Postmaster General Louis DeJoy recently awarded Oshkosh Corp. a contract to supply the U.S. postal service with its next-generation vehicle, but some members of the House of Representatives question that award after it was revealed that someone bought a large company just before the announcement of the award.
A letter signed by Carolyn B. Maloney, chair of the Oversight and Reform Committee, reads as follows:
The night before the announcement of the award, an unknown party bought 524,400 shares of Oshkosh Corp. shares. worth $ 54.2 million. According to Bloomberg News, “the size of this trade was almost equal to the average daily volume of stocks from the previous year.”
These concerns have been derived previous worries about this whole fleet decision. Specifically, the fact that only 10 percent of Oshkosh’s fleet would be electric, while the second option, Workhorse Group, could have provided an all-electric fleet. Which is a little important, from President Biden Executive order of 27 January on climate change explicitly calls for “clean, zero-emission vehicles for federal, state, local, and tribal government fleets, including U.S. Postal Service vehicles.”
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DeJoy was also a bit vague about the exact terms of the deal until he was pressured by them. Here is more information from the committee letter:
Shortly after the announcement, reports raised concerns about various aspects of the award. Although two competitor vehicles incorporated electric propulsion systems, the winner Oshkosh reportedly presented a prototype with a gasoline engine. Although the initial announcement stated that Oshkosh vehicles would be “equipped with fuel-burning internal combustion engines or battery-powered electric motors”, you clarified in statements to the Committee that only 10% of the order initial fleet would be electric.
The Committee requests documents related to the selection of Ohkosh as a carrier of the USPS.