Trump and GOP’s tax bill would sell off USPS’s brand-new EVs
Postal Service officials told lawmakers the proposal would cause “substantial harm” to “our customers, your constituents.”
June 21, 2025. Washington Post
By Jacob Bogage.
A little-noticed provision of President Donald Trump and Republicans’ massive tax and immigration legislation would force the government to undo billions of dollars in electric vehicle investments made by the U.S. Postal Service, unwinding much of the Biden administration’s climate push at the mail agency while dealing it a sharp financial setback.
The Postal Service in 2022 embarked on plans to purchase 66,000 electric mail delivery vehicles, many of them bespoke “Next Generation Delivery Vehicles” from the defense contractor Oshkosh. The agency has also purchased hundreds of E-Transit delivery vans from Ford and spent more than half a billion dollars remodeling its outdated mail and package sorting facilities to accommodate electric and low-emissions vehicles.
The agency expects to spend $9.6 billion on the project in total; $3 billion of that comes from taxpayer dollars to cover the cost difference between gas-powered vehicles and more expensive EVs. The remaining funding comes from the Postal Service’s independent accounts. The agency is largely self-sufficient, financed by the sale of postage products.
The Senate’s version of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill would see the General Services Administration take possession of the nearly 7,200 new postal EVs and associated infrastructure and put the assets up for auction. The proposal is unlikely to generate much revenue for the government; there is almost no private-sector interest in the mail trucks, and used EV charging equipment — built specifically for the Postal Service and already installed in postal facilities — generally cannot be resold.
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“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,” Peter Pastre, the Postal Service’s vice president for government relations and public policy, wrote to senators this month.
A summary of the legislation released by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), who chairs the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said the provision “aims to cut unnecessary costs and focus USPS on delivering mail and not achieving the environmental initiatives pushed by the Biden Administration.”
A spokesperson for Paul did not respond to a request for comment.
The proposal comes as congressional Republicans search desperately for spending cuts to offset the nearly $4 trillion cost of their tax policies. The legislation would extend tax cuts from Trump’s first term and end taxes on tips and overtime wages while spending hundreds of billions of dollars on immigration enforcement and national defense.
To offset the cost and reduce federal borrowing, the legislation would cut more than $1 trillion from social safety net programs and unwind most of President Joe Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which included the largest-ever U.S. investment to combat the climate crisis.
The mail trucks were part of that program. Biden administration officials hoped that postal procurement would bolster the small-but-growing domestic EV market, both for commercial fleets and individual consumers.
But the GOP’s bill eliminates almost all of the Biden-era EV and clean energy incentives; House and Senate Republicans are debating whether to cut them immediately or phase them out over several years.
The main source of savings from the postal proposal would come from revoking unspent funding, though much of that money has been obligated as part of the Postal Service’s contracts with vehicle and infrastructure vendors.
“It will cost the Postal Service $1.5 billion of funds that we desperately need in order to serve the American people, and it will seriously cripple our ability to replace an aging and obsolete delivery fleet,” Pastre wrote. “We urge the Senate and the committee to pause and consider the substantial harm this proposal would cause to the Postal Service and our customers, your constituents.”
Representatives for the Postal Service and Oshkosh did not respond to requests for comment. A Ford representative declined to comment.
The Postal Service is in desperate need of new delivery vehicles. Its fleet of “Long Life Vehicles” hit the streets between 1987 and 1994; the trucks are so old, the mail agency must reverse-engineer discontinued vehicle parts to conduct basic repairs. The vehicles occasionally burst into flames due to decades of overuse.
But the program to replace those trucks has faced significant setbacks. Oshkosh encountered delays and engineering problems during early manufacturing runs, and disagreements — and accusations of corporate dishonesty — among executives plagued the production process, The Washington Post reported in December.
Oshkosh was supposed to have delivered about 3,000 vehicles by the end of 2024. Instead it had provided roughly 100 and raised its prices as the Postal Service ordered additional EVs.
After Congress approved vehicle funding for the agency, Oshkosh charged an Inflation Reduction Act “premium adjustment” that increased the overall value of the Oshkosh purchase by more than half a billion dollars, according to company financial disclosures.
Some of Trump’s allies have identified the program as an example of government waste. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) wrote on social media in December that the vehicles were “a ■■■■■■■■ Green New Deal scam that’s throwing your money away.”
Elon Musk, then a Trump ally and part of his government efficiency drive, wrote on X, “That is a crazy price per truck.”
Postal Service stakeholders are set to testify before a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee Tuesday to discuss the mail service’s finances and operations.
What readers are saying
The comments overwhelmingly criticize the proposal to auction off the Postal Service’s new electric vehicles and infrastructure, viewing it as a wasteful and short-sighted decision. Many commenters argue that the electric vehicles are more efficient, environmentally friendly, and…
cannot be made up and how are we supposed to remain apolitical.
