DeJoy is brazenly flouting the administration’s goals on labor and on environmental protection. Biden has committed to converting the entire federal fleet of vehicles to electric power. The USPS fleet is about one-third of all those vehicles. The USPS is an independent agency and doesn’t have to abide by Biden’s executive order on zero-emissions electric vehicles.
So he’s not. “Our commitment to an electric fleet remains ambitious given the pressing vehicle and safety needs of our aging fleet as well as our fragile financial condition,” DeJoy said in a news release. Meaning he really doesn’t have a commitment to an electric fleet. “The process needs to keep moving forward. The men and women of the U.S. Postal Service have waited long enough for safer, cleaner vehicles.”
On the other hand, federal courts previously have held that the USPS is bound by the National Environmental Policy Act when making major policy decisions. If a court found the agency didn’t adequately analyze the environmental impact of this decisions, the contract could be invalidated. And this decision is going to go to court, with environmental groups already preparing to sue. Adrian Martinez with environment group Earth Justice told Bloomberg that the USPS “is playing a very high-stakes game” by “going against what the law requires.”
“The United States Postal Service’s ill-informed and costly decision will lock Americans into an overwhelmingly gas-powered mail delivery system for generations to come,” the Zero Emission Transportation Association, which represents electric vehicle makers and electric utilities, said in a statement. “This decision directly subverts federal regulations and our international commitments — and President Biden’s executive order to electrify the federal fleet.”
DeJoy clearly feels untouchable at this point, and he might be despite the fact that he was in the top five of the most corrupt Trump hires, and is definitely the most corrupt Trump holdover. For whatever reason, President Biden made the decision to wait on filling the Board of Governors with his people, making it clear to them that getting rid of DeJoy was a priority. Over the past year, there hasn’t been a great deal of pressure from Democrats in Congress to do it—even though they loathe DeJoy—because they’ve been prioritizing their Postal Service reform bill and haven’t wanted to rock that boat.
Now that bill is headed for a Senate vote next week. It’s got broad bipartisan support, but that doesn’t mean Republicans are going to allow it to pass easily. They’ve already delayed it once for no good reason.
Senate Republicans have also begun a concerted campaign of blocking Biden’s nominees in committee, so the future of the two remaining Biden nominees to the Postal Service Board of Governors has to be in question, particularly if it looks like their appointment would end up with DeJoy’s ouster.
DeJoy’s assault on the environment could potentially be stopped in the courts, but that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be out on his ear. That’s going to take a concerted and unified Senate Democratic conference that is willing to change the Senate’s rules on nominations to defeat Republican obstruction. It’s going to take Biden prioritizing saving the institution.
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