Thursday: Sixteen States sued the U.S. Postal Service over its plan to replace its aging delivery fleet with thousands of gas-powered delivery vehicles over the next decadeThey claim that the agency hadn’t properly accounted for environmental damage from the vehicles. They were joined together by other agencies as well as environmental and labor groups.

The lawsuits argue that the Postal Service’s environmental analysis to justify spending up to $11.3 billion on the gas trucks, which only get 8.6 miles per gallon, was deeply flawed.

The Postal Service owns approximately 230,000 vehicles and accounts for around one-third the entire Federal fleet. This plan to purchase gasoline trucks would be a slap on President Joe Biden. pledge to replace the federal fleet of 600,000 cars and trucks to electric power and cut the government’s carbon emissions by 65% by 2030. This administration pledged to cut the U.S.’s greenhouse gas emissions in nearly half by 2020 and to transition to zero emissions by 2050.

The EPA and White House Council on Environmental Quality urged Postal Service officials to make February a priority. conduct an updated and more detailed technical analysis and hold a public hearing on its plan.

The Postal Service was however able to deliver the mail later in that month. completed a final regulatory requirementThis would enable it to receive the first vehicle next year. The agency’s plan converts only 10% of its new trucks to electric power, far below pledges from Amazon and UPS, which have large delivery fleets.

According to the lawsuit, the National Environmental Policy Act was violated and the suit should be dismissed. Suit claims that gas-powered vehicles owned by the Postal Service would prevent states from making their climate change promises.

“The Postal Service has a historic opportunity to invest in our planet and in our future,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement. “Instead, it is doubling down on outdated technologies that are bad for our environment and bad for our communities.”

“Once this purchase goes through, we’ll be stuck with more than 100,000 new gas-guzzling vehicles on neighborhood streets, serving homes across our state and across the country, for the next 30 years,” Bonta said. “There won’t be a reset button.”

Despite an increase in electric vehicles sales in recent years, the transportation sector is one of the largest contributors to the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, representing about one-third of total emissions every year.

Kim Frum, spokesperson for the Postal Service said that they had conducted a thorough and robust review of their records and fully met all NEPA obligations.

Frum sent an email saying that Frum must take fiscally responsible decisions when introducing a new vehicle fleet. We will keep looking for ways to electrify our delivery vehicles in responsible and consistent fashion with our operating strategy, deployment of the appropriate infrastructure, as well our financial position, which we anticipate improving over the course of our plans.

Joining the state of California in the lawsuit are the attorneys general of Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington; as well as the City of New York and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.

CleanAirNow and Center for Biological Diversity, two environmental groups, along with Earthjustice, filed separate lawsuits. The Natural Resources Defense Council and United Auto Workers were also represented.