Historic Victory: Bill to Strengthen Postal Service to Become Law

On Tuesday, the US Senate voted 79-19 to pass the bipartisan Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 (H.R. 3076), which will finally put the US Postal Service on a path toward financial stability. The House passed the bill last month with a vote of 342-92. The legislation will now go to President Biden’s desk, where he will sign it into law. Maine’s entire Congressional delegation supported the measure.

"I would like to thank our Senator Angus King, Senator Susan Collins, Rep. Chellie Pingree and Rep. Jared Golden supporting this 15-year effort to correct a mistake made in 2006 that put the USPS in a financial crisis," Mark Seitz, President of the Maine State Association of Letter Carriers. "This legislation will surely turn things around for the USPS and for people in Maine."

Postal unions have been fighting for over fifteen years to repeal the onerous and financially debilitating pre-funding retiree healthcare and pension mandate created by the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), which was originally sponsored by Sen. Susan Collins. For over a decade, the USPS has reported billions of dollars in losses largely due to the pre-funding mandate. The law requires the agency to cover all retiree benefit obligations for the next 75 years. This has been an extremely unusual mandate as all other government agencies and two-thirds of private sector businesses with pension obligations fund them on a pay-as-you-go basis.

H.R. 3076 will also codify six-day delivery into law, add much-needed transparency to postal operations, and deliver other essential reforms – ultimately saving the post office billions of dollars each year. 

"The concept of the Postal Service being 'broke' or in the midst of a 'financial crisis' was promulgated by the $5.5 billion dollar prefunding requirement," said Scott Adams, President of the APWU of Maine.  "This led to the Postal Service cutting jobs over the years, which, in great part, led to our current staffing shortages and resulting impacts on service and delivery. Increased transparency should provide additional information that could assist in preventing subcontracting and privatization, which we have spent years in addressing."

However, Seitz added, "While the long term effects of this bill are enormous for the workers, the USPS and the dependability of the US mail, the short term issues we have with staffing, until fixed, we will regrettably still have issues with mail delivery. That should be the next issue taken up by those in power."