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 Activist -
Trump'a Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is at it again.
USPS finalized plans in February to purchase up to 148,000 mail delivery trucks from Oshkosh Defense, 90% of them powered by gasoline fueled combustion engines expected to get 8 miles per gallon.
 The Wisconsin company, after signing the contract with USPS, decamped to South Carolina to build the trucks with non-union workers. That’s 1,000 union jobs that their highly-skilled Oshkosh, Wisconsin workers were counting on.
DeJoy’s decision to sign a $11.3 billion contract for non-union built trucks with the fuel efficiency of a Hummer is disastrously bad management, and directly defies the Biden administration objections that the multibillion-dollar contract would undercut the nation’s climate goals.
The good news is we can stop Louis DeJoy. Thanks to Rep. Gerry Connolly’s new bill which prohibits the Postal Service from enacting its contract with Oshkosh Defense for the trucks, unless the fleet is made up of at least 75 percent electric vehicles. The bill already has 68 co-sponsors in the U.S. House. It’s time to get every member of Congress in the House and Senate on board and pass the bill before a single vehicle rolls off the assembly line.
Send a direct message to your members of Congress and demand they Block DeJoy’s Bad Deal! The USPS contract must require at least 75% electric trucks.
It’s not too late to stop this catastrophically bad contract from moving forward in its current form and it couldn’t come at a more important time for our nation and the fight against climate change.
Transportation is the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Studies show frontline Black and Brown communities bear the brunt of pollution from heavy trucks with combustion engines. Mail carriers who drive postal trucks are particularly affected from vehicle idling, which releases high levels of localized air pollution.
Signing up for another 20-30 years of this toxic pollution is madness.
President Biden has set a goal of converting all federal cars and trucks to clean power, and Postal Service vehicles make up a third of the government’s fleet already. As the Environmental Protection Agency’s Vicki Arroyo said in a letter to USPS:
“The Postal Service’s proposal as currently crafted represents a crucial lost opportunity to more rapidly reduce the carbon footprint of one of the largest government fleets in the world.”
The time for action is now. Tell Congress: Block DeJoy’s Bad Deal! The USPS contract must require at least 75% electric trucks.
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