One reform the board objects to is an enhanced role for the Postal Regulatory Commission, which would be empowered to issue orders in response to complaints about performance and issue subpoenas, something the governors board believes would cede basic management authority, CRS said.
Additionally, it said the Board has rejected a rate-setting cap at the consumer price index level without being given greater control over its infrastructure and growing labor costs, which is also a point of difference between the Senate and House versions.
Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Susan Collins, R-Maine, introduced a compromise recently that would set a rate cap but allow it to be broken in the event of an emergency.
Mailers see a rate cap as a way to keep their costs down, while postal labor opposes it because it would pressure USPS to keep wage levels down, which is exactly what the Postal Board has proposed doing for fiscal 2007.
The administration has reportedly returned to some of the recommendations it made earlier in laying out its terms and conditions for not vetoing the bill, including more flexible work sharing and so-called “negotiated service agreements” which would give large mailers discounts, the CRS report noted.
Barring an agreement before September 30, USPS will be required to hand over $3.1 billion in proceeds from its January rate increase to the Treasury for pension funding.