Watchdog Slams Lawmakers for Interfering with Mail Truck Purchases

For Immediate Release                          Contact: Abigail Graham (202) 417-7235

May 11, 2022

Washington, D.C. – Today, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) criticized lawmakers for attempting to get in the way of the U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS) fleet acquisition strategy. In February of 2021, the agency announced a ten-year agreement with manufacturer Oshkosh Defense to replace its aging fleet and purchase of up to 165,000 new mail trucks. Despite the USPS and Oshkosh’s plan to make 10 percent of these vehicles electric, lawmakers have deemed this figure inadequate and pushed for the revision or cancellation of the procurement contract. Today, House Democrats led by House Oversight and Reform Committee chairwoman Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) will hold a vote to invalidate the USPS’ environmental impact study conducted on the contract and pressure the agency to shift course.

TPA President David Williams sharply criticized Rep. Maloney’s planned vote, stating, “it’s one thing for lawmakers to closely monitor agency actions to ensure that bureaucrats aren’t bleeding taxpayers dry. It’s quite another matter to micromanage agency contracts in a way that would balloon costs and steer the USPS away from economical purchases. America’s mail carrier faces a rapidly aging fleet, and regular truck fires, mechanical malfunction, and employee complaints speak to the need for immediate replacement. Rep. Maloney is trying to stall this critical process simply because there aren’t enough costly electric trucks being produced for her liking.”

Williams continued: “If House Democrats truly have qualms with the USPS’ environmental impact studies, lawmakers should team up with their colleagues on the other side of the aisle to enact comprehensive and methodological reforms on how agencies quantify the cost of various pollutants. But, invalidating one analysis because it contains unpopular or counterintuitive conclusions jeopardizes expertise at agencies and politicizes the entire process. Both agency officials and the USPS’ inspector general carefully calculated the costs and benefits of electric adoption and found a conventional fleet to be more cost-effective under a variety of assumptions. There’s simply no reason to ignore or disregard these results.”

Williams concluded: “It’s important that lawmakers don’t neglect the big picture. The USPS has lost more than $90 billion over the past 15 years and direly needs to revamp its procurement process. Playing partisan games with agency contracting is not the way forward.”

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Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to educating the public through the research, analysis and dissemination of information on the government’s effects on the economy.