Return to sender.
That’s the message two Republican lawmakers have regarding the Biden’s administration’s $3 billon contract for 55,000 electric postal trucks.
‘I am defunding this billion-dollar boondoggle to stamp out waste in Washington. Tax dollars should always be treated with first-class priority.’
That’s enough to replace a quarter of the USPS fleet. So far, the Wisconsin-based defense contractor Oshkosh has delivered a whopping 93 vehicles.
At at that rate, they should be done by the time we open the first post office on Mars.
Par for the course for any government EV initiative. As are the reported cost overruns. Fortunately, we’ve entered the DOGE age. And two members of the caucus — Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Representative Michael Cloud (R-Texas) — are demanding your money back with the “Return to Sender Act.”
The act seeks to rescind the entirety of the $3 billion, allocated under the Biden administration’s 2022 “Inflation Reduction Act.”
ATTN: Kamala
That’s the same IRA Kamala Harris loved to brag about on the 2024 campaign trail. After all, she cast the tiebreaking Senate vote to pass it. And now she doesn’t mind admitting that the whole thing is really just a backdoor enactment of the Green New Deal, which pushes for a massive shift to zero-emission transport.
The agreement with Oshkosh called for an initial order of 50,000 electric delivery trucks over a three-year period that started in 2022, meaning they’re way behind schedule, with less than 0.2% delivered by late 2024.
And here we thought EVs were more efficient.
“Biden’s EV postal fleet is lost in the mail,” said Ernst, who is also DOGE Caucus chair. “The order needs to be canceled with the unspent money returned to sender, the taxpayers. I am defunding this billion-dollar boondoggle to stamp out waste in Washington. Tax dollars should always be treated with first-class priority.”
Cloud echoed these sentiments, highlighting reports suggesting that the price per truck has jumped from $55,000 to over $70,000.
‘We don’t know how’
Oshkosh is believed to be struggling with the production of the electric Postal Service vehicles, with insiders claiming the contractor is uncertain it can build the trucks effectively under the terms of the former Biden government’s contract. Furthermore, rising costs have compounded the project’s delays.
The Washington Post reported that Oshkosh’s CEO expressed satisfaction with the project’s status, stating the company is “really happy where we are.” However, internal sources revealed challenges, with one individual commenting, “We don’t know how to build a damn truck.”
Mail bomb
A USPS spokesperson defended the initiative, stating that fleet modernization is central to the Postal Service’s “Delivering for America” plan — a 2021 strategy to revamp the struggling USPS with new tech and a greener fleet to meet federal emission cuts by 2030.
The USPS reiterated the commitment to environmentally sustainable vehicles, aligning with financial and operational considerations, and affirmed that deliveries of new vehicles remain on schedule.
As the “Return to Sender Act” progresses, it will serve as a focal point for discussions on fiscal responsibility and the role of oversight in government-funded initiatives. This fight isn’t just about mail trucks — it’s a test case for whether Biden-era green spending can survive a new wave of Republican oversight, especially with the 2026 midterms looming.
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