Letter to Hon. Louis Dejoy, Postmaster General-

Letter

Dear Postmaster General DeJoy:

In recent weeks, I have received a notable increase in complaints from constituents detailing inconsistent levels of mail service. As I have emphasized in the past, people in Maine especially rely on the U.S. Postal Service's consistency and reliability--Maine is a rural state with the highest median age population, and Maine people use the Postal Service for many reasons; from items that simply aren't available close to home, to affordable prescriptions, to financial documents for those who prefer them on paper or simply don't have good internet access. In Maine, it is a real and significant problem for people to go days without mail delivery. While improved over the past year, I also continue to get regular constituent accounts of mail that has taken weeks to reach its destination.

I recognize that national labor shortages and the Omicron variant do not spare the Postal Service, and I am grateful for the postal employees in Maine and across the nation who are putting in long hours of mandatory overtime and being flexible when re-assigned to get our mail to its destination safely and to the very best of their ability. Indeed, many of the people who contact me on postal problems match them with praise for the Postal Service staff in their hometowns and neighborhoods. That said, amid the challenges we currently face as a nation, and as the Postal Service prepares to ship up to one billion coronavirus test kits in the near future, it strikes me as unreasonable and unproductive for some addresses to go whole weeks without any mail delivery, or for other addresses to receive Postal Service packages from several different trucks in one day but not receive letters.

I understand the Postal Service has a new protocol in place to address extreme staff shortages that strategically leaves a number of routes without delivery on certain days so that no routes are impacted on consecutive days. Input from constituents leads me to believe this policy is not being properly administered, and I request your clarification of whether people in Maine are actually going without mail for multiple days and your commitment to ensure that no one goes more than one day without service. My staff would be happy to provide details on the areas from which the most egregious delays are being reported.
As mentioned above, I still regularly hear examples where someone in Maine has sent or received mail that took a shockingly long time to reach its destination. This is especially troubling given the recent protraction of delivery standards under your Delivering for America plan, which was promised to greatly increase certainty. I look forward to receiving an explanation of these ongoing delivery delays and analysis of how the new standards can be met without exception. I have included a list of additional questions that I hope your staff can answer and help me better understand the current situation and what Congress can do to improve it.

As the country continues to address the ramifications of the coronavirus pandemic, we have all come to see how important the Postal Service is to conducting our lives with some semblance of normality and safety. The Postal Service's vaunted ability to reach every address in America will continue to prove essential to our national pandemic response, not least because it is the most efficient means by which to distribute hundreds of millions of rapid COVID tests to people in all corners of the country. The Postal Service delays we have seen in Maine must not keep residents from receiving COVID tests and the clarity that comes through rapid results, nor should the delivery of other important mail like medicine and mortgage payments be subject to further delays.

Thank you for your attention to the issues I have raised, and my thanks to your hardworking employees and contractors who are doing their best with the time and resources they have.
Sincerely,

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