There are many important day-to-day issues with USPS that bear regulatory scrutiny and cry out for having a full contingent of Commissioners and Governors. Image: Your Hand Please/Shutterstock.com
It is important to have checks and balances on the leadership of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), one of America’s largest and highest-profile federal agencies, and whose work impacts most Americans, most days of the week.
It is surprising that the Biden administration is giving significant latitude to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a former mega-fundraiser for President Trump and the Republican Party, as he enters his fourth year at the helm of USPS. The president has been slow with nominations to the two primary organizations charged with holding USPS leadership accountable: its Board of Governors and the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC).
In fact, with its foot-dragging for over a year on new nominations to both organizations, the Biden administration has left them nominally within the control of those more inclined to follow Republican policies.
It was not always this way. Earlier in the administration, President Biden nominated five new Governors, all of whom were promptly confirmed by the U.S. Senate, and named a Democrat to chair the PRC.
Barring dramatic developments, the PRC will be down to three Commissioners from five come October 14 with the terms of two Republican Commissioners expiring. The USPS Board of Governors will be down to seven Governors from nine on December 8, with the retirement of two Governors nominated by President Trump.
The president has only made one nomination for these four positions. And U.S. Senate confirmations of nominees are an inherently slow process, even for those highest qualified.
The Senate’s busy legislative calendar and its practice of allowing any Senator to put a hold on a nominee to prevent a floor vote can also slow things considerably. Furthermore, one bad tweet or Facebook post from a decade ago, or a poor attempt at humor during a speech to professional colleagues, is all it takes to delay or derail a nominee.
From a political standpoint, the Biden administration may be fine be with the status quo. While progressives were vehement about warning DeJoy would obstruct the 2020 presidential election and was on a mission to destroy USPS, none of that has come to pass.
Instead, DeJoy has forged a solid working relationship with the Biden White House that has led to enactment of the 2022 Postal Service Reform Act (PRSA) the most comprehensive postal legislation since 2006. DeJoy has also overseen exceedingly smooth mail-in voting programs in all elections beginning in 2020, worked with the administration to deliver more than 270 million COVID test kits, and even worked with the Administration to ensure that most new vehicles USPS buys will be electric.
There are many important day-to-day issues with USPS that bear regulatory scrutiny and cry out for having a full contingent of Commissioners and Governors. These include:
– Plummeting mail volume, the role that higher postage prices have played in this regard, and the need to carefully re-assess and even rollback such price hikes;
– The rising financial losses at USPS less than a year after massive assistance from PRSA and how that can best be addressed;
– The progress of USPS’s historic network realignment and its ramifications from a cost and service standpoint; and
– How to best protect postal workers and financial and personal identification information in the mail amid a postal crime wave.
The above blocking and tackling work, like the role of PRC Commissioners and USPS Governors are largely non-political, yet important. In fact, no more than three of the five Commissioners at the PRC can be of the same political party. For the nine-member USPS Board of Governors, no more than five Governors can be from the same political party.
It is time for President Biden to deliver to the U.S. Senate new nominations to the PRC and the USPS Board of Governors so USPS can better deliver for the American people.
Paul Steidler is a senior fellow of the Lexington Institute who researches, studies, and discusses logistics and energy issues. He addresses financial and operational policies pertaining to the U.S. Postal Service, supply chains, and transportation as well as energy supply and transmission matters. Steidler’s work and views have appeared in such news outlets as The New York Times, Associated Press, The Washington Post, The Hill, and Bloomberg. Mr. Steidler is a magna cum laude graduate from Villanova University with a B.A. in Political Science and Honors. He resides in Herndon, Virginia.
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