The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) will spend $9.6 billion on 66,000 electric trucks and their infrastructure in the name of climate change.
Yes, BILLION. Yes, the postal service:
Postal officials’ plans call for buying 60,000 “Next Generation Delivery Vehicles” from defense contractor Oshkosh, of which 45,000 will be electric, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told The Washington Post. The agency will also purchase 46,000 models from mainstream automakers, of which 21,000 will be electric.The Postal Service will spend $9.6 billion on the vehicles and associated infrastructure, officials said, including $3 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act, President Biden and congressional Democrats’ landmark climate, health-care and tax law.
DeJoy boasted the agency will buy “zero-emissions delivery trucks almost exclusively” by 2026.
Where is the postal service getting almost $10 billion to buy these vehicles?
Well, a bill passed in February forgave much of the postal service’s $63 billion debt and gave the agency a $107 billion bailout.
The postal service lost almost $87 billion between 2006 and 2010.
Then in August, Congress gave USPS $3 billion in the $430 billion climate bill specifically for electric vehicles.
We still have slow service, only one or two people at the post offices, and incompetent mailmen. I get mail for people who live on the other side of the neighborhood at least once a week. I lost count of how many times the mailman shoved boxes into my mailbox or didn’t pick up mail even though I put up the red flag.
In Flagstaff, AZ, several neighborhoods went days without mail. The people had to reach out to the post office for answers:
“Flagstaff Main Post Office has not been delivering mail to our 65-unit townhouse community except sporadically,” said Sherri Jablonski, a resident of East Spring Meadows Circle, near Foxglenn Park.“The week of Dec. 5 we went three days without delivery, finally receiving our mail on Dec. 10. Last week we did not receive any mail until Dec. 15,” Jablonski added.This sporadic service was enough to send Jablonksi and a neighbor to their local post office to inquire about the delays.“We were both given the following reasons,” Jablonski said. “It’s the holidays, we’re short-staffed, if it’s dark when they get to your mailbox unit, they will bring all your mail back to the post office.”
Jablonski said others found out one carrier needed to take time off for health reasons, people working over 12 hours a day, etc. But the mail is vital:
“My personal concern is that I mail 10-20 bill payments twice a week for my work,” she said. “I can no longer put outgoing mail in the complex mailbox as I don’t know when it will be picked up.”“It is not the fault of the carriers,” she added. “From what I understand, it’s management.”
But hey, let’s spend billions on electric trucks instead of using the money for efficiency and restructuring the mess.
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