House Committee Investigating Massive Oshkosh Stock Purchase Just Before USPS Fleet Award Announcement

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Postmaster General Louis DeJoy recently awarded Oshkosh Corp. a contract to supply the United States Postal Service with its next generation of vehicles—but some members of the House of Representatives are questioning that award after it was revealed that someone purchased a large share of stock in the company just before the award was announced.

A letter signed by Carolyn B. Maloney, Chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform reads as follows:

The night before the award announcement, an unknown party purchased 524,400 shares of Oshkosh Corp. stock worth $54.2 million. According to Bloomberg News, “the size of that trade was almost as much as average daily volume in the stock in the prior year.”

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These concerns have been stemmed from previous concerns 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 kind of important, since President Biden’s Jan. 27 executive order on climate change explicitly calls for “clean and zero-emission vehicles for Federal, State, local, and Tribal government fleets, including vehicles of the United States Postal Service.”

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DeJoy was also a little vague about the exact terms of the deal until he was pressed on them. Here’s more from the Committee letter:

Soon after the announcement, reports raised concerns over several aspects of the award. While two vehicles from competitors incorporated electrical powertrains, winning bidder Oshkosh reportedly submitted a prototype with a gasoline engine. Although the initial announcement stated that Oshkosh’s vehicles would be “equipped with either fuel-efficient internal combustion engines or battery electric powertrains,” you clarified in testimony before the Committee that only 10% of the initial order for the fleet would be electric.

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The Committee is requesting documents related to the selection of Oshkosh as the USPS carrier.