Trump campaigned on a promise to claw back climate investments and shudder the EV transition. Recently, Senator Rand Paul introduced legislation that would’ve forced the USPS to auction off every single electric vehicle and charging station it has already purchased, gutting one of the largest federal clean fleet transitions in U.S. history.
This wasn’t just a slap in the face to postal workers and environmental advocates, it was a full-blown betrayal of the American people, who’ve already invested $3 billion in electrifying the Postal Service through the landmark Inflation Reduction Act.
Over 7,200 EVs are already on the road, and 14,000+ charging stations are being installed at postal facilities right now. Rand Paul’s plan would’ve senselessly sent all of it to the scrap heap.
Republicans like Rand Paul and Trump’s goals are clear: dismantle climate progress, sabotage public investment, and score political points with extremist anti-government donors. Rand Paul’s bill would permanently ban USPS from buying electric vehicles and force it to cancel contracts already signed with manufacturers.
Let’s be clear: Paul’s sell-off scheme would’ve wasted $1.5 billion in hard-earned taxpayer money,left postal workers driving dangerously outdated, gas-guzzling mail trucks with no A/C in record-breaking heat. In addition to spontaneously bursting into flames, these aging Grumman LLVs are needlessly polluting frontline Black and Brown communities that already bear the brunt of disproportionate carbon pollution.
It’s fiscally reckless, operationally disastrous, and morally indefensible. It doesn’t have to be this way. USPS’ own analysis said 98.5% of their routes could be serviced by electric mail trucks.
Tell your member of Congress to defend postal workers, communities and the planet by defending the USPS’s clean energy future now.