Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act

Floor Speech

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THE POSTAL SERVICE

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I want to say a word about an issue I think has not gotten the kind of attention it deserves here in Washington or even among the general public; that is, the situation regarding our Postal Service.

Right now, for a number of reasons, the Postal Service is facing financial difficulties.

No. 1, it is no secret to any American that first-class mail has declined significantly because the American people are using e-mail and not first-class mail, and that decline in first-class mail has significantly impacted the revenue for the Postal Service.

Second of all, not widely known is the fact that the Postal Service, every single year now, because of legislation passed in 2006, is forced to come up with $5.5 billion--every single year--for future health retiree benefits. To the best of my knowledge--and to the best of the knowledge of anybody whom I have talked to--there is no agency of government forced to come up with anything near this kind of onerous requirement, nor is any corporation in the private sector doing that as well.

So the issue we face is whether we are going to save the U.S. Postal Service, whether we are going to bring about reforms which make the Postal Service strong and relevant to the 21st century and the digital age or whether we--as the Postmaster General has proposed--cut 40 percent of the workforce, shut down 3,700 post offices--most of them rural--end Saturday mail service, lay off or cut back on the workforce of the Postal Service by 40 percent--over 200,000 American workers, many of them, by the way, veterans who are now serving and working in the Postal Service.

Let me start off again with what the Postmaster General has proposed. Let me talk a little bit about legislation which has been led by Senator Lieberman and Senator Carper, which I think will be coming to the floor, I expect, next week, and then talk about where I think, and a number of us think, we should be going to strengthen that bill.

No. 1, this is what the Postmaster General has suggested that he needs to do in order to solve the financial problems facing the Postal Service. One, close down about 3,700, mostly rural, post offices. I will tell you, coming from a rural State, a post office is not just a post office. In many parts of Vermont, many parts of America, rural post offices serve many functions. If you get rid of those post offices, you are causing severe distress to the identity, the sense of self of small towns in rural America.

No. 2, what the Postmaster General has suggested is the shutting down of about 252 mail processing facilities--about half of the mail processing facilities in this country. If you do that, there is no debate that you are significantly slowing down the delivery of mail in America. If you used to put a letter in a postal box, and it might get there in 1 day, now the talk is it may get there in 3 days. If today it gets there in 3 days, it might in the future, under these cuts, get there in 5 days.

Here is the fear I have and many other Members of the Senate and House have: If the Postal Service is trying to compete against the instantaneous communications of e-mail, what does it mean that you are slowing mail service significantly? Many of us believe this is the beginning of a death spiral for the Postal Service in the sense that many consumers, many businesses will say: Hey, what is the sense of me working with the Postal Service if my mail or packages are going to get there in 3 days or 5 days?

So we think shutting down 252 mail processing facilities, slowing down mail services, is laying the foundation for the destruction of the Postal Service as we know it.

To my mind, the issue is not whether we make changes or maintain the status quo. The status quo is not working. The Postal Service has to change. In my view, and I think the view of many others, the Postal Service must become much more aggressive, much more entrepreneurial, must be going out to the business community, must be going out to consumers and saying: We have these services we can offer you.

I will give you a few examples, and some of them, by the way, are included in the legislation brought forth by Senators Lieberman and Carper and Collins and Scott Brown.

For example, in a rural State, if people would like to walk into a post office and get a letter notarized, they cannot do it today. If people walk into a post office and want to get 10 copies of their letter, they cannot do it today. The United States Congress has said they cannot do that. If somebody walks into a rural post office and wants to get a fishing license or a hunting license or fill out a driver's license, they cannot do that right now.

So I think what we need is a new business model for the post office, much more entrepreneurial. I would suggest--and what is happening around the world is, clearly, the United States Postal Service is not the only postal service having to deal with the digital world. What we are seeing in Europe and throughout the world is countries responding by giving their postal services much more flexibility.

One example: A lot of people are unemployed. A lot of people get unemployment checks. Sometimes in order to cash those checks they have to go to a payday lender. Why can't they walk into a postal service and cash that check at a minimal fee rather than paying 10, 15, or 20 percent to a payday lender?

So I think one of the provisions that has to be included in any serious postal reform legislation is a blue ribbon commission made up of the best entrepreneurs we can find, those people within the Postal Service who have the most experience who will tell us what we can do and how we can raise additional revenue when we have thousands of post offices all over this country. Can they be renting out their space? What other services can they be providing? Right now we have our letter carriers delivering mail to about 150 million doors every single day, 6 days a week, all over the country. What more can they be doing?

So the debate we are having is two visions of the future of the post office. No. 1, the Postmaster General is saying: Let's cut 40 percent of the workforce over a period of time. Let's slow down mail delivery service. That is the business model he is proposing.

Some of us are saying, when we have a rural constituency, when we have senior citizens who live at the end of a dirt road who are dependent upon the post office in order to get their prescription drugs in the mail, when we have rural areas that very much depend on rural post offices, that the goal is to give more flexibility to the post offices so they can be more competitive, so they can raise additional sums of funding in order to deal with their financial problems.

A couple of specific points: Almost everybody agrees now that the $5.5 billion required from the post office is absolutely onerous. I have talked to the Office of Personnel Management. They think $2.5 or $3 billion is quite enough, given the fact we have $45 billion already in the account. Talk to other people and they will say given the fact that $45 billion is already earning interest, that, in fact, we do not have to do anything. We do not have to add anything more into that account, and it will deal with all of the future health care retiree benefits the post office requires.

So I believe we have to be very firm and say, No. 1, if the post office is going to survive in any significant way, we have to maintain 1- to 3-day delivery standards for first class mail. Second, we have to maintain 6-day delivery of mail, not end Saturday service. Third, we have to protect our rural post offices. Fourth, we have to significantly reduce prefunding requirements for future retiree health benefits, not to mention that there is also widespread agreement that the Postal Service has overpaid the FERS account, the Federal Employment Retirement Service, by some $11 billion. Obviously, that has to be dealt with.

Lastly, in my view, as I said previously, we need to develop a new business model for the Postal Service, get them involved in the digital age, not run away from it--get them involved. Expand what they can do both with State and local governments as well as what they can do with the private sector.

So in the coming days, this is an issue that a number of us will be working on. I look forward to the support of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

I yield the floor.

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