well as solar panels.
Tired is so right about the marshes & wetlands….Just north of the Benicia Bridge area is a huge wildlife marsh area..(Suisun Marsh)…..loaded with methane.
And the Rocket launches are another huge problem.
The biggest Methane polluters are wetlands. Wetlands produce 30% of methane which impacts the Earth. Not to mention, NASA launching rockets contributes to Soot and aluminum oxide in rocket oxide depletes upper-atmosphere ozone, which shields the Earth’s surface from damaging ultraviolet rays. So…the green deal is not so green..now is it? Keep buying into the agenda and we will be living back in caves. All these battery operated vehicles are made by the Red Dragon as well as solar panels.