The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last week postponed a vote on legislation to overhaul the postal service, the latest in a series of failed attempts to get the bill moving.
The bill, S-1486, introduced by Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., contains provisions designed to give the USPS more flexibility to set rates and operate more like a business, while reliving it of an obligation to pre-fund retiree health benefits at $5.5 billion a year, a payment it has not been able to keep up with as it continues to post annual losses in the billions in recent years.
Postal unions have fought the bill. The American Postal Workers Union, for example, said it was pleased to see the vote postponed. Its president, Mark Dimondstein, said reform proposals were being driven by a “manufactured financial crisis,” although after posting billions in losses several years in a row significant change is clearly needed.