I've given Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer a lot of crap over the years, but he delivered on the mail for once and in a huge way, with a new bill that will land on President Biden's desk to reform the US Postal Service.
The Senate on Tuesday approved a $107 billion financial overhaul of the long-beleaguered U.S. Postal Service, providing monetary relief for the agency that leaders say will allow it to modernize and invest in efficient service.
President Biden has signaled his intent to sign the legislation, which has already cleared the House.
The Postal Service Reform Act, which passed 79 to 19, provides financial flexibility for the mail agency to take on improvements that have been debated for years. Republicans have traditionally criticized the agency as a poster child for government waste and incompetence, even as it won high marks for approval and trust from the public. During the pandemic, Democrats hailed mail workers as everyday heroes and pushed the agency as an example of the benefits of robust government services.
But the Postal Service’s role throughout the coronavirus pandemic forced lawmakers to reach a consensus on restructuring its balance sheet, with worries that the agency could not withstand another financial shock. Nearly half of all voters cast their ballots by mail during the 2020 election, and postal workers hauled packages from doorstep to doorstep amid surging e-commerce demand, allowing individuals to purchase essentials remotely and stay home during public health shutdowns.
“The Post office usually delivers for us. Today we’re going to deliver for them,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the chamber’s floor Tuesday.
The Postal Service has endured years of losses triggered by slumping mail volumes and a 2006 bill that required it to annually pre-fund retirees’ health-care costs. Declines in mail revenue have forced the agency to default on those health-care payments since 2011.
Tuesday’s bill gives the agency a significant reprieve, removing $57 billion in past-due postal liabilities and eliminating $50 billion in payments over the next 10 years. It requires future postal retirees to enroll in Medicare, a move that would add minuscule costs to the public health-care system but would save taxpayers $1.5 billion over the next decade.
The legislation also codifies new timely-delivery transparency requirements for the Postal Service, which has struggled with on-time service since Postmaster General Louis DeJoy took office in June 2020, and allows the agency to contract with local, state and Indigenous governments to offer basic non-mail services, such as hunting and fishing licenses.
“By passing this historic legislation, the Senate has shown the American people that we can come together, build consensus and pass meaningful reforms that will improve lives,” Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the bill’s lead Democratic sponsor, said in a statement. “This bill, which has been 15 years in the making, will finally help the Postal Service overcome burdensome requirements that threaten their ability to provide reliable service to the American people.”
The bill is the cornerstone of DeJoy’s 10-year restructuring plan. The mail chief has long been a foil of Biden and congressional Democrats because of his past as a Republican financier and the Postal Service’s delays ahead of the 2020 election.
Within weeks of taking office in summer 2020, DeJoy ordered workers to slow the delivery of the mail and presided over the scrapping of 671 high-speed mail-sorting machines and public mailboxes. The removals were unrelated to DeJoy’s policies, but critics saw them as part of President Donald Trump’s strategy to delegitimize mail-in voting.
Months after the election, DeJoy announced a 10-year vision for the Postal Service that included longer delivery windows and raising postage prices to cut costs and boost revenue. The proposal calls for shuttering 18 mail sorting plants and cutting post office hours.
He has also led the Postal Service to begin purchasing up to 148,000 gas-powered mail delivery trucks, rebuffing the Biden administration’s climate goals and concerns from environmental experts that the vehicles will permanently damage the planet and pose public health risks.
Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), one of the House’s lead postal advocates, plans to introduce legislation in the lower chamber Wednesday morning that would prohibit the Postal Service from enacting its contract with Oshkosh Defense for the trucks, worth up to $11 billion, unless the fleet is made up of at least 75 percent electric vehicles, according to two people involved with the legislation. The bill has 68 co-sponsors.
There's still a lot of work to do to modernize the USPS, but removing the $100 billion financial landmine underneath the agency was the biggest win here. Yes, getting rid of Postmaster DeJoy is still quite necessary, and I hope that will happen soon now that President Biden has appointed new governors to the USPS oversight board.
But the real problem was always the $100 billion plus in pre-funded pensions around the agency's neck, and even Republicans it seems have gone along with not destroying the mail for now.
This one's a win, folks.
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