Washington, D.C. – On Tuesday, April 5, 2022, Zero Emission Transportation Association (ZETA) Executive Director Joe Britton testified in the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform. The hearing that examined the benefits, opportunities, and challenges of electrifying the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) delivery fleet.
ZETA has been a leading voice in calling for USPS electrification as the Postal Service delivery fleet stands among the best use cases for electrification in the entire federal fleet.
“The Postal Service’s decision to procure an overwhelmingly polluting fleet will leave Americans worse off by ignoring the crucial cost savings and societal benefits that electrification will bring,” said Joe Britton. “Electrifying the transportation sector is among our greatest opportunities to mitigate the devastating effects of climate change, improve public health, and create good-paying American jobs—and electrifying the Postal Service is a key opportunity to accelerate the electrification transition.”
Britton’s testimony illustrated the environmental, public health, and economic advantages of electrifying USPS. He made this case by examining independent analyses that have studied USPS electrification, which found that USPS could save $4.3 billion through electrification. Britton also highlighted other private parcel delivery services that have committed to electrification; these companies, operating in the free market, believe that electrifying their fleets will deliver long-term competitive advantages. Finally, Britton explained the plethora of technical deficiencies in USPS’s cost analysis, which informed its decision to not electrify the majority of its fleet. USPS’s analysis was opaque and limited, but from the little they have disclosed, it is clear that their assumptions were not grounded in fact.
“USPS’s attempt to justify putting inefficient, polluting vehicles on the road for the next thirty years is indefensible,” continued Britton. “The short-term solvency of USPS is no longer in doubt thanks to Congress’s passage of the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022, and USPS’s financial situation is drastically different than it was a few short weeks ago. USPS should be in a much stronger position now to make a short-term investment that will lead to long-term cost savings—and that will dramatically benefit the American people.”
About ZETA
The Zero Emission Transportation Association (ZETA) is a federal coalition focused on advocating for 100% EV sales by 2030. ZETA is committed to enacting policies that drive EV adoption, which will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, secure American global EV manufacturing leadership, drastically improve public health, and significantly reduce carbon pollution.
