Hirono, Colleagues Call for Postal Service to Ramp Up Efforts to Electrify the Mail Delivery Fleet

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI) joined her colleagues in a letter, led by Senators Edward Markey (D-MA) and Tom Carper (D-DE), to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and United States Postal Service (USPS) Board of Governors Chair Roman Martinez calling for USPS to dramatically increase mail delivery fleet electrification effort, an effort that would improve service on some 177,000 routes across the country. USPS estimates that the adoption of a fully electric fleet of Next Generation Delivery Vehicles (NGDV) would roughly triple reductions in greenhouse gas emissions compared to a fleet that is only 10 percent electric.

“We urge USPS to use the $3 billion in new funding from the Inflation Reduction Act to further increase its vehicle electrification efforts and not merely spend the money on the 40-percent BEV commitment it had already made and had the resources to achieve,” wrote the lawmakers. “With Inflation Reduction Act funding, USPS should aim higher and strive for at least a 95-percent electric mail delivery fleet that will reduce dangerous greenhouse-gas emissions, help usher in an era of ubiquitous clean car technology, and protect and create high quality union jobs in the domestic EV supply chain by insisting that the workforce producing the fleet affords workers the opportunity to collectively bargain.”

USPS received an additional $3 billion in funds from the Inflation Reduction Act to invest in battery electric vehicles (BEV) and supporting infrastructure. The lawmakers urge USPS to make a commitment to increase its fleet electrification commitment to 95 percent from 40 percent, leveraging the additional funding provided through the Inflation Reduction Act to not simply meet its previous commitment, but rather to make further progress towards a more ambitious benchmark. In the letter, the lawmakers also remind USPS that switching to BEVs would reduce air pollution in communities across the country.

In addition to Senators Hirono, Markey, and Carper, the letter was also signed by Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Martin Heinrich (D-NM).

The full text of the letter is available here.

As Chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Energy, Senator Hirono is working to expand the presence of electric vehicles and speed the transition to clean, renewable energy in Hawaii and across the country. In August, she helped pass the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which includes $1 billion for EPA grants to states or municipalities to cover the incremental cost of purchasing heavy-duty vehicles, like school and transit buses and garbage trucks. Earlier this year, she convened an Energy Subcommittee hearing on lowering energy costs that featured testimony from the President and CEO of Kauai Island Utility Cooperative about the long-term cost-savings offered by renewable power and electric vehicles. In June, she introduced legislation to require the Department of Defense to transition its fleet of non-combat vehicles to electric vehicles. 

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