State election officials could soon face a stark choice: hand over voter lists to the Trump administration or risk losing Postal Service delivery for mail-in ballots.

That dilemma stems from newly proposed USPS rules that seek to comply with an executive order President Donald Trump signed this spring to crack down on mail-in voting. If courts let the order stand, it would give the federal government an unprecedented role in elections — and could put even more voter data in the hands of Trump officials searching for supposed election fraud.

  • turtlesareneat@piefed.caEnglish
    3·
    14 days ago

    I thought they were going to deploy like 80% of the fleet as BEV but Trump decided it should be more like 80% ICE. Conversions later, who and when and how much? Vs just getting the right thing from the beginning? Trump’s hatred of renewables fucked up the process just like so many others.

    • halcyoncmdr@piefed.socialEnglish
      1·
      12 days ago

      The Wikipedia synopsis is pretty accurate for what happened:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oshkosh_NGDV#Changes_to_battery-electric_drivetrain_proportion

      Shortly after the contract was awarded to Oshkosh in February 2021, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy appeared before the United States House of Representatives, where he testified only 10% of the planned NGDVs would be battery electric vehicles (BEVs). In response to an enquiry from Representative Jackie Speier asking why the new fleet was not 90% BEV instead of 10% BEV, DeJoy stated that 90% BEV target would require “3 or 4 extra billion [dollars]” to implement. In fact, an order of 75,000 BEV trucks was estimated to cost an extra $2.3 billion compared to a 10% BEV fleet.

      The Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for NGDV procurement, published in January 2022, concluded the preferred alternative was “to purchase and deploy up to 90 percent ICE [internal combustion engine] NGDV with at least 10 percent BEV NGDV.”  The EIS evaluated four alternative scenarios:

      • 10% ICE NGDV and 90% BEV NGDV
      • 100% BEV NGDV
      • 100% right-hand drive [RHD] commercial off-the-shelf [COTS] ICE vehicles, such as the Mercedes Metris currently in use
      • 100% left-hand drive [LHD] COTS BEVs, using the Ford E-Transit as an exemplar

      According to the EIS, it would cost $11.6 billion to implement a 100% BEV NGDV fleet, $3.3 billion more than the split 10% BEV / 90% ICE NGDV fleet alternative.[