[Senate Hearing 117-485]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                        S. Hrg. 117-485

 REVIEW OF THE FISCAL YEAR 2022 BUDGET REQUEST FOR THE USPS OFFICE OF 
               INSPECTOR GENERAL AND USPS SERVICE ISSUES

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                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

            COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                            SPECIAL HEARING

                     JULY 13, 2021--WASHINGTON, DC

                               __________

         Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations

[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov

                               __________
                               
                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
39-104                    WASHINGTON : 2022                     
          
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                     COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

                    PATRICK LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman

PATTY MURRAY, Washington             RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama, Vice 
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California             Chairman
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois          MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky
JACK REED, Rhode Island              SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
JON TESTER, Montana                  LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire        LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon                 ROY BLUNT, Missouri
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware       JERRY MORAN, Kansas
BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii                 JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin             JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut      SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West 
JOE MANCHIN, III, West Virginia          Virginia
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland           JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico          CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi
                                     MIKE BRAUN, Indiana
                                     BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee
                                     MARCO RUBIO, Florida

                   Charles E. Kieffer, Staff Director
           Shannon Hutcherson Hines, Minority Staff Director

                                 ------                                

       Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government

                  CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware       CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Ranking Member
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois          JERRY MORAN, Kansas
JOE MANCHIN, III, West Virginia      JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
PATRICK LEAHY, Vermont,              JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
  (ex officio)                       RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama,
                                       (ex officio)

                           Professional Staff

                              Ellen Murray
                         Diana Gourlay Hamilton
                              Reeves Hart

                        Andrew Newton (Minority)
                        Alley Adcock (Minority)

                         Administrative Support

                              Teri Curtin
                       Sydney Crawford (Minority)
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

Opening Statement of Chairman Chris Van Hollen...................     1
Opening Statement of Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith....................     2
Statement of Hon. Tammy L. Whitcomb, Inspector General, United 
  States Postal Service..........................................     4
    Prepared Statement of........................................     6
        OIG Budget History.......................................     7
        Our Work.................................................     7
        USPS OIG Has Made Significant Progress in Combatting 
          Narcotics (Narcotic Cases by Year).....................     8
        USPS--On Time Service....................................     9
            Service Performance by:
                Postal District/Division.........................     9
                Fiscal Quarter...................................     9
        Our Budget...............................................    10
        Overview of Service Issues...............................    11
        Ongoing OIG Service-Related Work.........................    12
        Electric Vehicles........................................    12
Operational Changes..............................................    14
Service:
    Performance Dashboard........................................    15
    Challenges...................................................    15
Transparency and Accountability..................................    16
Use of Data Analytics............................................    16
Reports and Recommendations......................................    17
Mail Delays......................................................    17
Oversight of Network Changes.....................................    19
Non-Bank Financial Services......................................    20
Organizational Changes...........................................    21
Drug Interdiction................................................    21
Postal Service's 10-Year Plan....................................    22
Oversight of 10-Year Plan........................................    23
Electric Vehicles................................................    23
Postal Reform....................................................    24
Prepared Statement of Congressman C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger.......    25
Statement of Ms. Rania Dima, Member, National Federation of the 
  Blind..........................................................    26
    Prepared Statement of........................................    28
        My USPS Experience.......................................    29
        Resolution 2021-05: Regarding Mail Problems that 
          Interfere with NLS Services............................    30
Statement of Ms. Karen Meyers, Small Business Owner, City of 
  Baltimore, Maryland............................................    31
    Prepared Statement of........................................    32
Statement of Mr. Brian McLaurin, Motor Vehicle Services Craft 
  Director, American Postal Workers Union, Nation's Capital 
  Southern Maryland Area, Local 140..............................    33
    Prepared Statement of........................................    35
Additional Committee Questions (Note: Questions were submitted to 
  the Postal Service, but responses never received)..............    40
    Questions Submitted to Ms. Tammy L. Whitcomb, Inspector 
      General of the United States Postal Service................    40
    Questions Submitted by:......................................
        Chairman Senator Chris Van Hollen........................    40
        Senator Patrick Leahy....................................    41
        Senator Joe Manchin, III.................................    41
            Narcotics............................................    41
            Sorting Machines.....................................    42
            6-Day-A-Week Mail Delivery...........................    42
            Vehicle Maintenance Facilities.......................    42

 
  FINANCIAL SERVICES AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL 
                               YEAR 2022

                              ----------                              


                         TUESDAY, JULY 13, 2021

                                       U.S. Senate,
           Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The subcommittee met at 2:06 p.m., in room SD-138, Dirksen 
Senate Office Building, Hon. Chris Van Hollen (Chairman) 
presiding.
    Present: Senators Van Hollen, Coons, Hyde-Smith, Moran, and 
Boozman.

                      UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE


             opening statement of chairman chris van hollen


    Senator Van Hollen. This subcommittee will come to order. 
And welcome, everybody.
    Senator Hyde-Smith will be joining us momentarily. But I 
will start with an opening statement, and then I will turn it 
over to Senator Hyde-Smith, and then turn it over to our 
witness, the Inspector General from the Postal Service.
    So I want to welcome Ms. Tammy Whitcomb, the Inspector 
General of the United States Post Office, who is going to 
testify today on the Office's fiscal year 2022 budget request.
    I also want to welcome the members of our second panel for 
today's hearing, who will discuss some of the service delivery 
issues they have encountered with the Post Office.
    They are Rania Dima, a member of the National Federation of 
the Blind; Brian McLaurin, a postal worker and member of the 
American Postal Workers Union; and Karen Meyers, a small 
business owner. Thank all of you for joining us today.
    The United States Postal Service Office of Inspector 
General is an independent oversight organization operating 
within the Postal Service, while this subcommittee appropriates 
funds for the Postal IG, the funds appropriated come from the 
United States Post Office and not from the United States 
Treasury.
    The Postal IG is requesting an appropriation of $263 
million for fiscal year 2022, an increase of $13 million over 
fiscal year 2021. But I would like to note that the Postal 
Inspector General returns nearly $30 for each dollar 
appropriated, and these funds will go towards supporting the 
good work already happening in the Inspector General's Office.
    Among its recent projects, the inspector general has worked 
to investigate the role that the Postal Service may play in the 
distribution of narcotics and its impact on our Nation's opioid 
pandemic from those who were using--exploiting our Postal 
Service for that purpose. And I want to commend the inspector 
general for her leadership in that effort.
    Beyond this topic, the Postal IG focuses much of its work 
on service issues, an area of key importance to all of our 
constituents around the country, and one that we will discuss 
in much more detail today with both our panels. For the last 
year, I have been hearing from thousands of constituents, 
thousands, about the slow postal delivery, and I share their 
frustration and their anger at this unacceptable situation.
    Medical shipments have gone missing, many small businesses 
cannot get their products to customers, and people are getting 
hit with late fees for bill payments that did not arrive on 
time because of mail delivery delays.
    The situation is doubly frustrating because the Congress, 
on a bipartisan basis, allocated additional $10 billion to the 
Postal Service to help meet its needs during the pandemic. And 
that money must be put to use restoring services that the 
American people deserve and have come to expect from the 
dedicated men and women of the Postal Service.
    We have made some progress, and I want to commend the 
Postal Inspector General for dedicating a web page for tracking 
and monitoring service performance. It is a very important tool 
in our efforts to revive the United States Postal Service, and 
has revealed serious gaps across service. In particular, I want 
to note that the Baltimore District in my State of Maryland has 
seen the worst performance in the country for three of the four 
categories shown on the online dashboard.
    Fortunately, performance has improved somewhat according to 
recent data provided by the Postal Service, both nationally and 
in Maryland. But Marylanders, and I know others around the 
country, continue to experience some of the worst service that 
we have seen. We have a lot of work to do, and I hope today's 
hearing will highlight some of the ways we can take towards 
strengthening service across the country.
    With that, I want to end where I began, by thanking all of 
you for coming here today to share your perspectives on these 
issues. And before we begin I want to turn it over to my 
colleague, Ranking Member, Senator Hyde-Smith, for her opening 
statement.


             opening statement of senator cindy hyde-smith


    Senator Hyde-Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I, too, 
welcome Ms. Whitcomb. I look forward to the hearing from you 
today, as well as the second panel. We are here to examine the 
fiscal year 2022 budget request for the Office of Inspector 
General of the United States Postal Service, and to examine 
service issues. Inspectors general serve as independent 
watchdogs within government agencies and are a very critical 
resource for Congress and for American taxpayers.
    The footprint of the Postal Service means that the 
inspector general has a particularly far-reaching purview and 
is tasked with overseeing the organization and the operations 
of the Postal Service. You have got a big job, and we are glad 
you are there to do it. Your work is critical and examines some 
more obvious issues such as customer experience and contract 
fraud, but also other programs such as narcotics interdictions. 
The Office Inspector General's Narcotics Program focuses on 
possession and distribution of illicit drugs by postal 
employees and customers.
    Inspector general Whitcomb, I look forward to hearing from 
you about the successes of this program, and the many good 
things that your office is doing.
    The budget request for the United States Postal Service is 
$263 million. This represents a $13 million increase over the 
fiscal year 2021 enacted level. The majority of which will be 
dedicated to personnel increases.
    Currently, there is just one OIG employee to 637 postal 
workers, yet the return on investment of the Postal Service 
Office of Inspector General is $30 to $1. I look forward to 
hearing more about how the proposed budget increase will 
benefit your operations, postal customers, and the taxpayers. 
This hearing will also address the service issues experienced 
by postal customers. My offices frequently work with 
constituents to address reoccurring problems. I know you have 
heard this from many, many members about lost mail, ineffective 
tracking data, and general unresponsiveness.
    For instance, this May, a Regional Postal Service employee 
indicated to my staff that there were 37 completed passports 
awaiting distribution that were lost, or otherwise unaccounted 
for in the Memphis processing facility. In one case, this 
mismanagement resulted in a constituent missing his trip 
because his passport was held in the postal facility for days, 
and they just simply couldn't find it. We have also had similar 
problems with the delivery of Social Security Disability 
checks.
    I look forward to hearing from you on the causes of the 
service disruptions, and what the Postal Service can do to 
remedy these problems experienced by our constituents. So, I am 
glad that you are here. Thank you.
    Senator Van Hollen. Thank you, Senator. And now I am going 
to briefly introduce Inspector General Whitcomb before turning 
it over to her for an opening statement.
    Ms. Whitcomb was appointed as the third inspector general 
of the United States Postal Service in November 2018. Prior to 
that appointment Ms. Whitcomb had served as both deputy 
inspector general and assistant inspector general for Audit at 
the United States Postal Service. She came to the Postal 
Service in 2005 as audit director. Ms. Whitcomb started her 
government career at the IRS Inspection Service, and 
transitioned to the Office of the Treasury Inspector General 
for Tax Administration when it was established in 1999.
    Inspector General, without objection, your full written 
testimony will be entered in the record. Thank you for joining 
us. And I ask that you, please, summarize your opening 
statement in approximately 5 to 6 minutes. I turn it over to 
you.
STATEMENT OF HON. TAMMY L. WHITCOMB, INSPECTOR GENERAL, 
            UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE
    Ms. Whitcomb. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Van 
Hollen, Ranking Member Hyde-Smith, and Members of the 
subcommittee. Thank you for having me here today to discuss our 
budget and ongoing work to address the Postal Service's 
delivery and service performance issues.
    Our mission, to ensure the efficiency, accountability and 
integrity of our Nation's Postal Service, is something we take 
very seriously. While we receive our appropriation from 
Congress, the annual funding that enables us to do our work 
comes from the Postal Service, not the U.S. Treasury. We are 
one of the leanest IG offices, with about one OIG employee for 
every 640 Postal Service employees. Even with those limited 
resources, in fiscal year 2020 we returned nearly $30 in impact 
for every dollar invested in our budget.
    Over the past 10 years, our budget has not grown 
meaningfully and has not kept up with rising costs, including 
mandated increases to salary and FERS employer contribution 
rates. Without additional funding to support these increases, 
we have had to reduce the number of FTEs available to support 
our work by nearly 16 percent since 2012. Because of this we 
have had less capacity to focus on even the highest priority 
work.
    Our oversight is vital to ensuring the American public has 
an efficient Postal Service. We provide the Postal Service 
valuable insights into areas where it can save money, improve 
operations, and better serve postal customers. We have numerous 
projects related to broad service issues, as well as in 
specific locations where we have received complaints. We have 
an entire team dedicated to examining delivery delays around 
the country, including in Chicago, Kansas City and Baltimore.
    Another team is focusing on delayed mail at postal 
processing centers, and it has uncovered issues with how 
delayed mail is reported, making it difficult to determine the 
causes of any delays. We are analyzing service performance 
across the entire mail flow--processing, transportation, and 
delivery--to identify where failures commonly occur. We are 
evaluating the Postal Service's preparedness for the upcoming 
holiday season and planning our work on the readiness for the 
2022 mid-term elections.
    We also conduct critical investigations of the trafficking 
of opioids through the mail, healthcare and contract fraud, and 
mail theft by postal employees and contractors. We leverage 
data analytics to increase the transparency of postal data.
    For example, we recently launched a webpage that features 
an interactive map displaying quarterly data on the Postal 
Service's performance around the country. Stakeholders have 
reacted positively to this website, and we continue to look for 
new ways to provide similar transparency.
    The $263 million included in the President's budget is 
based on our fiscal year 2022 budget submitted last fall. This 
was before the Postal Service announced its plans to reduce 
service standards and dramatically modify its network, 
including moving mail from air to surface transportation. Large 
network changes are complex in nature, and there is a risk that 
implementation could result in regional or widespread service 
issues.
    Our work has revealed that when the Postal Service 
implements network changes, it often has not been able to 
realize the projected cost savings, even when service was 
reduced. As a result of these concerns, we plan to request an 
additional $17 million in our fiscal year 2023 budget to 
increase the amount and timeliness of oversight. This 
additional amount would allow us to form an audit group 
dedicated to continuous monitoring of service across the Nation 
and providing quick, service-focused reports.
    We would build on the lessons learned last fall, when we 
sent 500 OIG employees to over 2,000 postal facilities 
nationwide to monitor election mail. Using an OIG-created app, 
we were able to provide the Postal Service and Congress near 
real-time data on our daily observations. This allowed the 
Postal Service to quickly resolve any issues we identified, 
such as ballots that had not been cleared.
    While our effort was successful, it took significant 
resources and resulted in other investigative and audit 
projects being delayed or put on hold. Additional resources 
would allow us to provide this type of near real-time 
monitoring on a more frequent and national basis, as the Postal 
Service implements network changes.
    This monitoring would enable increased transparency 
regarding service during the holiday mailing season and next 
year's midterm elections. The sooner we get these funds, the 
sooner we can build this capacity to provide more effective and 
timely oversight. Because the Postal Service is moving quickly 
to implement some of the network changes, it is critical that 
our resources grow in tandem with these moves. Near real-time 
monitoring and quick reports will allow the Postal Service to 
promptly respond to the issues we identify, mitigating negative 
impacts on postal customers.
    The recent changes announced by the Postal Service are 
likely just the beginning. As these changes progress, judicious 
oversight is essential to ensuring timely, efficient, and 
equitable mail service to all areas of the country.
    Thank you for the opportunity to discuss our budget and our 
work. I am happy to answer your questions.

    [The statement follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    

    Senator Van Hollen. Thank you, Ms. Whitcomb. And we are 
going to have 6-minute questioning rounds. And I know we will 
get to the issue of your opinion on some of the postal reform 
legislation that has been proposed here in Congress on a 
bipartisan basis.

                          OPERATIONAL CHANGES

    But first I would like to go over the report that you 
issued recently that got to some of the reasons for postal 
delays. In your report you indicated that the changes--and in 
your testimony--that the changes made when the new Postmaster 
General came in, negatively impacted the quality and timeliness 
of mail delivery. Could you briefly discuss which of these 
changes were responsible for some of the service problems that 
our constituents experienced?
    Ms. Whitcomb. Sure. It was right around the time that the 
COVID issues started really peaking at the Postal Service, and 
the new Postmaster General came in and wanted to address late 
trucks and extra trips. And so he made some changes to stop 
those late trips and extra trips, in addition to numerous 
changes that the postal executive team put in place to, in some 
cases, address efficiency issues that had been ongoing for a 
long period of time.
    When you combined the 50 or so changes that the postal 
executive team instituted along with some of the larger, 
broader changes that the Postmaster General brought in, 
particularly around late and extra trips, this had a really 
significant impact on service because it was happening along 
with employee availability issues, and an increased number of 
packages in the mail because of COVID. So all of that kind of 
happened all around the same time, and you saw the service 
implications last summer as those changes were put in place.
    Senator Van Hollen. Well, thank you. And thank you for 
having detailed that, and done that analysis. As I looked at 
your report, it also says, and I quote, ``No analysis of the 
service impacts of these various changes was conducted, and 
documentation, and guidance to the field for these strategies 
was very limited and almost exclusively oral;'' in other words, 
not any guidance in writing. Can you talk about: how that 
compounded the confusion and problem?
    Ms. Whitcomb. Yes. What we saw, we went out to various 
locations and we saw implementation of changes being done very 
inconsistently around the country. Some locations they were--
the management team was saying there is no overtime. Some 
locations they were saying no extra trips, no late trips, and 
other locations they were saying they could do late trips and 
extra trips depending on how severe the situation was.
    So it was very inconsistently done, and there was no clear 
document provided. And the Postal Service is a very large 
organization, lots and lots of facilities that you have to roll 
out guidance to when you are implementing change. And because 
it was really done orally through meetings, and other things, 
and no written document was provided, no written documentation 
was provided to these field locations, you can imagine what 
happened as change is rolled out to the various field 
locations. It was done very inconsistently, and as a result no 
clear guidance, and no clear direction was out there in the 
field location. So service really suffered.

                     SERVICE PERFORMANCE DASHBOARD

    Senator Van Hollen. Well, you mentioned the dashboard, and 
I referred to it in my opening statement. I think it is a very 
important transparency tool for all of us. And I hope we can 
provide you some of those additional resources so that we can 
get to a real-time dashboard. And my understanding from your 
testimony is that if we can provide you those resources, you do 
think you can get that real-time dashboard. Is that right?
    Ms. Whitcomb. Yes, definitely. The dashboard kind of, it is 
data that points us in a direction, but you--the Postal Service 
you have to kind of be out there. It is a very physical 
business. You have to kind of go out and actually see what is 
happening on the ground. It gives you--the dashboard gives you 
indications of where problems occur, but if you--we really need 
to have boots on the ground, people there in person to see what 
is happening to cause the problems that are occurring.

                           SERVICE CHALLENGES

    Senator Van Hollen. Well, and that brings me to my next 
question, because, as I mentioned, and as you know, the 
Baltimore District has really, among the worst mail performance 
when it comes to delivery in the country. The Capital District 
has the third worst performance in this area. And I know you 
have not yet embarked on a detailed investigation of those 
hotspots, you know, for poor delivery, but can you talk about 
your plans for really looking under the hood there and 
identifying exactly what is wrong?
    Because as I said earlier, I certainly am getting lots of 
incoming from constituents, I know my colleagues are to similar 
degrees in some cases, and lesser in others. But can you talk 
about your plans that can help us really drill down and 
identify what is going wrong in these areas in particular?
    Ms. Whitcomb. Definitely. We have a team that is ready. 
They may have even actually done some field visits already in 
Baltimore, looking at nine different delivery units in the 
areas served to--that are especially challenged. And when we go 
out, we look for the causes of those challenges, and we make 
specific recommendations to the local management to address the 
issues found.
    In addition to that, one thing that we have seen as it 
relates to service at the Postal Service, some of the places 
where service was challenged prior to COVID, but that the 
facilities, the processing plants were kind of barely above 
water--they were providing service but it was not as good as 
some of the other areas--are the places where service really 
tanked when COVID hit, and when some of these changes were 
implemented at the Postal Service.
    Baltimore is one of those locations. Chicago is another one 
of those locations. Some of the--New York is a third. Some of 
those places we have decided to, in the early fall, we are 
going to launch a targeted look at the 10 processing plants 
that have been challenged for years, but were particularly hit 
during the COVID pandemic, and where service really tanked. So 
that we can get underneath the hood and really see what has 
caused the problems for years, but really tanked during the 
pandemic.
    Senator Van Hollen. Thank you.
    Ms. Whitcomb. Mm-hmm.
    Senator Van Hollen. Senator Hyde-Smith.
    Senator Hyde-Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We 
consistently hear about these delays, and these issues, and 
these problems; mainly with Social Security checks, but I 
recently heard from a constituent in Natchez, Mississippi, who 
had to pay to reorder and resend nearly half the invitations to 
a very large wedding. She called me, and she was pretty upset 
about that. But, you know, anybody would be because they 
wouldn't tell her anything, they wouldn't respond to her to see 
if they were delayed or just lost.
    We know the financial burdens that all of this creates on 
many people. What are your investigations showing, or your 
office's feeling about these specific problems, and how can we 
have greater accountability from the Postal Service to prevent 
these problems?

                    TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

    Ms. Whitcomb. Yes. It is a great question. One of the 
reasons that we took that public dataset that the Postal 
Service had--the dataset that we used to build that service 
performance dashboard was a dataset that had been provided to 
the Postal Regulatory Commission for years. But it had never 
been, I guess, visualized on a map the way that we took it and 
visualized it. And we know in the IG community that 
transparency sometimes leads to accountability.
    And so we really wanted to take a dataset, make it more 
transparent and accessible to the general public so that we 
could make--help the Postal Service be more accountable to the 
Americans that rely on it for service. In addition, obviously 
we take our recommendations that we have made in the service 
area very seriously and hold the Postal Service accountable to 
taking action on those recommendations.

                         USE OF DATA ANALYTICS

    Senator Hyde-Smith. And I understand that your Office 
receives complaints and hotline data from customers and 
employees. How does this data inform your investigative and 
audit planning?
    Ms. Whitcomb. Yes. That is a great question. One of the 
things I am most excited about, we do a lot with data analytics 
in our office, and one of the dashboards that I recently saw 
demonstrated--demoed to me from our data analytics staff--was a 
dashboard on customer complaints. The Postal Service receives 
thousands of customer complaints every day. We receive about 
150,000 hotlines every year.
    So we have used our data analytics to build a dashboard to 
pull in all of the complaints, both from our hotline, as well 
as from the Postal Service's customer complaint system. And I 
don't know if you are familiar, they have an application, the 
Postal Service does, it is called ``Informed Delivery'' where 
you can see the mail that is supposed to be in your mailbox 
that day.
    Senator Hyde-Smith. I have it right here on my phone.
    Ms. Whitcomb. Yes. Yes. And so you can click if you did not 
receive a piece of mail that you were supposed to receive. So 
our dashboard also takes in all of those complaints that come 
in where mail that was supposed to be received wasn't actually 
received. We take all of that information in, and then we can 
analyze it. Look for trends, look for hotspots, look for places 
almost in real time where you can see where there are problems 
in the postal network, where people are complaining, where they 
are not receiving the mail that they are supposed to receive.
    Maybe you can even see, to some degree, routes that might 
not have been delivered or fully delivered that day. So it is a 
very exciting tool. And we look--that is another place, in 
addition to our service performance dashboard and other 
dashboards that we have, that we can target resources almost in 
real time, if we can get them to actually put people on the 
ground to go out and see where the hotspots are and what is 
causing the problems as we see them in the data.

                      REPORTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

    Senator Hyde-Smith. And how do you communicate your 
findings to the Postal Service?
    Ms. Whitcomb. Right. In those cases, we will issue reports 
to them, in some cases we will issue memorandums, or we will 
actually go out and send teams to go out and see what the 
causes of those problems are. And then we will issue actual 
audit reports with recommendations to them that they will have 
to be responsible to take action on. And those open 
recommendations are also available on our website as well. The 
recommendations we have made.
    Senator Hyde-Smith. And how often are your recommendations 
actually implemented by the Postal Service?
    Ms. Whitcomb. Most of the time. And actually, oftentimes 
people they will--they might see a report where it might be at 
odds with the Postal Service, but we have a pretty high 
agreement rate with them on the recommendations that we make. 
We are right around 90 percent, or so, that they agree with. 
And then they can't close the recommendation until we agree 
that they have taken action on it. So we have a pretty strong 
accountability process with our recommendations.
    Senator Hyde-Smith. Thank you.
    Ms. Whitcomb. Mm-hmm.
    Senator Van Hollen. Thank you, Senator.
    I am now going to turn it over to Senator Coons for 
questioning, and to chair while I go vote. And you are in good 
hands as he is a former chairman of the subcommittee. Thank 
you, Senator.
    Senator Coons. Thank you, Chairman Van Hollen. Thank you, 
Ranking Member Hyde-Smith for holding this hearing.
    And I want to thank you, Inspector General Whitcomb, and we 
have a panel of other witnesses to follow you. I am gravely 
concerned about the service delivery standards of the U.S. 
Postal Service and the intended significant realignment of the 
Postal Service that you were just describing.

                              MAIL DELAYS

    So let us start by looking backwards, and then by looking 
forwards. Mail delays have been one of the top issues that have 
caused Delawareans to call me in my office, to email, to text, 
to write. And often those letters are delayed in getting to my 
office. I am from a small State of about 900,000 people. I have 
gotten 3,500 messages in the last year, 3,500 messages in the 
last year, complaining about delays in postal delivery.
    I have gotten complaints from veterans who weren't getting 
their medications in the mail. I have gotten complaints from 
small businesses that weren't getting a payment checks into 
them, or weren't able to get services out. I have gotten 
complaints from just families who didn't get birthday cards 
from grandma to their grandchild, or notices about things that 
they needed to get to on time.
    So I am sure you have heard that. I suspect every single 
Member of Congress has heard that, but I want to dig in just a 
little bit if we can. I was proud to vote for the President's 
three Board of Governors nominees, and I am hopeful they can 
have a real impact on restoring service delivery standards. And 
I think we are not done making changes to the leadership of the 
Postal Service.
    I have signed seven letters about the impact of Postal 
Service delivery on farmers, on small business owners, on 
everyday individuals in Delaware. Five of them have been 
responded to. Two of them, so far, have not.
    I would be interested in your view on exactly why delays 
have continued so long after the holiday season. I understand 
the pandemic contributed to some, the holiday season 
contributed to some, the election contributed to some, but some 
of them are the inevitable outcome of a poorly-executed series 
of strategic changes.
    You were just testifying that some of the basic policy 
changes were never conveyed in writing to a very large and 
distributed nationwide organization. What do you think are the 
critical reasons my State, and so many others, have suffered 
through needless and long delivery delays?
    Ms. Whitcomb. It is a complicated network. And I agree with 
you, change at the Postal Service is very difficult to 
implement well. We have looked at the changes that were there 
last year; we looked at changes that were implemented back in 
2015 to look to see what service impacts were there. What we 
saw, and probably the most critical thing that we saw in that 
report, and Chairman Van Hollen mentioned earlier, was that no 
service impact analysis was done prior to the initiation of 
some of the changes.
    And that was a key recommendation that we made in that 
report is prior to service changes, service impact--prior to 
changes in the network, service really needs to be analyzed to 
see what the impacts of those changes would be.
    So that is part of it. In fairness to the Postal Service, 
employee availability continues to be an issue in many sites, 
and as employees are still on leave, are still dealing with the 
challenges of COVID, it is a difficult situation with the 
Postal Service, when the Postal Service has been one of those 
places that had been generally resilient when a natural 
disaster occurs.
    They can usually come in and pretty--recover pretty quickly 
in the event of a natural disaster that is localized. COVID 
really hit them in all the weak spots. Because it was national 
they couldn't move employees from one location to another to 
deal with issues. They didn't have the employee bench strength. 
It is a very brute force kind of organization and it relies on 
its employees. And when those employees aren't there, it is 
very hard to recover in certain locations because--from service 
issues.
    It also, I think, is certain plants, and certain locations, 
as I said earlier, that had been troubled for long periods of 
time, really, really struggled in the past year.
    Senator Coons. One particular complaint I just got last 
weekend was from the Cape Gazette, a local newspaper in Sussex 
County, Delaware, that delivers by mail copies of their regular 
periodical. And they have noticed over the last year just 
dramatic delays in handling, and they have gotten complaints, 
they have gone and visited different postal handling 
facilities. And they have been struck at the extent to which, 
because it is technically second-class mail, although 
newspapers have been a critical part of our country since its 
founding; they are just not getting the same attention. Have 
you heard similar complaints about newspapers and how they are 
handled in the mail?
    Ms. Whitcomb. We haven't heard specifically about 
newspapers. We have heard, more generally, about just mail in 
general, and challenges just getting through some of the 
processing plants, and some of the plants have recovered better 
than others, but some of the plants are still very challenged.

                      OVERSIGHT OF NETWORK CHANGES

    Senator Coons. I was really struck, in your written 
testimony, and I am just going to quote back to you for a 
minute that: There are significant structural reforms planned. 
Changes that you describe as complex and difficult, you said 
there is a risk implementation could result in regional or 
widespread service issues, more service issues, and that 
historically when the Postal Service implements network 
changes, it has not always been able to improve service or 
realize projected cost savings.
    You ask for $17 million more in order to stay on top of and 
ahead of these changes. And I hope we will work together to 
deliver those resources to the IG. These sound like significant 
realignments, building $9 billion worth of new equipment, new 
facilities, realigning mail volume from air to surface 
transportation, and a dramatic change in footprints, and where, 
and how, and when things are handled.
    You mentioned a moment ago that no service delivery impact 
analysis was done before the current Postmaster General 
implemented haphazard policy changes last year. Would it be 
your advice that there has to be service delivery impact 
analysis done before these major restructurings are undertaken?
    Ms. Whitcomb. Yes. Yes.
    Senator Coons. Let me just ask, in close. What other plans 
do you have for overseeing these ambitious reform plans that 
the Postal Service has underway as a result of their 10-year 
plan?
    Ms. Whitcomb. Yes. Great question. We are just launching 
our first look into the 10-year plan. And some of the things 
that we are looking at are: how they are going to measure 
success of the plan; what are some of the dependencies on the 
different parts of the plan that are dependent on each other; 
what service impact issues could result as they start 
implementing some of these changes?
    We are also looking at things like: Do they have triggers, 
or tripwires, if they start implementing it and something goes 
wrong that they can roll back or pull back? And what are those? 
And how are those established? Things like that, because those, 
I think, are very important as they go in. One last thing that 
we will be looking at is the assumptions that they built the 
plan on, kind of what assumptions were there, and if those 
change moving forward, how might the plan change?
    Senator Coons. Well, I appreciate your dedication and work, 
and the role that the IG plays. There is an awful lot of 
Delawareans who are very angry and very upset about service 
delivery changes in the Postal Service. And I am going to do my 
level best, working with the Chair and Ranking Member, to make 
sure that the resources are there so that we have real-time 
insights into how they are or are not making positive 
improvements on delivery standards. Thank you, Ms. Whitcomb.
    I will turn it over to Senator Boozman.
    Ms. Whitcomb. Thank you.
    Senator Boozman. Thank you.
    And thank you, Inspector General Whitcomb for being here, 
and all of your hard work in the past.

                      NON-BANK FINANCIAL SERVICES

    Congress has, through the appropriations process, proposed 
to expand the Postal Service's limited non-bank financial 
services to surcharge ATM's, wire transfers, check cashing and 
bill payment. While increasing financial inclusion across the 
country is essential, especially in rural America, allowing the 
Postal Service to provide banking services would raise 
regulatory questions and concerns, erode consumer protections 
afforded by regulated financial institutions and far exceed the 
Postal Service's core competencies.
    In fact, the Postal Service has agreed that its core 
function is, ``Delivery, not banking.'' Its mission is to 
provide, ``Trusted, affordable universal mail service,'' and 
that the Postal Service should not, ``Become a bank or openly 
compete with banks.'' Nationalizing retail banking like this 
would fail to address the reasons why some households remain 
unbanked and underbanked, have limited impact on long-term 
wealth building potential of unbanked Americans, and would fail 
to support consumers' full menu of evolving financial needs.
    And I'm particularly concerned that a government-subsidized 
entity entering the consumer financial market would put 
taxpayers at risk; safe banking requires experience in risk 
management, and regulatory compliance, consumer and privacy 
protection, loan underwriting, deposit safeguarding, fund 
account management, direct deposit account management, and 
digital and mobile banking; all areas in which the Postal 
Service has little to no expertise.
    Given this lack of experience, taxpayer risk and focus on 
mail delivery, not banking, the Postal Service is not equipped 
to provide banking services more effectively, in a safer manner 
than the highly regulated institutions with decades of 
experience in these areas. I guess what I would like to know: 
is if you agree with that, or if that is something that you 
don't agree with, or going down that path.
    Ms. Whitcomb. We haven't done--we did some work a few years 
back on non-bank financial services. We haven't done much work 
recently. Our work has been more focused on the physical 
footprint, and the foot traffic that comes through the retail 
network, and using maybe that foot traffic to provide other 
government--governmental type services, maybe services for 
State and local governments, other things like that at this 
point, versus expanding more broadly.
    The Postal Service may decide to do something different and 
look into that. And if they do, we will be there to provide 
oversight of those activities, if that is something that they 
move into.
    Senator Boozman. Good. Thank you.
    Ms. Whitcomb. Mm-hmm.

                         ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGES

    Senator Boozman. Last year the Postal Service announced 
organizational changes, including consolidation of the existing 
67 Postal Service districts to 50 districts. I can appreciate 
the Postal Service efforts to improve efficiency and better 
serve customers. I agree with, Senator Coons, you know, we have 
got significant problems out there with our service. I am 
concerned that as result of these mergers current employees 
will be forced to either relocate or find employment elsewhere.
    And then certainly as important, maybe even more important, 
that it would impact the ability as far as getting our mail 
delivered in a timely fashion. I'm particularly concerned that 
Arkansans employed in the Arkansas District Office would have 
to face the choice between relocating out of State or losing 
their employment.
    How would the Postal Service organizational changes impact 
the Postal Service employment specifically in the case of 
States like ours? And can you commit to ensuring that these 
employees will not be disadvantaged or negatively impacted by 
these changes?
    Ms. Whitcomb. Yes. That is a great question. We haven't 
done a lot of work yet in that--in the reorganization, the 
redistricting, or moving around the districts of the Postal 
Service. It is probably something that we will look into a 
little bit more moving forward. I am not sure how that might 
impact service moving forward, or employees. And probably it 
depends on where those employees are located, but, as you said, 
in certain locations, they are probably more disadvantaged than 
in others. But it is likely something that we will look at 
moving forward. We don't have anything going on right now in 
that space.
    Senator Boozman. Thank you. I would appreciate it.
    Ms. Whitcomb. Mm-hmm.

                           DRUG INTERDICTION

    Senator Boozman. One thing I would like to kind of get an 
update, very quickly, because I am running out of time. But we 
have had a real problem with fentanyl, things like that, coming 
in through the mail. And I know that in the past I had the 
opportunity to chair the Homeland Security Appropriations 
Subcommittee, not too long ago, a couple of congresses ago.
    There was a problem with the Postal Service and customs 
working together, all of those, this is a huge problem. Can you 
just, very quickly, tell us where we are at on that? Is the 
cooperation better? Are we doing a better job interdicting this 
stuff?
    Ms. Whitcomb. The cooperation is improving. The advanced 
electronic data is still not always there for all of the 
parcels that are coming in from overseas. But, again, those 
percentages are moving higher. We are doing some work 
internally overseeing the percentages of AED that come in from 
other countries, and identifying countries that might be more 
challenged providing AED than others, but it is definitely an 
issue that we should all keep our eyes on, as well as, just 
generally, use of the Postal Service to move narcotics 
domestically, not just internationally. It is a big problem and 
something that we are investigating consistently in our work.
    Senator Boozman. Good. Thank you for your efforts.
    Ms. Whitcomb. Mm-hmm.
    Senator Van Hollen. Thank you, Senator Boozman.
    Senator Moran.
    Senator Moran. Chairman, thank you.
    Ms. Whitcomb, thank you for being here. I have been 
involved in, I think, about every postal reform legislation and 
efforts since I came to the Senate, mostly aligned with Senator 
Carper, and my sadness is, I am not sure you are the right 
witness for the kind of questions I would like to ask today. 
But I am pleased that you are here. And maybe you can help me, 
if nothing else, to highlight, in hopes that the Postal Service 
officials are observing, listening, or will read the transcript 
of this hearing.

                     POSTAL SERVICE'S 10-YEAR PLAN

    One of the things that is directly related to your 
testimony, you stated that implementation of that Postal 
Service's 10-year plan might result in regional or widespread 
service issues. I am worried the negative consequences to rural 
America. Kansas is one of those places that would certainly be 
considered rural. And we have already seen, I have heard you 
speak, and my colleagues speak about processing centers.
    We lost our processing centers before the congressional 
prohibition against closing those processing centers. I don't 
know whether there is a way to ever get them back, but the 
consequences to the mail delivery has been dramatic and 
dramatic in a negative way. I am interested in knowing: Does 
the Postal Service have a plan in place to ensure that rural 
communities are not disproportionately impacted during the 
implementation of that 10-year plan?
    Ms. Whitcomb. I really appreciate that question. As you can 
hear from my accent, I am not from this city either, so I have 
a special place in my heart for rural America, especially the 
value proposition that the Postal Service provides to rural 
Americans, it is a very important thing. We have done a lot of 
research in the past and we have several papers that we have 
issued about that issue itself, about rural America and the 
Postal Service, and the importance there.
    I am not aware of a plan that the Postal Service has to 
protect rural America as it implements change, but I don't--I 
don't know that they don't have one. So it is something that we 
will definitely look into as this--as this plan moves forward, 
because I think it is a very, very important part of the Postal 
Service's service to America.
    Senator Moran. Maybe you were the right person to address 
my comments, at least to my question two. One of the other 
things I am worried about is postal rate increases. The postal 
rate increase proposed in the Ten-Year Delivering for America 
Plan have caused concern to the postal industry, especially as 
the country is in a recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. I am 
interested in hearing your thoughts on the accuracy of the 10 
years' plan--the 10-year plan's financial projections.
    If the projections are questionable, it would seem 
advisable for the Postal Regulatory Commission should do 
another review of rate limit increase to incorporate impact of 
the pandemic, previous emergency funding from Congress, the 
impact of potential postal reform legislation, taking those 
factors into account might substantially change the liabilities 
of the postal rate commission used in calculating the recently 
extended cap.

                       OVERSIGHT OF 10-YEAR PLAN

    Has the OIG reviewed the projections from the USPS Delivery 
for America proposal to determine their accuracy?
    Ms. Whitcomb. No. But that is something that we want to do 
as part of our review of the 10-year plan. We want to look at 
the assumptions, and the projections that were made as a part 
of that. I talked earlier about kind of triggers, and looking 
at if things change, is the plan flexible enough to move with 
those changes? That is part of what we will be looking at as we 
review that plan. And we have started that work, or we are just 
getting started with that work, probably have something in 
about six or 8 months on that.
    Senator Moran. Let me use this opportunity to highlight. I 
appreciate that answer. And let me use this opportunity to 
highlight some of the things, at least I think all of the 
things that I mentioned in that list are things that have 
occurred subsequent to the evaluation that has been made to 
base the rate commission decision on.
    And particularly the amount of assistance from the COVID-19 
relief packages, but also the COVID-19 itself, the pandemic, 
seems to me to be something that should be considered before 
they make the changes that are envisioned. I would just 
highlight for you one other thing, but knowing your accent and 
your further--your earlier comments this may be self-evident to 
you.

                           ELECTRIC VEHICLES

    The Postal Service plans to invest in 165,000 updated 
vehicles over the next 10 years, and a portion of those 
vehicles, as you mentioned, are to be electric. I have heard 
from rural mail carriers in my State who are concerned that 
electric vehicles without four wheel drive will not be able to 
handle the rural routes, especially during bad weather. 
Additionally, in rural America, there are very few electric 
charging stations or necessary dealerships to get proper 
maintenance on those electric vehicles.
    As the Postal Service begins transitioning to an updated 
fleet, will such logistical concerns be part of the 
decisionmaking process to determine the proper location for 
those electric vehicles? I also would use this as an 
opportunity to highlight the opportunity to use natural gas or 
renewable natural gas, not solely electricity.
    Ms. Whitcomb. Yes. That is a--it is a great question. We 
just started an audit on electric vehicles. We have done some 
work in the past. We did our first job in 2009 and looked at 
opportunities to use electric vehicles in the Postal Service 
fleet. We updated that, we did some work in 2012, but we are 
going to update all of that work with this recent thing. One of 
the things that we will be looking at is the Postal Service's 
analysis to determine whether they evaluated where electric 
vehicles make sense, and where they might not make sense.
    Senator Moran. Thank you for all your answers.
    Ms. Whitcomb. Mm-hmm.
    Senator Moran. And I appreciate the work of inspector 
generals, generally. And you impressed me today. Thank you.
    Ms. Whitcomb. Thank you.
    Senator Van Hollen. Thank you, Senator Moran.

                             POSTAL REFORM

    I just have one closing question as we talked about the 
problems that brought us to this point. I want to talk about a 
piece of legislation that has been introduced. My colleague, 
Senator Peters from Michigan, has introduced the Postal Service 
Reform Act to make long overdue changes, to stabilize the 
Postal Service's finances, and increase transparency and 
accountability at the Postal Service. This is broad bipartisan 
legislation, and the American people deserve this to be 
implemented as soon as possible, in my opinion.
    One of the provisions of this bill would eliminate the 
requirement that the Postal Service pre-fund healthcare 
benefits for its retirees, which has caused a big burden and 
drain on Postal Service finances. Could you talk a little bit 
about your views on this legislation, and how that provision, 
in particular, might help relieve the burden on the Post 
Office?
    Ms. Whitcomb. Definitely. We have done work in the past 
that looks at that pre-funding issue, and kind of benchmarked 
against others that have--provide retiree--healthcare to 
retirees, and found that the Postal Service's pre-funding 
requirement is like no other. It has requirements that no one 
else has to meet. And we also compared funding levels with 
others: Military, State, Fortune 1000 companies, and found that 
the Postal Service, in 2017 at least, had greater funding of 
healthcare benefits by percentage than any of the others.
    So our work, basically, supports reform in the pre-funding 
area. Also, we have done work on Medicare integration, and 
found that the savings associated with Medicare integration are 
substantial, and could make a significant, significant 
difference. Another provision of that reform legislation 
involves allowing the Postal Service to provide additional 
services through its retail facilities.
    And that is something we have also done work on in the 
past; looking at opportunities to utilize the foot traffic that 
comes through the Postal Service's retail network to provide 
additional revenue for the Postal Service. So generally our 
work has been pretty supportive of some of the provisions that 
are included in the Postal Reform Legislation.
    Senator Van Hollen. Well, thank you. I want to thank you, 
Inspector General Whitcomb, for your testimony today. I thought 
it was very enlightening and provided, I think, important 
questions for the subcommittee to pursue. So thank you for the 
good work that you have been doing there.
    And I guess we will now adjourn this portion and move to 
the second panel. But thank you so much.
    Ms. Whitcomb. Thank you for the opportunity.
    Senator Van Hollen. Thank you. All right; if I could call 
up the witnesses who were scheduled to testify on the second 
panel. If you just could come forward to the dais there.
    [Pause.]
    Senator Van Hollen. Well, thank all of you for joining us 
today. I thought it was important we start with an overview 
from the inspector general for the Postal Service, but now I 
think it is important to get some first-hand accounts of the 
problems people in small businesses are experiencing a result 
of the long delays in Postal Service, and it has been 
especially acute in Maryland, especially in places like 
Baltimore City, but other places across our State, and indeed 
around the country.
    And I do want to say, on behalf of other members of the 
Maryland delegation, they have joined me in expressing 
frustration, also try to get to the bottom of this problem, and 
we have been able to get some assistance from the first-hand 
accounts that you will bring to the subcommittee today.
    I do want to say that Congressmen ``Dutch'' Ruppersberger, 
in particular, has been focused on these issues in the 
Baltimore area. He was not able to attend the hearing today, 
but he has submitted testimony for the record. And I want to 
acknowledge that, and his efforts along with other members of 
the delegation.

    [The statement follows:]
       Prepared Statement of Congressman C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger
    Good afternoon Chairman Van Hollen, Ranking Member Hyde-Smith, and 
Members of the Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee. 
I appreciate the opportunity to submit this testimony as you conduct 
your hearing on the important work of the U.S. Postal Service Office of 
Inspector General (OIG).
    Over the past 16 months, my office has received a record number of 
complaints from constituents regarding postal service. I have heard 
from constituents who have gone weeks without receiving mail--including 
paychecks and, even worse, life-saving prescriptions. The USPS was 
never intended to be a business. It is a service and it is unacceptable 
that my constituents are not receiving vital medications, bills and 
other important letters in a timely and consistent manner.
    As you know, the USPS is an independent agency under the Executive 
Branch--they are not funded by Congress, nor do they answer to 
Congress. So, while options are extremely limited, my office and I have 
adopted an ``all of the above'' strategy to deal with the volume of 
complaints.
    I have personally visited problematic post offices in my district. 
I have held press conferences. I have been meeting with local USPS 
leadership on a biweekly basis. I have sent multiple letters outlining 
the severity of mail delivery delays plaguing constituents in my 
district to Postmaster General Dejoy. The Postmaster General has thus 
far failed to address a single issue outlined in my letters and has 
ignored my request for data and a meeting with a member of his staff. 
Instead, I received a response from a government relations 
representative that contained a litany of excuses, finger-pointing and 
faulty logic that failed to address why there is such a disparity of 
service levels across the country, within the State of Maryland and 
throughout my district.
    And so, with my hand forced, I recently requested the USPS 
Inspector General begin an audit of the six most-problematic post 
offices in my district--the locations where complaints are most severe 
both in terms of volume and severity.
    I strongly believe the work of the USPS Inspector General in 
ensuring efficiency, accountability and integrity within the U.S. 
Postal Service cannot be understated. This is true always, but 
especially in light of the mail delays and wholly inadequate responses 
that my office and, I assume, many other Members of Congress are 
experiencing from USPS leadership.
    Given this, I have no doubt that the OIG is today facing an 
unprecedented increase in audit requests that has stretched staff and 
resources thin. As an Appropriator, I supported a $13 million increase 
for the USPS-OIG for the 2022 fiscal year in the Financial Services and 
General Government Funding bill that cleared our committee late last 
month. I would urge my Senate colleagues to consider a similar increase 
so that the OIG can continue its important work.
    It is my hope that the transparency and accountability provided 
only by the OIG can help put the USPS back on a sustainable path and 
restore mail service to the level our constituents deserve.
    Thank you for this opportunity to testify.

    Senator Van Hollen. We are joined now by two postal 
customers and one postal worker from Maryland who can help 
provide insight into how service delays are impacting the 
public.
    We have Ms. Rania Dima, [Ran-ia] Dima with us, who is a 
member of the National Federation of the Blind, and a resident 
of Frederick, Maryland, who receives materials through the 
United States Post Office, Free Matter for the Blind Program, 
and from the Maryland State Library for the Blind and Print 
Disabled.
    We also are joined by Mr. Brian McLaurin, who is a postal 
worker from Forest Heights, Maryland, who has continued to 
deliver mail throughout this pandemic, and has witnessed first-
hand the challenges that were implemented by the leadership of 
the Postal Service that we just heard about.
    We also are joined by Ms. Karen Meyers, a small business 
owner and resident of Baltimore, Maryland, whose business and 
broader community have been impacted by USPS delays.
    So thank all of you for joining us. And why don't we just 
start with the two customers. And then we are going to go to 
the postal worker. And so why don't we start with Ms. Rania 
Dima.
STATEMENT OF MS. RANIA DIMA, MEMBER, NATIONAL 
            FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
    Ms. Dima. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Van Hollen, for 
having me here today. As you mentioned, my name is name is 
Rania Dima. I live in Frederick County, Maryland.
    Senator Van Hollen. Sorry. We are going to try to get the--
we are going to try and get the mic a little closer.
    Ms. Dima. Okay. Thank you. Is this better?
    Senator Van Hollen. Yes, much
    Ms. Dima. Okay.
    Senator Van Hollen. Thanks.
    Ms. Dima. So thank you, Senator Van Hollen, for having me 
here today. My name is Rania Dima. I live in Frederick County, 
Maryland, and I am a member of the National Federation of the 
Blind. I am a wife, a mother, and an aspiring author of 
historical fiction. Born sighted, I am now going deaf and blind 
from a condition called Usher syndrome.
    Eight years ago I lost my ability to read print. And 2 
years ago I lost my ability to read the computer screen, as a 
lover of the written word it has been excruciating. But I have 
a lot to adjust to. So I started learning the process of 
Braille 2 years ago, actually a-year-and-a-half ago, and this 
matter comes to me through the U.S. Postal Service as Free 
Matter for the Blind. The delays that I have been experiencing 
through this service, is not the same as what I am receiving 
through my regular mail, and these prolonged delays have 
impacted my ability to learn Braille.
    Had these delays not happen, I would most likely be able to 
read my statement to you today. But I can't. So I am going to 
ask Sharon Maneki, a fellow member of the National Federation 
of the Blind, to read my statement aloud on my behalf.
    Ms. Maneki. Thank you, Rania.
    ''As an aspiring author, the intake of knowledge and 
literature is important. And as a new Braille learner, getting 
my hands on a steady supply of Braille is crucial. This 
material is sent by Federal, State, and private agencies via 
the U.S. Postal Service, USPS, as Free Matter for the Blind. 
According to its website, this federally-funded postage is to 
be treated as first-class mail. However, free reading matter 
for the blind has long experienced delays.''
    ''Prior to COVID-19 delivery times ranged from one to two 
weeks, post-pandemic they have increased from two--one to 2 
months. While other mail has mostly returned to normal Free 
Matter for the Blind has not. And these lengthy delays have 
impeded my ability to learn Braille; when the Maryland Library 
for the Blind and Print Disabled, LBPD, asked me to join the 
Braille eReader Pilot Program, and I readily agreed.''
    And Rania has the Braille display for you to see.
    ''The first device was sent out on October 21, 2020. It 
should have arrived within a week. On November 10, a librarian 
informed me that other patrons had also not received their mail 
packages. And I was issued a replacement. It wasn't until 
Christmastime that the two packages arrived together, 
refreshable Braille displays are expensive. And I suddenly had 
two in my possession. Because of my eReader connectivity issues 
with the online services, I opted for a Braille book 
cartridge.''
    And Rania has one of them for you to see as well.
    ''The first was sent on April 12, 2021, was never delivered 
and was returned to the library by USPS for unknown reasons. 
LBPD sent another book cartridge on June 9. It came exactly 1 
month later while regular mail from Baltimore reaches Frederick 
within a few days. On behalf of the National library Service 
for the Blind and Print Disabled Library of Congress, the 
Gallup poll is surveying eReader participants at two- four- and 
6-month intervals. Because of the original eReader was delayed, 
it arrived just as the surveys began, and of the three, I could 
only complete one survey. The Braille book cartridges came too 
late for me to properly assess the eReader device.''
    ''Based on follow-up phone calls, I fear that I will time 
out of this poll and the opportunity for feedback and funds 
allocated for my participation in this pilot program will have 
been wasted.''
    ''Mail delays have also affected Free Matter for the Blind 
from other organizations. In March of 2020, the Maryland 
Division of Rehabilitation Services ordered literacy books to 
continue my Braille learning at home. These books did not 
arrive until the summer, delaying my progress.''
    ''In the fall of 2020 I began virtual Braille instruction, 
at the end of our 3-month sessions, my instructor had still not 
received her Braille books. Lessons were to continue once the 
next set of books arrived, conditioned by the prolonged mail 
delays, I waited for the books and it wasn't until March of 
2021 that I learned that the new order had fallen through. It 
was another one to 2 months before they were finally in my 
hands.''
    ''The lengthy delay--have made having consistent lessons 
difficult. And my virtual instruction has been postponed until 
the fall of 2021. The USPS offers a mail tracking system called 
``Informed Delivery'' that could have allowed me to verify the 
status of my packages. However, this image-based program is not 
accessible to blind users. In 2018, the National Federation of 
the Blind requested that USPS make this system accessible, but 
no action was taken. Letters in the mail are similarly--
similarly affected for me.''
    ''As a companion to virtual instruction, and to accelerate 
my learning, I also enrolled in a correspondence-based Braille 
literacy course through the Hadley School for the Blind in 
Illinois. Due to mail delays, the instructor has waived the 
requirement that I wait for the grading of submitted written 
work before moving on to the next lessons. Though this is a 
missed opportunity for timely feedback, it is the only solution 
given the drawn out correspondence via Free Matter for the 
Blind.''
    ''My transition to Braille is vital, born sighted, I am no 
longer able to read print. I yearn to make the switch from 
audio to Braille. This transition is not simply a preference, I 
have a profound hearing loss, and I am losing the last of my 
hearing.''
    ''From my perspective, the Federal, State, and private 
agencies that support me are being thwarted, and I feel 
marginalized when Free Matter for the Blind suffers prolonged 
delays that regular mail does not. And I am the one voice you 
are hearing, but it affects many others. Thank you.''

    [The statement follows:]
 Prepared Statement of Rania Dima, Member, National Federation of the 
                       Blind, Frederick, Maryland
                           my usps experience
    As an aspiring author, the intake of knowledge and literature is 
important, and as a new Braille learner, getting my hands on a steady 
supply of Braille is crucial. This material is sent by Federal, State, 
and private agencies via the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) as free matter 
for the blind. According to its website, this federally-funded postage 
is to be treated as first-class mail. However, free matter for the 
blind has long experienced delays. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, 
delivery times ranged from one to two weeks. Post pandemic, they have 
increased to one to 2 months. While other mail has mostly returned to 
normal, free matter for the blind has not, and these lengthy delays 
have impeded my ability to learn Braille.
    When the Maryland State Library for the Blind and Print Disabled 
(LBPD) asked me to join the Braille E-reader pilot program, I readily 
agreed. The first device was sent out on October 21, 2020. It should 
have arrived within a week. On November 10th, a librarian informed me 
that other patrons had also not received their mailed packages, and I 
was issued a replacement. It wasn't until Christmastime that the two 
packages arrived together. Refreshable Braille displays are expensive, 
and I suddenly had two in my possession.
    Because of my E-reader connectivity issues with the online service, 
I opted for Braille book cartridges. The first, sent on April 12, 2021, 
was never delivered and was returned to the library by USPS for unknown 
reasons. LBPD sent another book cartridge on June 9th. It came exactly 
1 month later while regular mail from Baltimore reaches Frederick 
within a few days.
    On behalf of the National Library Service, the Gallup Poll is 
surveying E-reader participants at 2, 4 and 6 month intervals. Because 
the original E-reader was delayed, it arrived just as the surveys 
began, and of the three, I could only complete one survey. The Braille 
book cartridges came too late for me to properly assess the E-reader 
device. Based on follow-up phone calls, I fear that I will time out of 
this poll, and the opportunity for feedback and funds allocated for my 
participation in this pilot program will have been wasted.
    Mail delays have also affected free matter for the blind from other 
organizations. In March of 2020, the Maryland Division of 
Rehabilitation Services ordered literacy books to continue my Braille 
learning at home. These books did not arrive until the summer, delaying 
my progress. In the fall, I began virtual Braille instruction. At the 
end of our 3 month session, my instructor had still not received her 
Braille books. Lessons were to continue once the next set of books 
arrived. Conditioned by the prolonged mail delays, I waited for the 
books and it wasn't until March of 2021 that I learned that the new 
order had fallen through. It was another one to 2 months before they 
were finally in my hands. The lengthy delays have made having 
consistent lessons difficult and my virtual instruction has been 
postponed until this fall.
    The USPS offers a mail tracking system called Informed Delivery 
that could have allowed me to verify the status of my packages. 
However, this image-based program is not accessible to blind users. In 
2018, the National Federation of the Blind requested that USPS make 
this system accessible but no action was taken.
    Letter-sized mail is similarly affected. As a companion to virtual 
instruction and to accelerate my learning, I also enrolled in a 
correspondence-based Braille literacy course through Hadley School for 
the Blind. Due to mail delays, the instructor has waived the 
requirement that I wait for the grading of submitted written work 
before moving on to the next lessons. Though this is a missed 
opportunity for timely feedback, it is the only solution given the 
drawn out correspondence via free matter for the blind.
    My transition to Braille is vital. Born sighted, I am no longer 
able to read print, and I yearn to make the switch from audio to 
Braille. This transition is not simply a preference; I have a profound 
hearing loss and I am losing the last of my hearing. From my 
perspective, the Federal, State and private agencies that support me 
are being thwarted, and I feel marginalized when free matter for the 
blind suffers prolonged delays that regular mail does not.
    My voice is but one from the many who have been affected. Attached 
to this testimony is Resolution 20-2105 which was recently passed by 
the members of the National Federation of the Blind.
Resolution 2021-05: Regarding Mail Problems that Interfere with 
NLS Services

WHEREAS, the National Library Service (NLS) for the Blind and Print 
Disabled, Library of Congress, and its cooperating network libraries 
provide books and magazines in specialized formats to blind and print-
disabled children, working-age adults, and seniors losing vision; and

WHEREAS, this valuable service not only provides the major source of 
reading material for these people, but also fosters literacy skills for 
children, interaction in community life for adults, and hope and 
encouragement for the newly blind; and

WHEREAS, NLS and its network libraries depend on the United States 
Postal Service (USPS) to distribute its materials and the digital 
players, Braille displays, and other equipment needed to listen to or 
read these books; and

WHEREAS, these libraries are permitted to use the Free Reading Matter 
provisions of the postal regulation and the USPS claims on its website 
that Free Reading Matter is ``treated as First-Class Mail for purposes 
of processing, delivery and forwarding, and return if undeliverable''; 
and

WHEREAS, from June 2020 to the present, far too many library customers 
across the nation have experienced long delays or total absence in 
receiving their books and equipment, even though the libraries have 
sent them to the individual patron using the USPS; and

WHEREAS, this failure by the USPS not only has a detrimental effect on 
the lives of blind and print-disabled Americans, but is also creating a 
loss of taxpayer dollars since digital players, Braille displays, and 
other valuable equipment are stuck in the post office, never reaching 
the people who need it; and

WHEREAS, blind and print-disabled citizens cannot use the USPS Informed 
Delivery service for residential customers to see if they will be 
receiving library materials or equipment because it is inaccessible; 
and

WHEREAS, in Resolution 2018-19, the National Federation of the Blind 
urged USPS to make this service accessible and informed the agency that 
it was violating Federal law, but the result was no action; and

WHEREAS, although Congress created and funded the Books for the Blind 
program under the Pratt-Smoot Act of 1931, neither the Library of 
Congress nor Congress itself demands any accountability from the USPS, 
which plays a vital role in the success or failure of the program: Now, 
therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention 
assembled this tenth day of July, 2021, that this organization condemn 
and deplore the failure of the United States Postal Service to deliver 
materials and equipment to and from library patrons in a timely manner; 
and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization insist that the Librarian 
of Congress annually issue a report card to USPS based on data from NLS 
and its cooperating network libraries on the timely delivery of 
materials and equipment; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization strongly urge the United 
States Congress to require the USPS to report to the Congress on steps 
that the USPS intends to take to improve timely delivery of library 
materials and equipment to ensure that these items are truly treated as 
First-Class Mail; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization demand that the USPS 
immediately end its discriminatory practices by making its Informed 
Delivery service accessible to blind and print-disabled citizens.

    Senator Van Hollen. Well, thank you, Ms. Dima, for bringing 
us your story. Sharon, thank you for your assistance today. And 
your testimony shows the very real-world impact of these 
unacceptable delivery delays that we are working to get to the 
bottom of. So thank you for being here.
    Now let us turn to another consumer, who has also been very 
adversely affected by these postal delays, and that is, Karen 
Meyers. So thank you for joining us.
STATEMENT OF MS. KAREN MEYERS, SMALL BUSINESS OWNER, 
            CITY OF BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
    Ms. Meyers. Also thanks for inviting me. My name is Karen 
Meyers. I am a resident of Baltimore, a retired teacher, and 
the majority owner of a small business started by my husband 29 
years ago. Our business is to market bank checks to AFL-CIO 
union offices all over the country. Orders come to us online, 
by phone--oops, thank you. Did you hear all that?
    Senator Van Hollen. And now if you can start right from the 
beginning.
    Ms. Meyers. Okay.
    Senator Van Hollen. Okay. Thanks.
    Ms. Meyers. My name is Karen Meyers. I am a resident of 
Baltimore, a retired teacher, and the majority owner of a small 
business started by my husband 29 years ago. Our business is to 
market bank checks to AFL-CIO unions all over the country. 
Orders come to us online, by phone, or through the U.S. Postal 
Service.
    Over the past year, but particularly the past 9 to 10 
months, we have had many problems with mail delivery. A number 
of our customers have called to complain they have not received 
their checks, when they had sent order forms in the mail weeks 
or even months before. But we had not received those orders. 
This caused strains in our relationships with customers who had 
come to expect a turnaround time of about a week to 10 days 
from when we received the orders to when they received their 
checks.
    In one particularly egregious example, a union office in 
Oakland, California, mailed an order form on February 25 of 
this year, and we received it on June 10. Our appeal for the 
unions is that we outsource the printing of our checks to a 
union check and business forms printer, so our relationship 
with the printer is essential to the survival of our business. 
We receive their invoices in the mail, and in the past have 
sent our payments to them in the mail.
    Here are some of the problems we have experienced because 
of poor service by the Postal Service: In April or May of last 
year a check for $4,000 written to our printer, but was stolen 
and cashed. It had been mailed at a post office and was 
destined for a post office box, so the theft is likely to have 
occurred within the postal system.
    In November our printer complained that we had not paid a 
number of their invoices, but we had never received them. In 
many cases invoices arrived four to five weeks late, making our 
payments late.
    A check we sent in February to pay a number of invoices had 
not been received by the printer by April. We finally stopped 
payment on the check and began paying all our invoices online' 
just this past week we received an envelope of invoices on July 
8 that had been mailed May 17.
    Had we not had a strong, multi-year relationship with our 
printing company and had they dropped us as customers, we would 
be out of business. We have solved the problem of delays in our 
payments by paying online but we still rely on the postal 
system to deliver their invoices to us.
    In another instance, we received an invoice from our CPA 
whose office is located in Towson, 15 miles from our office in 
Middle River, for the preparation of our State and Federal 
taxes. We mailed our payment immediately. But after two weeks 
they had not received the check so we put a stop payment on it 
and delivered a replacement check to their office in person. 
After another two weeks, they finally received the original 
check in the mail.
    We have experienced problems with mail delivery in our 
personal lives as well. Christmas cards sent in mid-December 
trickled in between January and April. Thank-you notes I sent 
to my daughter and her family in Cleveland in mid-October 
didn't arrive until March of this year. A priority mail package 
sent to my sister in Indiana in December took 11 days to reach 
her.
    Our problems have been challenging but are insignificant 
compared to the hardships suffered by low-income seniors 
relying on the post office to deliver their Social Security 
payments.
    As a man from my church remarked to me; when Social 
Security payments arrive late and recipients can't pay their 
bills on time it can have a detrimental effect on good credit 
ratings that may have taken a lifetime to build.'' Thank you.

    [The statement follows:]
   Prepared Statement of Karen Meyers, Small Business Owner, City of 
                      Baltimore, State of Maryland
    My name is Karen Meyers and I am a resident of Baltimore, a retired 
teacher, and the majority owner of a small business started by my 
husband 29 years ago. Our business is to market bank checks to AFL-CIO 
union offices all over the country. Orders come to us online, by phone, 
or via the U.S. Postal Service (approximately 1/3 of orders).
    Over the past year but particularly the past 9-10 months, we have 
had many problems with mail delivery. A number of our customers have 
called to complain they haven't received their check orders when they 
had sent order forms in the mail weeks or even months before. But we 
had not received those orders. This caused strains in our relationships 
with customers who had come to expect a turnaround time of a week to 10 
days from our receiving the order to their receiving their checks. In 
one particularly egregious example, a union office in Oakland, 
California, mailed an order form on February 25 of this year and we 
received it on June 10.
    Our appeal for the unions is that we outsource the printing of our 
checks to a union check and business forms printer, making our 
relationship with them essential to the survival of our business. We 
receive their invoices in the mail and, in the past, have sent our 
payments to them in the mail. Here are some of the problems we have 
experienced because of poor service by the USPS:

  --In April or May of last year a check for $4000 written to them was 
        stolen and cashed. It had been mailed at a post office and was 
        going to a PO box so the theft is likely to have occurred 
        within the postal system.
  --In November the printing company complained that we had not paid a 
        number of their invoices but we had never received them. In 
        many cases, invoices arrived 4-5 weeks after being mailed, 
        making our payments late.
  --A check we sent in February to pay a number of invoices had not 
        been received by the printer by April. We finally stopped 
        payment on the check and began paying all our invoices online.
  --We received an envelope of invoices this past week, on July 8, that 
        had been mailed from Texas on May 17.

    Had we not had a strong, multi-year relationship with our printing 
company and had they dropped us as customers, we would be out of 
business. We have solved the problem of delays in our payments to them 
by paying online but we still rely on the postal system to deliver 
their invoices to us.
    In another instance, we received an invoice from our CPA whose 
office is located in Towson, 15 miles from our office in Middle River, 
for the preparation of our State and Federal taxes. We mailed our 
payment immediately. But after two weeks they had not received the 
check so we put a stop payment on it and delivered a replacement check 
to their office in person. After another two weeks, they finally 
received the original check in the mail.
    We have experienced problems with mail delivery in our personal 
lives as well. Christmas cards sent in mid-December trickled in between 
January and April. Thank you notes I sent to my daughter and her family 
in Cleveland in mid-October didn't arrive until March of this year. A 
priority mail package sent to my sister in Indiana in December took 11 
days to reach her.
    Our problems have been challenging but are insignificant compared 
to the hardships suffered by low-income seniors relying on the post 
office to deliver their Social Security payments. As a man from my 
church remarked to me, when Social Security payments arrive late and 
recipients can't pay their bills on time, it can have a detrimental 
effect on good credit ratings that may have taken a lifetime to build.

    Senator Van Hollen. Well, Ms. Meyers, thank you for your 
testimony, both in terms of your personal experience with your 
small business, as well as relaying the stories of other people 
in your community. And, you know, these delays have really 
harmful impacts on people's lives. So we appreciate your being 
here.
    Now let us turn to our next witness here, Mr. Brian 
McLaurin who, as I indicated earlier, is a postal worker. We 
want to thank you for continuing your work throughout the 
pandemic, and we are grateful to the men and women of the 
Postal Service who deliver our mail. But of course have to 
operate under the rules and the management that it comes down 
from, ultimately the Postmaster General. So let me turn it over 
to you. And maybe you can shed a little light on, real-world 
terms, on some of the things inspector general was sharing with 
us earlier. Let me turn it over to you, Mr. McLaurin.
STATEMENT OF MR. BRIAN McLAURIN, MOTOR VEHICLE SERVICES 
            CRAFT DIRECTOR, AMERICAN POSTAL WORKERS 
            UNION, NATION'S CAPITAL SOUTHERN MARYLAND 
            AREA, LOCAL 140
    Mr. McLaurin. I thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Van 
Hollen. My name is Brian McLaurin; I am a longtime Maryland 
resident, and I joined the United States Postal Service in 1998 
as a tractor trailer operator with the Motor Vehicle Service 
Division of the Brentwood Postal Facility, now known as the 
Curseen-Morris Mail Processing and Distribution Center.
    I am proud to say that I have been driving tractor-trailers 
for the Postal Service for 23 years. I have also served as the 
Motor Vehicle Craft Director of the American Postal Workers 
Union, Nation's Capital/Southern Maryland Area Local. I have 
held this elected position since 2009. Our local represents 
around 2,000 dedicated postal workers who serve their community 
and Nation every day.
    I have personally witnessed the slow and steady decline and 
delay of our Nation's mail. Over the years, postal workers were 
empowered to move the mail on time through a variety of tools, 
such as overtime, and the drivers waiting for mail to be loaded 
on their trucks before heading out. If some mail didn't make it 
on the truck, that was not a serious problem since we made 
multiple trips early in the day, and sometimes extra trips to 
move the mail.
    Today, however, we leave mail behind because of plant 
processing issues, machines break down and, you know, less 
machines in the building. We make fewer trips, we are 
understaffed, and we are required to stick to rigid delivery 
schedules which require drivers like myself to leave with 
trucks that are not fully loaded.
    To make matters even worse, postal facilities are short-
staffed; so, when mail finally arrives at a station, there are 
not enough workers to process the mail and get it out for 
delivery. I have personally witnessed on countless occasions, 
the same mail sitting in the facility for 2 or 3 days. Postal 
employees get to it when they can, but they must be directed by 
management. Management decides when mail will be moved. As a 
result, family members, neighbors, and window clerks regularly 
tell me heart wrenching stories about how critical packages are 
not being delivered timely.
    Concern over mail slowdowns is not isolated to my Home 
State of Maryland. My national union shared with me over 
130,000 complaints to the Postal Service which were submitted 
in opposition to management's current proposal to further 
reduce service standards. The comments share a common theme: 
people are concerned about the current delays of the mail, and 
are pleading against any efforts to erode the system further.
    My personal account, are a case study of a larger problem, 
which will only worsen if we do not act. The Postal Service's 
10-year plan outlines an agenda to further slow the mail 
despite the documented failures of its most recent slowdown.
    After 2012, the Postal Service initiated a plan to cut 
costs, by slowing down the mail and closing postal facilities. 
In reality, according to public filings at the Postal 
Regulatory Commission, the plan caused the Postal Service to 
lose $65.9 million in its first year due to increased 
transportation costs as mail was being driven further due to 
the shutdown of several postal facilities.
    The Southern Maryland P&DC facility, which is represented 
by my local, was one of the first victims of this policy. Under 
this policy, rather than quickly process mail in as few 
facilities as possible, mail now needed to be shuttled from its 
origin facility to Gaithersburg, an hour away for the postage 
to be canceled, and then shuttled back to Southern Maryland 
Facility, P&DC, for further processing. This shuttling is a key 
culprit to why the mail is slow.
    In 2016 and 2017, the Postal Service Inspector General 
found that U.S. Postal Service eventually managed to stabilize 
its losses, but still only saved 5.6 percent of the anticipated 
savings, despite slashing jobs and decreasing the level of 
service Americans deserve. The Postal Service also lost 
business when it slowed down the mail; as the Postal Regulatory 
Commission warned: When mail service slows, people use the mail 
less.
    The Postal Service must stop slowing down the mail and 
begin the process of returning to its 2012 service standards. 
Returning the United States Postal Service to the 2012 
standards will return overnight delivery for many areas and 
speed up mail delivery by one day for the remaining mail.
    I learned from my national union that in the current 
appropriations process, the American Postal Workers Union, is 
urging this subcommittee to intervene to guarantee a baseline 
level of service for United States Postal Service performance, 
as well as for facility, and window hours.
    Congress should add language to the Financial Services and 
General Government Appropriations bill which will: One, ask the 
PRC to look at the costs and benefits of returning the United 
States Postal Service to its 2012 service standards. And two, 
at a minimum, prohibit the United States Postal Service from 
reducing its service standards, mail delivery times, facility 
hours, post office operation window service hours, and 
performance metrics below its 2020 levels.
    The Postal Service remains a bedrock of public service and 
must be protected from misguided managerial attempts to run 
trucks on time, and outrageous efforts to reduce the speed of 
the mail. Fortunately, this subcommittee can both protect our 
Nation from yet another mail slowdown and place the Postal 
Service on a path to restoring the level of service Americans 
deserve.
    I thank you for the opportunity to share my story.

    [The statement follows:]
    Prepared Statement of Brian McLaurin, APWU Motor Vehicle Craft 
           Director, Nation's Capital Southern Maryland Area
    Good afternoon Chairman Van Hollen and Members of the Senate 
Appropriations, Financial Services, and General Government 
Subcommittee. My name is Brian McLaurin; as a long time Maryland 
resident, I was thrilled to join USPS in 1998 as a driver with the 
Motor Vehicle Service division of the Brentwood Postal Facility, now 
known as the Curseen-Morris Mail Processing and Distribution Center. 
I'm proud to say that I have been driving tractor-trailers for the 
Postal Service for 23 years. I also serve as the Motor Vehicle Craft 
Director of the American Postal Worker Union's Nation's Capital/
Southern Maryland Area Local. I have held this elected position since 
2009. Our local represents around 2,000 dedicated postal workers who 
serve their community and Nation every day.
    I have personally witnessed the slow and steady decline and delay 
of our Nation's mail. Over the years, postal workers were empowered to 
move the mail on time through a variety tools such as overtime, and 
waiting for mail to be loaded on their truck before heading out. If 
some mail didn't make it on the truck, that wasn't a serious problem 
since we made multiple trips early in the day, and sometimes extra 
trips to move the mail. Today, however, we leave mail behind because we 
make fewer trips, are understaffed, and are required to stick to rigid 
delivery schedules which require drivers like me to leave with trucks 
that are not fully loaded.
    To make matters even worse, postal facilities are short-staffed; 
so, when mail finally arrives at a station, there aren't enough workers 
to process mail and get it out for delivery. I have personally 
witnessed on countless occasions, the same mail sitting in the facility 
for 2 or 3 days. Postal employees get to it when they can, but they 
must be directed by management. As a result, family members, neighbors, 
and window clerks regularly tell me heart wrenching stories about how 
critical packages are not being delivered.
    Concern over mail slowdowns is not isolated to my home State of 
Maryland. My national union shared with me over 130,000 comments to the 
Postal Service which were submitted in opposition to management's 
current proposal to further reduce service standards. The comments 
share a common theme: people are concerned about the current delays of 
the mail and are pleading against any efforts to erode the system 
further.
    My personal accounts are a case study of a larger problem, which 
will only worsen if we do not act. The Postal Service's 10-year plan 
outlines an agenda to further slow the mail--despite the documented 
failures of its most recent slowdown.
    After 2012, USPS initiated a plan to cut costs, by slowing down the 
mail and closing postal facilities. In reality, according to public 
filings at the PRC, the plan caused USPS to lose $65.9 million in its 
first year due to increased transportation costs as mail was being 
driven further due to the shutdown of several postal facilities.
    The Southern Maryland P&DC facility, which is represented by my 
local, was one of the first victims of this policy. Under this policy, 
rather than quickly process mail in as few facilities as possible, mail 
now needed to be shuttled from its origin facility, to Gaithersburg, an 
hour away for the postage to be canceled, and then shuttled back to the 
Southern Maryland Facility P&DC, for further processing. This 
``shuttling'' is a key culprit as to why the mail is slow.
    In 2016 and 2017, the USPS Inspector General found that USPS 
eventually managed to stabilize its losses but still only saved 5.6 
percent of the anticipated savings, despite slashing jobs and 
decreasing the level of service Americans deserve. USPS also lost 
business when it slowed down the mail. As the Postal Regulatory 
Commission warned, when mail service slows, people use the mail less.
    USPS must stop slowing down the mail and begin the process of 
returning to its 2012 service standards. Returning USPS to the 2012 
service standards would return overnight delivery for many areas and 
speed up mail delivery times by 1 day for the remaining mail.
    I learned from my national union that in the current appropriations 
process, APWU is urging this committee to guarantee a baseline level of 
service for USPS performance, as well as for facility, and window 
hours. Congress should add language to the FSGG Appropriations bill 
which will:

    1.  Ask the PRC to look at the costs and benefits of returning USPS 
to its 2012 service standards
    2.  At a minimum prohibit USPS from reducing its service standards, 
mail delivery times, facility hours, post office operation/window 
service hours, and performance metrics below its 2020 levels

    The Postal Service remains a bedrock of public service and must be 
protected from misguided managerial attempts to run trucks on time and 
outrageous efforts to reduce the speed of the mail. Fortunately, this 
committee can both protect our Nation from yet another mail slowdown 
and place USPS on a path to restoring the level of service Americans 
deserve.
    I thank you for the opportunity to share my story.

    Senator Van Hollen. Well, thank you, Mr. McLaurin, and 
thank you again for your service, and, as part of the Postal 
Service, for a long tenure. And your testimony today really 
shines a light on the issues the inspector general was 
referring to, and you are right, we need to return to the 2012, 
standards.
    If you could just talk a little bit about the issue raised 
regarding the changes in policies that were really made, you 
know, about this time last year, maybe a little later, and you 
mentioned specifically the issue of, you know, trucks not 
waiting till they are full with mail, leaving without being 
full, but that delays the whole system.
    Can you just talk a little bit about how that change? And 
that was partly, I think you alluded to the fact that that was 
partly due to a concern about overtime, having to pay overtime.
    Mr. McLaurin. Mm-hmm.
    Senator Van Hollen. But we need to pay for our mail to be 
delivered on time. Can you talk a little bit about how that 
filtered its way through the system, and resulted in our two 
customers who are here today, how it impacted their delayed 
mail delivery?
    Mr. McLaurin. No problem. Well, first of all, at one time 
we would always move the mail without any kind of delay, or any 
kind of problem about the mail not being moved because of 
worried about paying overtime. Mail would come out. We had 
enough machines in the building where the mail would come out 
on time. We didn't have to wait for the mail to come, you know, 
to the loading dock to load the trucks.
    So when the mail is not on time, you waited for the mail 
that was another slow down, but most recently now there was a 
change where they said, well, if the mail is not on the dock, 
leave. So we leave at 7:00 o'clock, if 7:00 o'clock and you 
don't have all your mail, leave anyway. But then the mail 
starts to come out, but at 7:00 o'clock, but the mail is on the 
dock, but still the supervisor says: This is 7:00 o'clock it is 
time to go. I said: What about the mail?
    You know, so the times have changed where we don't, I 
guess, value the sanctity of the mail. We would never leave 
mail behind. Now we do that with at a drop of a bucket.
    Senator Van Hollen. Right. And of course that has the 
direct impact, the kind of, you know, stories and testimony we 
are hearing, today. And that has to have some kind of impact on 
you and your fellow postal workers when, you know, people are 
interacting with customers who are understandably complaining, 
but the cause of the problems is the new policies that have 
been put in place by management. Can you just talk to how you 
and other postal workers are experiencing the complaints and 
concerns that have been raised?
    Mr. McLaurin. Certainly. I have a station I go to in the 
morning, I drop off the mail, a tractor trailer full of mail, 
lately--my trip used to be full, now it is half-way full. I go 
to the clerk having to see the clerks, the new clerks they have 
working in the station. And she said that she was new there, 
and maybe her first week, and she said there was--two or three 
of her customers came up to her and asked her: Well, how come 
she is not getting her mail? Where is the mail at?
    You know, everybody from my neighbor, to a clerk at the 
station that I don't hardly know will ask me: What is going on 
with the mail? And all I can tell them is: All I do is I move 
the mail. I can't do more to it, unless I put it on the back of 
the truck. But the service standards makes it so, I guess, the 
ordinary person who needs their service, of mail service is not 
getting it.
    You know, for people who can afford to do other things, 
they can do that. But if I need the mail in my neighborhood, I 
can't get it. I am at a disadvantage.
    Senator Van Hollen. Well, thank you. And again, these are 
deliberate changes that were made that have these harmful 
consequences on delivering the mail, which is why we need to 
make changes in the management of the system.
    Ms. Dima, if you could just talk again about the fact that 
the material that you receive to help you in this process of 
learning Braille, how you have noticed that that is not 
delivered at the same pace, and at the same time as first-class 
mail? And I know you mentioned that. And the reason I am 
bringing it up again is that, after our office heard about 
these issues through the National Federation for the Blind, we 
contacted the Post Office and they told us that they are--they 
don't treat that material any differently than the first-class 
mail. Is that what they are telling you as well?
    Ms. Dima. Well, yes, and that is what they say on their 
website, that it is treated as first-class mail. But I know 
when I receive mail from Baltimore it comes to me within three 
or 4 days. But the mail that comes from the library, which is 
also located in Baltimore, takes a month. So this book 
cartridge came, it was delivered--it was sent--put in the mail 
on June 9 and it came on July 9. So an entire month went by.
    And I know that with regards to my instructor who did not 
receive her ordered books, I had actually had a copy of one of 
the Braille books that we were working with. And my husband 
took it to the Post Office and paid the postage and sent her 
the book from Frederick to Cumberland, and she received it 
within a week. Whereas, it took me in upwards, you know, three 
to 4 months I even received my books.
    Senator Van Hollen. Right. So we are going to continue to 
pursue this issue because they are telling us one thing, but 
your real-world experience, and other real-world experience is 
obviously dramatically different from their policy. You 
mentioned the USPS' Informed Delivery app, which I think has 
been a useful tool for some people, but as you indicated, is 
not designed to be useful for individuals who are blind. We are 
also pursuing that issue. What are they telling you about 
changes that they are making to the app so that it can be 
accessible?
    Ms. Dima. There has been no action. I know that in 2018 the 
National Federation of the Blind requested that they make this 
program accessible for blind users. And there has been no 
action.
    Senator Van Hollen. Well, I can assure you that we are 
going to be pursuing that as well. And we are going to be 
asking the inspector general to pursue that issue as well.
    So Ms. Meyers, I think, you know--what we heard throughout 
this period, and continuing now from small businesses, and all 
the issues that you raised where customers would grow irate 
with a small business because, you know, something they had 
ordered from that small business had been--not been delivered, 
which was not the fault, in any way, of the small business, but 
entirely because of these postal changes. Could you--is there a 
way to quantify the sort of damage from the delays that you 
have experienced?
    Ms. Meyers. Yes. I wish I could. I can't really quantify 
it. I can tell you that we have spent a lot of time putting out 
brushfires that, you know, would not have happened had the 
Postal Service been on top of it. I think maybe the only 
advantage to this being such a widespread problem is that 
people know, I mean, you know, people, if we tell them we 
didn't get in the mail, they will say: Yes, I just got a 
Christmas card in April.
    Senator Van Hollen. Yes.
    Ms. Meyers. So I think there was some degree of 
understanding.
    Senator Van Hollen. Right.
    Ms. Meyers. And as I said, because we had a good 
relationship with our supplier that helped, but that, that was 
probably the trickier relationship. But as I said, if we had 
lost them, we would be out of business, you know.
    Senator Van Hollen. Well, right. And I noticed that in your 
testimony that you had that, you know, you had a strong 
relationship.
    Ms. Meyers. Mm-hmm.
    Senator Van Hollen. Which helped you, I think, weather the 
storm, but I am sure there are many others. In fact, I have 
heard from others who just, you know, discontinued their 
relationship, and because they didn't fully recognize that it 
was not the fault of the----
    Ms. Meyers. Right.
    Senator Van Hollen [continuing]. Small business side to 
begin with. And the other issue, as you just indicated, people 
begin to, you know, get used to this late delivery, which is 
unacceptable, but it is, it does create a vicious, downward 
spiral because as Mr. McLaurin, you know, suggested, then 
people stop using the mail.
    Ms. Meyers. Right.
    Senator Van Hollen. And look for alternatives. And that 
obviously means less support for the U.S. Postal Service. And 
so that is why we are--we really wanted to have all of you here 
to talk about, the very sort of human, you know, costs and harm 
that are done by these delays.
    And it is the number one issue, and most consistent issue 
that our office has heard about over time. Obviously, during 
this period of the pandemic, we have heard from people, you 
know, with respect to unemployment compensation, we have heard 
from small businesses trying to access the PPP program. So we 
have had, obviously, lots of interaction with constituents on 
lots of issues over this period of time.
    But the one thing that has been constant throughout that 
has been, unacceptably slow mail delivery. And as you heard 
from the Inspector General's Office, the Baltimore area has 
been especially hard hit, and that is why we are working really 
to support her in her investigation to get to the bottom of 
this. It is, as you have said, we have seen this problem around 
the country, but there are certainly areas, including areas in 
Maryland, that have been especially a hard hit.
    And so your testimony helps provide leads to all of us, you 
know, and for the Inspector General, as she continues to do 
her, her good work.
    I don't know if any of you have any, you know, closing 
comments that you would like to add.
    Ms. Meyers. I would like to add something, if I could?
    Senator Van Hollen. Sure.
    Ms. Meyers. I feel like one of the big problems in our 
country right now is that there is widespread mistrust of, 
suspicion of, and even hostility towards the government, and 
when a trusted institution that people have relied on their 
whole lives, like the Post Office, fails that certainly doesn't 
help the situation. In fact, it exacerbates it, I would say.
    Senator Van Hollen. I think that is a very important point. 
And, unfortunately--unfortunately there are some people who try 
to exploit that sentiment, and as people take actions that 
make, as I say, the ability to deliver service worse, and then 
you have this cycle, this downward spiral. You know, I have--I 
don't think it is any secret I have, you know, called for the 
replacement some time ago of the current Postmaster General. I 
think that the policies he put in place have been demonstrably 
part of the problem here. That is reflected in the Inspector 
General's Report, in the Inspector General's testimony, and in 
the testimony all of you have provided.
    I mean the COVID pandemic obviously imposed hardships and 
difficulties throughout the country. And obviously it has an 
impact on the workforce and the availability of the workforce. 
But on top of all that, you had these very deliberate changes 
in policy that were not--that were harmful, and also not even 
explained.
    So there was just lots of confusion about the changes that 
were taking place. And I do worry, as he just said, Ms. Meyers, 
that that continues to undermine confidence in what has been, 
you know, an institution that has been one of the gold 
standards in terms of reliability and standards.
    So we have got to get back to that place before it is too 
late, and people have--you know, to lose confidence in the 
system because it is not fair to customers and consumers. It is 
not fair to the men and women who every day are delivering the 
mail, to have in place management decisions that are 
undermining the mission of the Post Office.
    So thank all of you for your testimony. I don't know if 
either of the other witnesses here; want to make any closing 
remarks.
    Ms. Dima. Yes. I would like to say something. I just wanted 
to point out, with regards to the Informed Delivery, the 508, 
in the Federal Law requires that this be accessible, and it is 
not. And that there, you know, I am just one voice of the many 
blind people in the community that are struggling to get our 
mail in a timely manner.
    Senator Van Hollen. Well, I appreciate your testimony, it 
reflects the, you know, wide range of hardships that, you know, 
Americans are experiencing. I mean, we talked about small 
businesses, we have talked about people who were charged late 
fees through no fault of their own, many of them, you know, 
just living paycheck to paycheck.
    And then there is, you know, your very important and 
powerful story about, you know, working to learn Braille, 
because of your loss of vision. And so just, we are grateful 
for your fortitude, and look forward to working with you to 
correct these problems.
    I don't know, Mr. McLaurin, if you have any final 
statement.
    Mr. McLaurin. I would just like to say, I hope that the 
subcommittee can take care of these issues and help us move 
forward and get past this, and make sure that we can have a 
viable Postal Service in the future.
    Senator Van Hollen. Well, thank you. And as, as you said, 
we need to get back to those, you know, 2012 standards.
    Mr. McLaurin. Yes.
    Senator Van Hollen. We know that it can be done, right.
    Mr. McLaurin. Right.
    Senator Van Hollen. Because you were doing it.
    Mr. McLaurin. Yes.
    Senator Van Hollen. Right, in 2012, before some of these, 
deliberate changes that were made that have, you know, 
compromised the ability to deliver mail on time. So it is 
unacceptable. It needs to change. And your testimony today, all 
from all of you, provide very useful guidance to us. So thank 
you.

                     ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS

    [The following questions were not asked at the hearing, but 
were submitted to the witnesses for response subsequent to the 
hearing:]
    [Clerk's note: The following questions were submitted to 
the Postal Service, but responses never received.]
Questions Submitted to Ms. Tammy L. Whitcomb, Inspector General of the 
                      United States Postal Service
            Questions Submitted by Senator Chris Van Hollen:
    Question 1. USPS released their 10 year plan earlier this year, 
which includes reducing first class service standards, consolidating 
post offices, transitioning the delivery fleet to electric vehicles, 
and increasing prices.

        a.  Does the Office of Inspector General (OIG) have concerns or 
        indications that individuals will choose other mailing systems 
        over the USPS because of higher prices, longer wait lines, and 
        slower delivery?

    Question 2. My office has received over 3,500 messages regarding 
mail delays since July 2020. You mentioned during the hearing that your 
office has conducted targeted audits on specific parts of the country 
to evaluate service challenges.

        a.  Do you have plans to do an audit in the Delaware/
        Pennsylvania region to evaluate causes of poor delivery times 
        over the last year?

    Question 3. The USPS' OIG budget justification states that an 
emerging issue that the office is beginning to focus on is the multi-
billion dollar contract USPS awarded to a company to produce its next 
generation delivery vehicle, which will assemble up to 165,000 new 
vehicles over the next 10 years. The budget justification also states 
that Postal Service management subsequently indicated it would need 
billions of dollars in additional funding from Congress to electrify up 
to 90 percent of that fleet.

        a.  Has the OIG considered conducting oversight on the process 
        by which this contract was awarded and does the OIG have any 
        concerns about the process?
                                 ______
                                 
              Questions Submitted by Senator Patrick Leahy
    Question 1. During his confirmation hearing for his appointment to 
the Postal Board of Governors, Ron Stroman illustrated many of the 
issues that arose as a result of reform measures that Postmaster 
General Louis DeJoy took during the pandemic, such as forcing dispatch 
trucks to leave on time without first solving mail processing issues. 
He pointed to an Inspector General report, from your office, which he 
testified outlined various processing problems that must be solved 
before implementing changes to the transport schedule. Unfortunately, 
the report released to the public as heavily redacted, for reasons that 
are unclear.

        a.  Please provide the specific list of processing problems 
        identified by this report, which in its public release was 
        redacted, so that Congress can monitor the United States Postal 
        Service's progress toward addressing those problems.

        b.  Please provide your office's justification for the 
        redacting such information.
                                 ______
                                 
            Questions Submitted by Senator Joe Manchin, III
    During my time in the Senate, I've fought to ensure our mail is 
delivered on time. As you know, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy 
announced changes in 2020 that slowed down mail and compromised service 
across the country. Rather than learn from these mistakes, DeJoy 
doubled down in March, announcing a 10-year reorganization that would 
reduce the hours of post offices and close others.
    That's why I joined Senators Heinrich and Blumenthal in introducing 
legislation that prevents these changes that negatively impact delivery 
standards within the USPS.
    The on-time delivery of mail continues to be a crucial issue for 
our fellow Americans. While there have been steps to decrease delays, 
our Nation continues to see this problem persist. Since fiscal year 
2019, 201 constituents have written my office concerning USPS. Since 
April of this year, 86 constituents have written in about mail delays. 
We must act to improve mail delivery.

    Question 1. Some of the processing facilities that serve my State 
are among the worst performers in the country according to your 
office's service performance dashboard. What is causing this poor 
performance?

    Question 2. Can you work with my office to diagnose and address 
these delays to ensure we increase on-time deliveries for West 
Virginians?
                               narcotics
    Each year, authorities seize enough fentanyl to kill every American 
four times over, much of it ordered over the Internet and sent through 
the mail. As West Virginia has been ravaged by the opioid epidemic, 
I've supported a multitude of efforts to ensure that the largest 
distributors are being caught and to try and stem the flow of drugs 
into the State.
    To address increasing drug sales online, I introduced bipartisan 
legislation with Senator Cornyn that would amend Section 230 of the 
Communications Decency Act to require companies to report illegal 
activity on their online platforms.
    I've also worked to provide the West Virginia regional FBI office 
with the necessary funding to support agents dedicated to ending this 
pandemic as well as providing entities like CBP, ICE, and DHS with the 
necessary funding and support to seize thousands of pounds of narcotics 
along our ports of entry.
    The United States Inspection Service is tasked with enforcing laws 
that defend the Nation's mail system from illegal or dangerous use. 
Across the Nation, there are approximately 1,200 inspectors that are 
expected to examine 6.2 billion packages per year; there are only two 
inspectors in my entire State.

    Question 1. Given the opioid issues that have plagued my State for 
years, why are there still only two inspectors in my entire State?

    Question 2. What steps has the USPS taken to assist in curtailing 
the opioid crisis in the U.S?

    Question 3. Do you need additional assistance from Congress to 
address this problem?
                            sorting machines
    Last year, after visiting the Charleston Processing & Distribution 
Center, I discovered that three Delivery Bar Code Sorter (DBCS) 
machines and one Advanced Facer Canceler System (AFCS) out of service, 
and one Automated Flat Sorter Machine (AFSM) were slated to be put out 
of service. This considerably reduced the capacity of Charleston P&DC 
prior to the electionaaw, so I called on the U.S. Postmaster General 
Louis DeJoy to immediately reinstate these critical mail sorting 
machines.
    In October, I was pleased to learn that a Federal judge had 
overruled the changes DeJoy had reversed, which was intended to bring 
these machines and others around the country back online.
    However, I have heard reports that none of these machines were ever 
put back online.

    Question 1. What is the current status of USPS efforts to reinstate 
these machines in West Virginia and around the country?

    Question 2. If USPS fails to do so, what will be the impact on our 
country's mail system?
                       6-day-a-week mail delivery
    The elimination of Saturday delivery has been discussed several 
times by Postmaster DeJoy, which would harm rural communities. This 
would cut tens of thousands of rural letter carrier jobs, many of which 
are held by veterans.
    In addition to the loss of jobs as a result of the elimination of 
Saturday delivery, the Postal Service becomes a lifeline to rural areas 
where Internet access is less reliable. It is essential that we keep 
postal facilities open and operational so that the people and the 
economy do no not suffer more than they should.

    Question 1. What is the current status of Saturday Delivery in the 
reorganization discussions?

    Question 2. Can my State count on you to examine the financial harm 
of eliminating Saturday Delivery (6-day a week) and its impact on rural 
areas?
                     vehicle maintenance facilities
    USPS Vehicle Maintenance Facilities have been underfunded and 
understaffed, resulting in maintenance garage delays and Saturday 
closures. These impediments have resulted in subsequent delays in 
vehicle maintenance and upkeep. Fleet upkeep and maintenance are 
critical for both maintain on-time delivery and ensuring driver safety 
at the local levels.

    Question 1. Given the OIG's oversight of USPS operations and 
maintenance, what is the current maintenance backlog, and what is the 
impact this has on both jobs and delivery times?

                          SUBCOMMITTEE RECESS

    And the hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 3:55 p.m., Tuesday, July 13, the hearing was 
concluded, and the subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene 
subject to the call of the Chair.]

                                  [all]