The Green Industrial Complex’s Foul Lexicon: Hijacking the USPS’s EV Transition By Stephen Heins, The Word Merchant

The Green Industrial Complex—that sprawling cabal of environmental NGOs, corporate profiteers, media megaphones, and political opportunists—wields language like a cudgel.

The Green Industrial Complex’s Foul Lexicon: Hijacking the USPS’s EV Transition

By Stephen Heins, The Word Merchant

The Green Industrial Complex—that sprawling cabal of environmental NGOs, corporate profiteers, media megaphones, and political opportunists—wields language like a cudgel. Their words don’t just persuade; they bludgeon, sanctify, and distort, turning complex policy debates into morality plays. The U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS) rocky shift from gas-powered trucks to electric vehicles (EVs) is their latest stage, a saga twisted by their foul rhetoric into a tale of heroes, villains, and apocalyptic stakes. From buzzwords like “climate justice” to smears like “fossil fuel shill,” their lexicon obscures truth, vilifies pragmatists, and masks self-interest. Let’s walk down the hill and expose every last one of their linguistic sins, revealing who pays the price for their verbal crusade.

In February 2021, the USPS, drowning in $188 billion of debt, inked a $2.98 billion deal with Oshkosh Defense to replace its crumbling fleet of Grumman Long Life Vehicles—those boxy, 8.2-mpg relics prone to catching fire. The plan: 90% internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, 10% EVs. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a logistics guy with a balance sheet to answer to, called it a practical choice. EVs cost $77,692 per truck versus $54,584 for ICE, and rural routes demanded range that early EVs couldn’t guarantee. The USPS’s environmental analysis, though shaky, prioritized keeping the mail moving over chasing green dreams. Cue the Green Industrial Complex, storming in with a vocabulary designed to shame, not solve.

Their opening salvo was a masterclass in hyperbole. The Sierra Club labeled the USPS’s plan a “climate betrayal,” while Earthjustice screamed “environmental disaster.” CNN ran with “USPS Locks in Decades of Pollution,” and The Guardian wailed that DeJoy was “sabotaging the planet.” On X, activists piled on, one viral post branding DeJoy a “climate criminal who’d rather burn the Earth than deliver mail green” (). The words weren’t just heated—they were weaponized to paint the USPS as not just wrong, but evil. Never mind that the agency’s $23 billion cash reserves weren’t a blank check, or that rural carriers in North Dakota need trucks that don’t die in -20°F snowstorms. Nuance? Crushed under the weight of “catastrophe” and “crisis.”

The Biden administration, smelling a chance to flex its green muscle, amplified the noise. EPA chief Michael Regan didn’t critique the USPS’s math; he declared it “fundamentally flawed,” implying malice. White House press releases cast DeJoy, a Trump appointee, as a fossil fuel puppet, defying Biden’s 2035 zero-emission fleet mandate. The rhetoric wasn’t about fixing the USPS’s plan—it was about destroying its credibility. DeJoy wasn’t a manager juggling costs; he was a “polluter-in-chief.”

The USPS’s analysis didn’t miscalculate; it was “rigged” to “prop up Big Oil.” This language, echoed by outlets like MSNBC and HuffPost, framed the debate as good versus evil, leaving no room for discussion about budgets, rural routes, or EV readiness.

The Green Industrial Complex’s lexicon thrives on moral absolutism, and they deployed it like a battering ram. EVs were “clean,” “just,” and “the future.” ICE vehicles? “Filthy,” “obsolete,” “a death sentence for the planet.” These buzzwords erased inconvenient truths: EV batteries rely on strip-mined lithium and cobalt, often from exploitative supply chains; charging grids in many states lean on coal; and early EV models struggled with the 300-mile rural routes that USPS carriers tackle daily. The media sidestepped these realities, instead churning out feel-good phrases like “climate justice” and “green jobs” to sell the EV push. One X post gushed, “USPS going electric means saving our kids’ future!” (), ignoring that Oshkosh’s non-union factory and $500 million contract hikes might not be the worker’s paradise promised.

By August 2022, the pressure—legal, political, and rhetorical—forced a U-turn. The Inflation Reduction Act’s $3 billion for USPS EVs and chargers tipped the scales, leading to a $9.6 billion plan for 106,000 vehicles by 2028, including 66,000 EVs. The media crowed, with The New York Times trumpeting “Biden’s Green Triumph” and Vox hailing “a new era for clean delivery.” But reality lags behind the headlines. By mid-2025, only 7,200 EVs, mostly Ford E-Transits, are on the road. Oshkosh, a defense contractor playing catch-up, delivered just 93 of 3,000 promised electric NGDVs by November 2024, crippled by software glitches, supply chain snarls, and a half-built factory in Spartanburg. The 14,000 charging stations? A fraction are operational, leaving rural depots in the dust.

Yet the Green Industrial Complex spins these stumbles as “growing pains” or “steps toward justice.” When the USPS bought 9,250 gas-powered Fiats in 2023 to plug gaps, Earthjustice called it a “slap in the face to progress.” When Trump’s team, elected in 2024, floated canceling EV contracts, citing $1.5 billion in potential losses, outlets like Politico branded it “climate vandalism.” The language never falters: every delay is a “setback,” every critic a “denier.” This verbal sleight-of-hand hides the real costs—rising truck prices, strained postal budgets, and rural carriers stuck with aging LLVs while urban routes get the shiny EVs.

Who’s behind this linguistic fog? The Green Industrial Complex is a hydra. NGOs like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club thrive on donations fueled by outrage, their press releases dripping with terms like “ecocide” and “moral failure.” Corporate players—Ford, Rivian, even Tesla—lurk in the shadows, eyeing federal contracts and $7,500 EV tax credits while their lobbyists whisper “sustainability” to Congress. Media outlets, from The Washington Post to Slate, churn clicks with doomsday headlines, knowing fear sells better than facts. Politicians, from Biden’s green crusaders to Trump’s oil-friendly rebels, weaponize the rhetoric to score points, leaving the USPS as collateral damage.

The foulest offense is how this language screws the little guy. Rural postal workers, who deliver to 167 million addresses across deserts and tundras, need reliable trucks, not half-baked EVs stranded without chargers.

Taxpayers foot the bill for a $9.6 billion program bloated by delays and cost overruns, while the USPS’s core mission—delivering mail—takes a backseat to green posturing. The Complex’s buzzwords don’t solve these problems; they bury them under dogma. When Republicans push bills like the “Return to Sender Act” to claw back IRA funds, they’re called “anti-science,” but their point—why sink billions into a program delivering 93 trucks when 3,000 were promised?—gets lost in the noise.

The USPS’s EV transition is a microcosm of the Green Industrial Complex’s linguistic con. Their words—“justice,” “crisis,” “clean”—aren’t about clarity; they’re about control. They bully agencies, shame skeptics, and enrich insiders while leaving workers and taxpayers holding the bag. As Trump’s team threatens to torch the EV plan, the cycle of politicized rhetoric will roll on, with the Complex ready to cry “catastrophe” again. It’s time to cut through their foul tongue and demand language that respects reality: costs matter, rural routes aren’t urban, and saving the planet shouldn’t bankrupt the post office. Let’s stop worshipping buzzwords and start delivering mail—and truth.