By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Senate Republicans cannot force the U.S. Postal Service to scrap thousands of electric vehicles and charging equipment in a massive tax and budget bill, the Senate parliamentarian said late on Sunday.
The U.S. Postal Service currently has 7,200 electric vehicles, made up of Ford e-Transit vehicles and specially built Next Generation Delivery Vehicles built by Oshkosh Defense.
USPS warned on June 13 that scrapping the electric vehicles would cost it $1.5 billion, including $1 billion to replace its current fleet of EVs and $500 million in EV infrastructure rendered useless and “seriously cripple our ability to
replace an aging and obsolete delivery fleet.”
Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, whose role is to ensure lawmakers follow proper legislative procedure, said a provision to force the sale could not be approved via a simple majority vote in the Republican-controlled chamber and will instead need a 60-vote supermajority, according to Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee.
She ruled last week that Republicans cannot use the bill to overturn landmark rules to drastically reduce vehicle emissions and boost EV sales.
Senate Republicans have also sought to reclaim more than $1 billion out of $3 billion Congress gave USPS in 2023 as part of a $430 billion climate bill to buy EVs and charging infrastructure – including $1.2 billion for electric vehicles.
USPS told Congress “summarily removing all electric vehicles and charging infrastructure would hobble our ability to deliver to the American people, it would directly harm our ability to serve your constituents, and it would waste crucial funds for no reasonable purpose.”
Replacing the current 7,200 electric vehicles would directly cost the Postal Service at least $450 million and USPS has also spent $540 million on electrical infrastructure upgrades “which is literally buried under parking lots, and there is no market for used charging equipment,” the company added.
USPS would also face significant costs from Oshkosh for halting EV purchases under its contract. USPS said in December that purchases in 2025 would be around “50-50” EVs and gas-powered.
USPS plans to buy some 66,000 electric vehicles by 2028.
Senate Republicans argued scrapping EVs would “focus USPS on delivering mail and not achieving the environmental aims pushed by the Biden administration.”
In March, the White House forced out Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who led efforts to restructure the money-losing U.S. Postal Service for nearly five years. USPS has lost more than $100 billion since 2007.
David Steiner, a FedEx board member and former CEO of Waste Management, has been named as incoming postmaster general.
President Donald Trump said in February he was considering merging the Postal Service with the Commerce Department, a move Democrats said would violate federal law.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Tom Hogue and Kate Mayberry)
