Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act

POSTAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND ENHANCEMENT ACT -- (House of Representatives - July 26, 2005)

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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 22, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. This legislation, which is long overdue, will improve commerce in this country, better the lives of the nation's postal workers, and guarantee that the mail will be delivered each day to the 140 million American households that look forward to a daily visit from their letter carrier.

In a time of declining revenues and increased costs, it is no secret that the Postal Service faces financial challenges. Competition in the package-delivery business and from Internet-based communication has intensified. And, as a result, each year, the dedicated letter carriers of the Postal Service are asked to carry less mail to more households and businesses nationwide. In part, that is because the Postal Service is operating under laws written 35 years ago--long before anyone had ever heard of the Internet.

This legislation will modernize the Postal Service, giving it the resources and flexibility it needs to manage its operations and set fair prices. The bill will help the Postal Service cut through the bureaucratic red tape and allow it to act more like the businesses it must compete against.

In addition to providing a more streamlined rate-setting process that will allow the Postal Service to make business decisions quickly, the bill also will allow the Postal Service to enter into partnerships with second- and third-class mailers, while preserving the jobs of those at postal sorting and processing centers. I welcome these improvements, although I anticipate more will need to be done to balance the mailing industry's need for price certainty with unanticipated or extraordinary fiscal needs of the Postal Service.

The bill will alleviate a $27 billion burden by limiting the Postal Service's responsibility to pay the benefits of veterans who also worked in the Postal Service. To be clear, this provision does not limit the benefits of our brave veterans who, after military service, went to work for the Postal Service. This bill simply says that the U.S. Treasury must pay veterans benefits, and the Postal Service must pay postal benefits.

Mr. Chairman, this legislation is also good for one of the Postal Service's best assets--its human capital. I am particularly pleased that this bill preserves the right of more than 500,000 postal workers and letter carriers to bargain collectively. These dedicated men and women work in processing centers, they work in local post offices, and they work in our neighborhoods delivering the mail to our doorsteps each day. They are the reason that the postal service has a 96 percent on-time delivery record for first-class mail.

Mr. Chairman, this is a good bill. It will make the Postal Service leaner and more efficient, while preserving the collective bargaining rights of its workers. And it will continue the legacy of universal service. Since the birth of this nation, the United States Postal Service has been committed to delivering the mail to every single household in the country--142 million in all today. The daily mail delivery is something that many Americans look forward to, and this bill will ensure that the Postal Service has the resources it needs to maintain that commitment well into the future. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

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