The Senate version of the repubilcans’ tax bill won’t just add trillions of dollars to the deficit through a massive giveaway to wealthy elites, it will also take the US Postal Service’s awesome new EVs and sell them off for pennies on the dollar, wasting money simply out of spite for vehicles that were already cleaning your air and making your community safer.

Update: The Senate parliamentarian has ruled that the body can’t force USPS to scrap these EVs, at least not without a 60-vote supermajority.

The Postal Service has used the same Grumman LLV vehicles for decades, produced from 1986-1994. So, some of these trucks are nearly 40 years old, and all of them are at least 30 years old.

The vehicles are showing their age – they get poor mileage, they break down often (or catch fire, as about 100 of the old gas guzzlers did last year), they emit significant pollution, and they have poor ergonomics.

Advertisement – scroll for more content

So, in 2015, the USPS started the process of finding a replacement.

After many bids and back-and-forth (including startups going out of business), the USPS, led by Postmaster Louis DeJoy, picked Oshkosh’s “Next Generation Delivery Vehicle” (NGDV) as the next postal vehicle (DeJoy, who was apparently not corrupt enough for the republicans, was forced out of his position in March and replaced by David Steiner, a board member of FedEx, a company that stands to benefit from republican attempts to hobble the USPS).

The NGDV is being built in a new Oshkosh facility in Spartanburg, South Carolina, hiring 1,000 additional employees in the area.

The vehicle has a goofy look to it, but it’s a goofy look for a reason.

The large window gives exceptional visibility, meaning the kids and pets that are likely to occupy residential areas are easier to see, and thus easier for drivers to avoid.

The low hood further enhances safety, by reducing damage done to a human body in a crash (unlike the land yachts which are so popular with consumers and have contributed to pedestrian deaths reaching all-time highs).

And the tall roof makes it easier for drivers to enter and exit, reducing strain on their bodies which means lower labor costs overall – less injury, drivers potentially being able to stay in their jobs longer, and so on.

But that’s just talking about the look of the vehicle – there are even more beneficial features, like much more cargo space, driver assistance safety features (around-view cameras, blind spot monitors and collision sensors), and air conditioning, something the original LLVs lacked (and which is only becoming more necessary as the planet heats up).

As for powertrain, the NGDV is available in both gas and electric options, with the gas version getting a paltry 8.6mpg (similar to the old LLVs), but the electric version being naturally much more efficient.

Electrification is a perfect choice for most delivery vehicles. These vehicles do set daily routes with lots of starting and stopping, in neighborhoods where people live and breathe, and return back to the same place every night. It’s an ideal application for EVs, for the vast majority of rotues.

Higher efficiency electric drive means money savings on fuel and maintenance for most routes. Overall, a highly electrified fleet was estimated to save taxpayers $4.3 billion over its lifetime.

But perhaps the most obvious benefit of electric mail trucks is the lack of pollution in the places where people spend most of their time: at home. (I don’t know about you, but my mail carrier’s broken truck stinks up the place every day, forcing me to close the windows as it fails to start half the time – and I’m pretty sure this is a common experience)

Despite these benefits, at first, USPS planned to buy only 10% EVs, with the remainder being gas. But after that announcement, several entities (including Electrek) pointed out that even by USPS’ uncharitable calculations, EVs would save money for the vast majority of routes (and that’s not considering health and environmental benefits).

Thankfully, reason prevailed over time, and the USPS gradually increased its plan such that it eventually said it would buy only electric trucks after 2026, with relatively few gas trucks acquired before then for the few routes that electric isn’t suitable for. It’s also supplementing those purchases with some off-the-shelf Ford E-Transits to function as delivery vehicles, with fewer custom features but an easier rollout as E-Transits are readily available.

The NGDV has suffered delays, but as the truck has finally started to roll out, it’s been enormously popular. When the truck started use last year in Atlanta, drivers immediately loved it. They loved the new features, better safety, and less stress on their bodies.

Republicans move to undo these improvements, wasting taxpayer dollars

And so, of course, republicans are now threatening this unequivocally good thing in a way that’s only going to cost taxpayers more money and ensure that your mail costs, the pollution you breathe in your home and the danger to your neighborhood all increase.

As reported by the Washington Post, Senate republicans are considering a version of the tax bill that would auction off these vehicles, at pennies on the dollar, seemingly simply out of spite for the program.

As usual, republican justifications for the billions of dollars in waste they’re proposing don’t stand up to even the slightest amount of scrutiny.

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) stated that the plan “aims to cut unnecessary costs and focus USPS on delivering mail and not achieving the environmental initiatives pushed by the Biden Administration.”

But Paul ought to know this is false, because he’s part of the Senate, the body that approved spending for these vehicles in the first place in 2022 (and, if you remember your high school civics class as Paul apparently does not, the Senate is not part of the “Biden Administration”). Nor is the USPS directly part of any presidential administration, since it is an independent federal agency, and during the bidding process was headed by Louis DeJoy, who was appointed during one Mr. Donald Trump’s first stint squatting in the White House.

Paul should also know that the bidding process started in 2015, and thus that the majority of it occurred while nobody named Biden was in the White House in the first place.

He also ought to know that most of that money is already spent, and selling off items the USPS already owns for pennies on the dollar doesn’t “save” anyone any money. Neither does having to buy all new gas vehicles, with higher fueling and maintenance costs, to replace them – this is the very definition of “unnecessary costs.”

(Update: In another lesson to Rand Paul about how the Senate works, the Senate Parliamentarian said that his USPS plan would require a 60-vote supermajority… but Congress has violated that rule recently anyway)

Worse, falling back to the old LLVs and/or restarting the bidding process for their replacement would take more time and cause more waste. And in the interim we’d be stuck with these “obsolete” vehicles (as the USPS itself calls them) which, as covered above, are inefficient, unsafe, lack features, and routinely catch fire. All of this gets in the way of the focus on delivering mail.

So, Paul is either lying or stupid, but given the letter after his name, we’re pretty sure it’s both.

The USPS rightly pointed out what a stupid idea this is, stating “The funds realized by auctioning the vehicles and infrastructure would be negligible. Much of infrastructure is literally buried under parking lots, and there is no market for used charging equipment” (hmm, tearing out charging equipment for no benefit at all? where have we heard that before…). It said this action “will seriously cripple our ability to replace an aging and obsolete delivery fleet.”

The service estimates that scrapping the 7,200 vehicles it already owns and is using would waste $1 billion, and tearing out infrastructure would cost $500 million, for a total pricetag of $1.5 billion worth of unnecessary waste – and this only accounts for money already spent, not the additional several billions in lost savings for Americans from lower fuel, labor, health and environmental costs.

USPS urged the Senate “to pause and consider the substantial harm this proposal would cause to the Postal Service and our customers, your constituents.”

But, given the republican party’s current direction, maybe that exhortation would backfire. Harm seems to be precisely what they want, as reflected in everything they’re doing these days.

If you do happen to be one of those constituents, particularly in a republican state, it might be worth giving your Senator a call and asking them to stop wasting your money and raising your mail costs by selling off money-saving vehicles that promise to clean the air of your community. Here’s where you can find your Senator’s contact info. This might be of particular interest to South Carolina Senators Lindsey Graham, (D.C. office phone (202) 224-5972, email form here) and Tim Scott (D.C. office phone (202) 224-6121, email form here), whose vote would kill jobs in their state, where the trucks are being built.

Update: There will be a House subcommittee hearing at 1PM EDT today, dealing with USPS issues as a whole, in which the EVs may or may not be mentioned. You can watch that hearing here: The Route Forward for the U.S. Postal Service: A View from Stakeholders

Among republicans’ proposed cuts is the rooftop solar credit. That means you could have only until the end of this year to install rooftop solar on your home, before republicans raise the cost of doing so by an average of ~$10,000. So if you want to go solar, get started now, because these things take time and the system needs to be active before you file for the credit.

To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.