21st Century Postal Service Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, the score for the substitute is incredibly misleading. As the Postal Service has told us, this bill would save the Postal Service $19 billion, and that would return it to profitability. The problem is the unique status of the Postal Service in that it is off-budget for operations but on-budget for workers' benefits accounts. This is true despite the fact that these accounts the Postal Service pays into are not funded with tax dollars.

The postal employees are contributing. The Postal Service, from its revenue, is contributing.

For the retirement accounts, we are not talking about tax dollars from the Postal Service. These are contributions from the postal employees and by the Postal Service from its revenues. But because of the unified budget, it is considered to be an on-budget status for these benefit accounts--most likely because they are shared with other Federal agencies that are using tax dollars.

I urge my colleagues to vote for the motions to waive. If they do not and this bill falls, it will spell the end of the Postal Service.

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, let me repeat for my colleagues one more time: There are no taxpayer dollars authorized by this bill or appropriated by this bill. The score is caused by the unique status the postal service accounts have within the unified budget. The operational accounts are off budget. The employee health benefits and retiree accounts are on budget because those accounts are also used by Federal agencies.

Let me again quote from the inspector general who explains the system very well. He says the source of the Federal employee retirement funding comes from two streams of revenue. First, the U.S. Postal Service contributes 11.9 percent of the employees' salaries to the fund and the employees contribute .8 percent. The postal service's contribution comes from revenue paid for postage, and this money comes from ratepayers. The employee contribution is made in exchange for a defined benefit.

There are no tax dollars authorized or appropriated by this bill. It is a quirk of the way the unified budget works. And that is why we should vote to waive this point of order. We are not talking about taxpayer dollars here.

I thank the Chair.

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I too support the amendment offered by Senator Tester and Senator Levin.

It simply makes clear that the Postal Regulatory Commission may review an appeal of a post office closure if it violates either the overnight delivery service standard or the retail service standards that are created by our bill. So I urge support for the amendment.

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I strongly support this amendment. I wish to commend the Senator from Oklahoma for offering an amendment that would prohibit the kind of lavish spending on Federal conferences we have seen recently at GSA. So this is an excellent amendment. It will save money, provide more transparency, and put a cap on how much can be spent. I urge adoption of the amendment.

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, this amendment by the Senator from Oklahoma is right in line with the bill. We do encourage the Postal Service to look at colocations--for example, in a local pharmacy or a grocery store. In many small communities, that may well be a viable option, and it may well improve customer access. So I think this is a very good amendment that is in line with other language already in the bill. I urge its adoption by a voice vote.

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Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, while I think the changes the Senator has made in his amendment do improve it considerably, I am still very concerned about the idea of imposing a mandatory retirement system, and let me tell you why.

First, to me, it smacks of age discrimination in some cases. Second, we could be losing some of our most experienced and best personnel we need to implement the major changes that are authorized by this bill. Third and finally, I find it a little odd that we would want to tell people who are still in their working years and have had a good career and are contributing and are good employees that we do not want them to work anymore. I think the approach in our bill of offering incentives is a better way to go.

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Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, first, I congratulate my colleague from Maine for an excellent amendment. As she indicated, the Postal Service made a major miscalculation, a mathematical error, in the study it did on the Hampden processing center in our State. So that Senators know, the amendment would say if a proposed consolidation of a mail processing center is appealed to the Postal Regulatory Commission, the Commission can be asked to review the underlying study's methodology and the estimated savings to make sure it is correct because right now there is no way to challenge a mistake that is made by the Postal Service in conducting these very important studies that are going to decide whether processing centers stay open.

I commend my colleague from Maine for a very well thought out amendment, and I urge its adoption by voice vote.

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Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, this amendment would also take $8.9 billion that is supposed to go to pay for retiree health benefits of postal workers and instead redirect those funds to maintain 6-days-a-week delivery of the mail. I hope we always have 6-days-a-week delivery. I think that is an asset. I think we should strive to preserve it. That is why our bill prohibits going to 5-day delivery for 2 years, to wring all the waste out of the system.

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Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, this amendment would strike the Federal workers' compensation title in the bill and replace it with very minor provisions that provide no significant cost savings.

The amendment would strike the reforms that bring parity between workers' comp benefits and retirement benefits for Federal workers. It makes it much more comparable to the States' workers' comp plans. The Federal plan is more generous than any State plan. The amendment does nothing to combat the rampant fraud nor constrain costs which have increased by $1 billion.

In the current workers' comp program, we have 2,000 postal employees who are over age 70; we have 6 Federal workers who are age 100 or older. These individuals are not coming back to work. We are trying to focus this program, as it should be, on returning injured workers to work. It is very similar to the proposals that the Obama administration has made. It grandfathers in everyone for 3 years as well as those age 65 and older.

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, let me just reinforce that this is not giving collective bargaining rights to postmasters or to postal supervisors. I support Senator Akaka's amendment. All it is trying to do is strengthen a provision that is in current law that asks for the Postmaster General to consult with the postmasters and the other supervisory organizations when there are changes made in work schedules or benefits. They should have the right to have their views heard. It does not give them a veto. It does not authorize collective bargaining or contract negotiations in any way. I wish to emphasize that because there has been misinformation about what this amendment, in fact, entails.

I support this amendment and I urge its adoption.

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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, there are at least three problems with the amendment offered by the Senator from Kentucky.

The first is a practical problem. How is the Postal Service going to deal with a situation where at one house there is a monopoly on the use of the post office box and at the next house there is not a monopoly? How is that going to work?

Second, mail often contains highly sensitive pieces, such as medical records, bills, personal correspondence. Continuation of the mailbox monopoly is necessary to preserve the safety, the security, and the privacy of mail.

The third argument is that if you repeal the mailbox monopoly, you will leave rural America behind. There will be plenty of competition in large cities, but who will be left to serve rural America? Only the Postal Service. And that will further drive up its costs because it will be losing customers.

I strongly urge opposition to this amendment.

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