Schumer Vows to Bring Postal Reform Bill to Senate Floor Before Presidents’ Day

February 9, 2022 by Dan McCue
Schumer Vows to Bring Postal Reform Bill to Senate Floor Before Presidents’ Day
U.S. Postal Service. (Photo by Dan McCue)

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Wednesday vowed to bring a postal service reform bill to the Senate floor for a vote before the Presidents’ Day recess.

The bill, which passed in the House with overwhelming bipartisan support on Wednesday is widely considered the most significant overhaul of the U.S. Postal Service in nearly two decades.

The House approved the measure 342 to 92. The companion bill in the Senate already has more than a dozen Republican co-sponsors, suggesting it already has enough support to sail through the chamber and go to the president’s desk for his signature.

On Monday the White House signaled Biden’s support for the legislation, releasing a statement that said, “the administration supports efforts to strengthen the United States Postal Service, including by providing postal employees with the dignity, fair pay and employer-provided benefits they have earned.”

The statement went on to say, “The administration is committed to ensuring that the Postal Service delivers the highest quality, most reliable service possible to every American.”

Both bills seek to address the agency’s long standing financial woes and delivery issues that came to a head during the coronavirus pandemic.

Without congressional action, the bill’s sponsors say, the agency, which came into existence in 1775 with Benjamin Franklin as the first postmaster general, and which formally became the U.S. Postal Service in 1971, could run out of money by 2024.

“The post office is quite simply one of the most important institutions of American life,” Schumer said. “Every day, tens of millions of Americans — veterans, small businesses, people living in rural communities, seniors — rely on the Postal Service for their medicines and prescriptions, for getting essential goods, for voting, for correspondence, for their livelihoods, and to get close to one another on special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries and things like that.

“But nevertheless, our Postal Service has needed reform for over a decade,” he continued. “Its budgets are severely strained, its delivery services are overwhelmed, and the disruptions unleashed by the internet have made it harder for it to meet its obligations to the American people and to its own employees.

“Every one of us has heard objections about letters arriving far too late. In many instances, whether they be checks that people depend on for their livelihoods or prescription drugs or whatever, these complaints are growing and growing and growing,” Schumer said.

If passed, the bipartisan postal reform bill would guarantee delivery services continue six days a week, make deliveries more efficient and timely and will put the post office on a path towards stability with measures aimed at getting it out from under lingering debt while saving close to $50 billion.

On the expense side, the bill would end a requirement that the Postal Service finance, in advance, health care benefits for current and retired workers for the next 75 years.

That obligation, which private companies and federal agencies do not face, was imposed in 2006. That ended up being the year that the Postal Service’s mail volume peaked and its financial fortunes steadily worsened.

The Postal Service hasn’t made those payments since 2012. Overall it faces unpaid obligations of $63 billion, according to its most recent annual report. The bill forgives much of that debt.

Instead of those obligations, the Postal Service would pay current retirees’ actual health care costs that aren’t covered by Medicare, the federal health insurance program for older people.

The legislation would also require future Postal Service retirees to enroll in Medicare, which only about three in four do now. The shift would save the Postal Service money by having Medicare cover much of its cost.

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and at https://twitter.com/DanMcCue.

A+
a-
  • Chuck Schumer
  • Congress
  • postal reform
  • Senate
  • U.S. Postal Service
  • White House
  • In The News

    Health

    Voting

    Postal Service

    October 3, 2023
    by Kate Michael
    USPS Unveils Ruth Bader Ginsburg Forever Stamp

    WASHINGTON — In an opera-filled courtyard ceremony at the National Portrait Gallery Monday night, the United States Postal Service commemorated... Read More

    WASHINGTON — In an opera-filled courtyard ceremony at the National Portrait Gallery Monday night, the United States Postal Service commemorated the legacy of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with a new Forever stamp. The first-day-of-issue dedication ceremony paid tribute to the notorious justice,... Read More

    December 7, 2022
    by Tom Ramstack
    Democrats Defeat Congressional Resolution Seeking Information on Postal Investigations

    WASHINGTON — A House committee defeated a proposal Tuesday that could have brought reprisal against the U.S. Postal Service for... Read More

    WASHINGTON — A House committee defeated a proposal Tuesday that could have brought reprisal against the U.S. Postal Service for allegedly investigating gun rights advocates and other conservative groups in another struggle over constitutional liberties. This time the dispute centers on which rights come first, Second... Read More

    September 8, 2022
    by Kate Michael
    Newest Forever Stamp Honors the Mission of the James Webb Space Telescope

    WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Service debuted its newest Forever stamp at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C.,... Read More

    WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Service debuted its newest Forever stamp at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C., Thursday morning. The stamp honors the mission to explore the unknown in our universe with an image of the James Webb Space Telescope. Just months after... Read More

    16 States That Want to Electrify USPS Fleet File Lawsuits

    California and 15 states that want the U.S. Postal Service to electrify its mail delivery vehicles are suing to halt... Read More

    California and 15 states that want the U.S. Postal Service to electrify its mail delivery vehicles are suing to halt purchases of thousands of gas-powered trucks as the agency modernizes its delivery fleet. Three separate lawsuits, filed Thursday by the states and environmental groups in New... Read More

    April 7, 2022
    by Kate Michael
    Congress Says USPS Electric Fleet Either ‘National Example’ or ‘Green New Deal Guinea Pig’

    WASHINGTON — In a rare show of bipartisan support, the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 was signed into law... Read More

    WASHINGTON — In a rare show of bipartisan support, the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 was signed into law this week, yet many aspects of USPS modernization, including the future of an all-electric postal fleet, appear to remain starkly divided along party lines.  “There has... Read More

    February 15, 2022
    by Tom Ramstack
    Lawmakers Lambast Postmaster General for Mail Delivery Delays

    BALTIMORE — A congressional hearing Monday showed the days are likely to be numbered for Louis DeJoy as the 75th... Read More

    BALTIMORE — A congressional hearing Monday showed the days are likely to be numbered for Louis DeJoy as the 75th U.S. postmaster general. The Trump administration appointee took over as head of the U.S. Postal Service in May 2020 with a plan of making the nation’s... Read More

    News From The Well
    scroll top