[Congressional Bills 107th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1397 Introduced in Senate (IS)]







107th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                S. 1397

  To ensure availability of the mail to transmit shipments of day-old 
                                poultry.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                           September 4, 2001

 Mr. Grassley (for himself and Mr. Feingold) introduced the following 
      bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on 
                          Governmental Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To ensure availability of the mail to transmit shipments of day-old 
                                poultry.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. AMENDMENT TO TITLE 39.

    Section 5402(d) of title 39, United States Code, is amended by--
            (1) inserting ``(1)'' after ``(d)''; and
            (2) inserting at the end the following:
    ``(2)(A) In the exercise of its authority under paragraph (1), the 
Postal Service may require any air carrier to accept as mail shipments 
of day-old poultry and such other live animals as postal regulations 
allow to be transmitted as mail matter. The authority of the Postal 
Service under this subparagraph shall not apply in the case of any air 
carrier who commonly and regularly refuses to accept any live animals 
as cargo.
    ``(B) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Postal 
Service is authorized to assess, as postage to be paid by the mailers 
of any shipments covered by subparagraph (A), a reasonable surcharge 
that the Postal Service determines in its discretion to be adequate to 
compensate air carriers for any necessary additional expense incurred 
in handling such shipments.
    ``(C) The authority of the Postal Service under subparagraph (B) 
shall apply during the period beginning on the date of enactment of 
this paragraph, and ending September 30, 2005.''.
                                 <all>