New York and California are among 16 states suing the US Postal Service over multibillion-dollar plan to buy gas-powered trucks

• Sixteen states are suing the US Postal Service for its plan to buy thousands of polluting vehicles.
• The lawsuit alleged that the plan failed National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) standards.

New York, California, and Michigan are among 16 states suing the US Postal Service (USPS) over the company's multibillion-dollar plan to buy thousands of carbon-emitting trucks, according to a court filing.

The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California by the state attorneys general of California, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, and 12 other states.

Citing the USPS's obligation in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to take "a hard look" at its Next Generation Delivery Vehicle Acquisitions (NGDVA) programme, the states alleged that the USPS had "failed to comply with even the most basic requirements of NEPA."

In the filing, the states said that the USPS had been given a "tremendous opportunity to convert its fleet to zero-emission, electric vehicles," but alleged that the contractor it selected, Oshkosh Defense, was not experienced enough to carry this out.

The lawsuit follows an internal review of the company's NGDVA program. The filing claimed the review was "cursory."

The USPS told Insider in a statement: "The Postal Service conducted a robust and thorough review and fully complied with all of our obligations under NEPA."

In February last year, the USPS awarded an initial $482 million dollar contract to Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Defense to begin delivering up to 165,000 new trucks over the next 10 years in what the USPS described as a multibillion-dollar investment. At the time, it said 10% of its fleet would be electric.

Oshkosh Defense did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment made outside of normal working hours.

Last month, Insider's Kelsey Vlamis reported on a letter showing officials in the Biden administration urging the USPS not to go through with the $11.3 billion plan.

The letter said that the service "underestimates greenhouse gas emissions, fails to consider more environmentally protective feasible alternatives and inadequately considers impacts on communities with environmental justice concerns."

In March, the company placed an order for 50,000 vehicles, including around 10,000 electric vehicles.

In its statement, USPS told Insider: "The contract is an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract, meaning that after an initial dollar commitment, the Postal Service will have the ongoing ability to order more NGDV over a fixed period of time, in this case, 10 years delivering up to 165,000 vehicles over the next decade."

The USPS said it was fully committed to the inclusion of electric vehicles as a significant part of its delivery fleet, even though the investment would cost more than an internal combustion engine vehicle.

It added that it needed to make "fiscally prudent decisions" in the introduction of a new vehicle fleet, however.