[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 36 (Thursday, February 25, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S880-S881]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          U.S. Postal Service

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, a lot of people are familiar with this 
saying. It goes like this:

       Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night shall 
     [delay] these couriers from the swift completion of their 
     appointed rounds.

  That is the motto of the U.S. Postal Service, inscribed on the 
buildings, and emblazoned in our memories of the dutiful work and 
awesome responsibility of the U.S. Postal Service throughout our 
history.
  I am proud of the Postal Service, and most Americans are as well. If 
you ask many people ``What is your contact with the Federal Government, 
the U.S. Federal Government?'' they might be hard-pressed to identify 
it, but when you mention the Postal Service, they say ``Of course. Six 
days a week, my mailman, the person delivering the mail.''
  During the recent COVID-19 pandemic, many of us stayed home in our 
neighborhoods for lengthy periods of time. It became a routine that 
when the mailman came each day, as he did, we went out to greet him 
with masks

[[Page S881]]

on and chatted for just a moment or two.
  It was a tough assignment. They were no longer showing up at 2 p.m. 
in the afternoon as usual but sometimes 7 and 8 o'clock at night. They 
kept up with their responsibility.
  I say that because I want to preface these remarks by letting 
everyone know that I am proud of the Postal Service. I will fight to 
keep it in business serving America, and I know that it is going 
through extreme hardship at the present time.
  But 2 nights ago, I was on a town meeting call with Alderman Leslie 
Hairston of the Fifth Ward in Chicago. She asked me to come on the call 
because of the problems that she is having in the Hyde Park area. She 
wanted me to hear some of the situations that they were facing in the 
Fifth Ward.
  The U.S. Postal Service, unfortunately, is a lifeline that is being 
threatened at the current time. So many people in Chicago and all 
across the country depend on it for regular, prompt mail service to 
deliver everything from birthday cards to bills, cards, checks, and 
medicine. Yet, for months now, mail delivery has been slow and 
unpredictable for millions of Americans.
  I have heard from many Chicago-area residents, just like I heard the 
other night, and small businesses that have gone upwards of a month--a 
month--without the delivery of mail. These delays are having a 
devastating impact on the lives of families in my State.
  One Chicago man said that after receiving no mail for 3 weeks, he 
went to the local post office to check where his mail was. He waited in 
line for 6 hours before he finally was given his mail. Another woman 
wrote me that she worries that missing bills will hurt her credit 
rating, making it even harder for her to make ends meet. Another woman 
wrote that she worries that missing bills will hurt not only her credit 
rating but could hurt her personally by denying basic prescriptions and 
medicine that she counts on. Small business owners are losing customers 
because their mail-order deliveries are delayed or just flat disappear.
  But this vivid example that brings these together is the story of Ms. 
Carmella McCoy Gonzalez. She has a disability. She is unable to travel 
really much outside her home--restrictions that have become even more 
constraining during the pandemic. Ms. McCoy Gonzalez suffers from high 
blood pressure and a heart condition, making her regular delivery of 
medication essential. However, she reports that for the past few 
months, she and her neighbors are lucky if they get mail delivered one 
day a week. She told my office that a shipment of medicine sent on 
February 8 didn't reach her home until February 23, while others just 
simply didn't arrive at all.
  When they reached out to the local post office, they were told that 
they wouldn't be getting any mail because there weren't enough carriers 
to deliver it. In fact, a report from the Postal Service Office of 
the Inspector General in early February found that the reason there 
weren't enough postal carriers to deliver the mail is that the 
administrators just hadn't bothered removing the names of employees who 
no longer worked there. This meant they weren't able to bring in 
additional staff when needed to deliver a growing backlog of delayed 
mail.

  The report noted that more than 60,000--60,000--pieces of mail had 
been delayed in Chicago neighborhoods over a period of several weeks. 
These delays are not new, and they are certainly not confined to 
Chicago. U.S. Postal Service customers in many States have endured 
delays and other problems with mail service for months. Veterans are 
going without medication that has been mailed to them from the VA. 
Small businesses are missing delivery dates. Families are missing 
paychecks and not receiving notices of premiums due in time.
  Timely, reliable mail delivery is always important, and it is 
especially critical now. Receiving medications and other important 
deliveries enables people to stay safely at home rather than to 
venturing out and risking COVID infections.
  Regular mail service helps sustain the economy during an 
unprecedented public health crisis by providing a low-cost shipping 
option for small businesses that are struggling to survive. Yet, rather 
than focusing on how to fix the current delivery delays, U.S. Postal 
Service leaders are now considering changes that could result in higher 
prices and even more delays. This is no plan to fix the Postal Service; 
it is a plan to sabotage the Postal Service in order to benefit its 
commercial competitors.
  Cut service, raise prices, then lose customers because you cut 
services and raised prices, and then just repeat that destructive cycle 
again and again until there are little or no customers left--that is 
the plan of the Postal Service under Postmaster General DeJoy, and 
Congress needs to step in. We must demand that the Postmaster General 
implement new policies and operational changes immediately to end 
delivery delays in Chicago and across the country. Congress needs to 
ensure the Postal Service has all the resources and tools it needs to 
provide reliable and affordable services during this critical time and 
to come out of this pandemic on secure financial footing.
  Our Founders understood that reliable and affordable mail service was 
essential to our economy and our national unity. The Postal Service is 
the one public service that is so important that it is actually 
mentioned by name in the Constitution. We cannot allow its temporary 
custodians, appointed by the previous administration, to kill it with a 
death of a thousand cuts in order to enrich private competitors, 
especially during this pandemic.
  This situation is grave and serious. For a lot of people, the delay 
of a day or two in receiving mail is just an inconvenience; for others, 
it could be a matter of life or death literally when so many medicines 
are moving through the mail, prescriptions and medications that people 
count on for their livelihood. And it really is something that has been 
so fundamental in America.
  We have to ask the basic question: What is going on here? I am happy 
to report that yesterday the Biden administration announced that they 
were appointing three new Governors to fill three vacancies on the 
Postal Board of Governors. Those vacancies have been too long in 
festering and creating the situation we have today.
  The Postmaster General, Mr. DeJoy, who came to this position in 
controversy when he started suggesting he was going to delay the 
delivery of ballots in the previous election of November 3, is adamant 
that he is going to continue on his mission. We have to intervene on 
behalf of the people whom we represent and on behalf of this country.
  I stand by the Postal Service. I believe in the men and women who 
make it work. And everyone I have met--certainly in my neighborhood and 
the ones who have been coming to my home over the years--almost became 
a part of the family. I knew all about their families and some of the 
problems and wonderful things that were happening in their lives. That 
was part of the experience, the postal experience, in smalltown America 
that we want to preserve. But when it comes to the big cities, we have 
to be sensitive to that as well. When massive amounts of mail are being 
held in trailer trucks behind the post office, not being sorted and 
delivered, it is just absolutely, positively unacceptable.
  If COVID-19 among the workforce is one of the reasons, let's address 
that directly--in terms of vaccinations, No. 1; in terms of replacement 
employees or temporary employees, No. 2; whatever it takes to keep the 
Postal Service at the highest quality.
  I urge my colleagues, when you go home, if you are hearing the same 
stories about the U.S. Postal Service, let's make this a bipartisan 
response. Families and businesses and vulnerable individuals across 
America are counting on us.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.