Congress members urge U.S. Postal Service to use air-conditioned mail trucks

More than two dozen U.S. Congress members have urged the U.S. Postal Service to “strongly consider” implementing climate-control units in all their mail trucks after a postal carrier died in Woodland Hills over the summer from overheating.

U.S. Rep. Tony Cardenas, D- Panorama City, spearheaded the call “for the safety of all mail carriers” in an Oct. 26 letter to Postmaster General and Chief Executive Officer Megan J. Brennan. About 30 other Congress members also signed the letter.

The call was made less than a month after the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner announced that Peggy Frank, a 63-year-old Postal Service carrier who was found unresponsive in her non-air-conditioned mail truck on July 6, died of hyperthermia or abnormally high body temperature caused by a failure of the body to deal with the heat coming from the environment.

Temperatures reached 117 degrees in Woodland Hills that day.

“No public service employee should have to bear these conditions,” the letter stated. “The safety of postal workers should be top priority for the USPS.”

A spokeswoman for the Postal Service declined to comment to the Southern California News Group. She said the agency would respond directly to the Congress members.

Federal workplace safety investigators launched a probe shortly after Frank’s death. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has until the beginning of January to issue any citations on the matter, according to U.S. Department of Labor spokesman Jose Carnevali.

Employers are obligated to protect employees from any hazardous condition, including potential heat stress, according to the Department of Labor.

Since 2003, all motor vehicles purchased by the U.S. Postal Service have been equipped with air conditioning, noted spokeswoman Kimberly Frum in a September email. However, the Long Life Vehicles (LLVs) used by many of the agency’s carriers, which were purchased through the early 1990s, “did not come equipped with air conditioning features from the manufacturers.”

The Postal Service is reportedly in the midst of selecting the next generation delivery vehicle to replace more than 140,000 older right-hand drive delivery vehicles under operation.

Under the Postal Service’s current minimum standards, air conditioning was listed as an optional requirement for potential suppliers and the benefits of having air conditioning are under review, according to the letter.

“As you continue the procurement process, we ask that you take in consideration the rigid conditions letter carriers across the country must endure in the face of record heat waves,” the letter stated.

The letter asked that the Congress members be updated on the status of the review process regarding the benefits of air-conditioned mail trucks, the timeline for obtaining prototypes and the selection of the new generation delivery fleet and what steps the agency is taking to reduce the risks of overheating.

It also asked what protocols the agency has to protect mail carriers from other extreme weather, such as “dangerously cold temperatures” or other natural disasters including tornados, hurricanes, and earthquakes.

After Frank’s cause of death was announced in September, Cardenas said they must do what they can to “avoid the same awful tragedy happening in the future.”