[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 14794-14795]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             POSTAL REFORM

  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, the Postal Service's financial crisis 
continues to escalate.
  At the end of this month, the U.S. Postal Service will miss the 
deadline

[[Page 14795]]

for the required $5.6 billion payment toward its future retiree health 
care obligations. In fact, the Postal Service will have defaulted on 
more than $11 billion in payments to fund health care for future 
retirees, raising concerns about its ability to keep promises to 
current workers about their future benefits.
  Five months ago, the Senate passed by a strong bipartisan vote 
legislation to shore up the Postal Service. Yet the House has failed to 
act. And unfortunately, the House is about to adjourn without taking up 
either the Senate-passed postal bill or a House version.
  I have implored House leaders to take up postal reform legislation--
any postal reform legislation--so the conference process and the 
difficult negotiations involved in that process can begin in earnest.
  No one should pretend this is not a crisis worthy of congressional 
action.
  The Postal Service has lost more than $13 billion during the past 2 
years and is losing $25 million each day. It will reach its credit 
limit of $15 billion by the end of the year. Despite the fact that 
Congress has deferred or reduced the Postal Service's payments for 
future retiree health benefits multiple times, the Postal Service has 
still reported billions of dollars in deficits--clear evidence that its 
fiscal woes go far beyond this requirement.
  The Senate bill passed in April ensures those promises to future 
retirees will be kept, while still providing financial relief by 
restructuring the payment plan in a responsible way.
  Much is at stake. Without legislative reforms, the universal mail 
service that drives a trillion-dollar mail industry and supports more 
than 8 million jobs will be in jeopardy.
  A key reason for the Postal Service's crisis is simply a changing 
world, where more and more communication is online rather than via 
traditional mail. First-class mail volume has fallen by 26 percent over 
the past 6 years and continues to decline. Reflecting that sharp drop 
in volume, the Postal Service's revenue has also plummeted from $72.8 
billion in 2006 to $65.7 billion in 2011.
  Nearly 80 percent of the Postal Service's costs are workforce-
related, and so, as painful as it may be, finding a compassionate way 
to reduce these costs is simply unavoidable. In doing so, however, it 
is critical that the service on which many postal customers depend--
customers the Postal Service desperately needs to keep--be preserved. 
The worst thing the Postal Service could do would be to drive more 
customers out of the mail, causing revenues to decline further and 
ensuring that the financial free fall continues. That would trigger a 
death spiral from which the Postal Service might never recover.
  We need to help put the Postal Service back on solid financial 
footing, not only to help protect those who work in jobs related to 
mailing industry but also so that taxpayers are not left holding the 
bag.
  The bill I coauthored along with Senators Lieberman, Carper, and 
Scott Brown would do just that.
  Our bill encourages the Postal Service to operate more like a 
business by cutting internal costs first instead of driving away 
customers with deep service cuts or steep price hikes.
  Our bill would transfer to the Postal Service the nearly $11 billion 
it has overpaid into the Federal Employee Retirement System and direct 
the Postmaster General to use a portion of this money for retirement 
and separation incentives in order to reduce the size of the workforce 
in a compassionate way.
  Let me emphasize: This refund is not taxpayer money. It was 
contributed by the Postal Service using ratepayer dollars. It is an 
overpayment that was identified and confirmed by the actuaries at OPM 
and verified by the GAO. GAO recently confirmed OPM's assessment that 
this figure now has risen to nearly $11 billion.
  The Senate-passed bill also includes a new requirement that 
arbitrators rendering binding decisions in labor disputes consider the 
financial condition of the Postal Service. I know that it might defy 
belief that an arbitrator would not automatically consider the looming 
bankruptcy of the Postal Service when ruling on contract disputes. Some 
previous arbitrators, however, have discounted this factor in their 
decisions because the requirement to consider it was not explicitly 
listed in law.
  For the first time in 35 years, the bill also brings sorely needed, 
commonsense reforms to the Federal Workers' Compensation Program, not 
only at the Postal Service but across the entire Federal Government. 
More than 45,500 people are on the long-term rolls for Federal workers' 
comp, and 40 percent of those are Postal Service employees. The reforms 
will help injured employees return to work and ensure that workers' 
comp is not a substitute for retirement benefits.
  The Senate bill would also rationalize what has been an erratic and 
Draconian closure plan for thousands of rural post offices. While some 
post offices can and should be closed, curbing access for customers 
could well jeopardize revenue. Therefore, our bill would set up a new 
process that would involve the consideration of alternatives to 
closure, such as reducing hours, co-locating a post office at a nearby 
pharmacy, or renting out excess space to other government agencies. 
Perhaps most important, the process includes the requirement for the 
views of the affected community to be heard and responded to prior to 
any final decision.
  Our bill would prevent the Postal Service from eliminating Saturday 
delivery for the next 2 years. Instead, it directs the USPS to embark 
on a period of aggressive cost-cutting and then would allow this 
reduction in service only if the Government Accountability Office and 
postal regulators both certify that elimination of Saturday delivery is 
still necessary to achieve solvency.
  The Senate's bipartisan postal reform bill preserves the Postal 
Service and the critical economic activity it supports.
  Now, the House must act. Failure to do so puts in peril American 
commerce and could harm our fragile economy.
  I am confident that, for the good of our country, we will be able to 
come together with our House colleagues and work out our differences, 
no matter how significant those differences may be. No doubt more 
compromises will be required along the way, but it is critical that we 
get a bill to the President for his signature as soon as possible.
  Our task is urgent. Postal employees, businesses who rely on the U.S. 
mail, and the American people should not have to wait any longer.

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