Postal Reform Will Finally Become Law After Senate Passes Long-Sought After Legislation - GovExec.com
The Senate on Tuesday by a 79-19 vote passed a sweeping reform of the U.S. Postal Service to eliminate much of its debt and restructure some of its operations, sending to President Biden’s desk the first major overhaul of the mailing agency in more than 15 years after more than a decade of billion dollar losses.
The 2021 Postal Service Reform Act has been more than 10 years in the making, with various efforts to put the mailing agency on firmer financial footing repeatedly failing or stalling out. The measure won broad bipartisan support, though its passage was delayed last month by a single Republican senator. Congress last passed major postal reform in 2006, though the agency’s finances collapsed shortly thereafter and lawmakers have struggled to address the situation ever since.
The bill will make sweeping changes to USPS operations, though its scope is slightly pared back compared to previous failed attempts at postal reform. The core of the bill will require new postal retirees to enroll in Medicare for their health care and force most postal workers to select USPS-specific health care plans. It will take onerous payments toward health care benefits for future retirees off the agency’s balance sheets, a provision that has long held bipartisan support since shortly after Congress required them in its 2006 law. While USPS has for years defaulted on the payments, postal management and a wide variety of stakeholders have said they place an undue burden on the agency that no other government entity takes on and have flooded it with debt.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has endorsed the bill and said its core components were essential to eliminating projected losses over the next decade as part of his 10-year business plan. He has spent time on Capitol Hill over the last two months helping to lobby support for the measure.
The bill won unanimous support at the committee level last year, but languished for months until a renewed push led to the measure easily clearing the House in February. A breakthrough occurred in part because a Congressional Budget Office score last month that found the measure would save the government $1.5 billion over the next 10 years. Lawmakers and postal management have estimated it will save USPS $50 billion over the same period.
The measure will allow USPS to provide non-postal services, including for state governments and other federal agencies. It also includes a six-day delivery mandate, which DeJoy has already said he plans to maintain. Postal management will face a new requirement to update the White House, Congress and its regulator every six months on its financial state, volume, implementation of changes, investments into its network and performance. It will also have to create new annual performance targets with a public website for tracking results.
source: https://www.govexec.com/management/2022/03/usps-reform-law-senate/362919/
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