Postal Service reform bill heads to Senate after strong bipartisan House vote
February 9, 2022 / 11:37 AM / CBS/AP
Washington — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed to move quickly to pass a sprawling bill to reform the struggling U.S. Postal Service, after the legislation won approval by a wide bipartisan margin in the House on Tuesday."It is my intention for the Senate to quickly take up and pass this bipartisan, bicameral postal reform bill," Schumer said on the Senate floor Wednesday. "We hope to take action here on the floor and pass the bill before we go to Presidents' Day recess." The legislation would lift onerous budget requirements that have helped push the Postal Service deeply into debt and would require it to continue delivering mail six days per week.
The election-year bill, coming at a time of widespread complaints about slower mail service, would also require the Postal Service to display online how efficiently it delivers mail to communities. The Postal Service is supposed to sustain itself with postage sales and other services, but has suffered 14 straight years of losses. The reasons include growing workers' compensation and benefit costs plus steady declines in mail volume, even as it delivers to 1 million additional locations every year. Postal Service officials have said without congressional action, it would run out of cash by 2024, a frequent warning from the service.
It has estimated it will lose $160 billion over the coming decade. Those pressures have brought the two parties together for a measure aimed at helping the Postal Service, its employees, businesses that use it and disgruntled voters who rely on it for delivery of prescription drugs, checks and other packages. Tuesday's vote was 342-92, a rare show of partisan agreement, with all Democrats and most Republicans backing it. Democratic Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York, the chairwoman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, said the Postal Service "provides service to every American, no matter where they live, binding us together in a way no other organization does."
Representative James Comer of Kentucky, that committee's top Republican, said "the days of letters alone driving Postal Service revenue are not coming back." The bill, he said, will "help it succeed into the 21st century." Senator Gary Peters, a Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said he expects his chamber to "move quickly" on the measure. The bill has 14 GOP sponsors and, with strong Democratic support expected, seems on track to gain the 60 votes most bills need for Senate passage.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/postal-service-bill-usps-reform-senate-house-vote/
The Senate supposedly has the same bill (or at least similar language) enough so that they could either agree to the House version right away (the fastest method) or pass their own with the House bill language added "as an amendment" (substitute).
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