March 09, 2022

Duckworth Applauds Bipartisan Passage of Postal Reform Bill

Bipartisan reform bill now heads to President’s Desk to be Signed into Law

 

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] — U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) issued the following statement after voting for the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022—a bill that will give a boost to our nation’s postal service and implement long overdue reforms—which passed the Senate by a bipartisan vote of 79-19. With this bill, the Postal Service will be freed of the unreasonable and extreme prefunding requirements for retiree healthcare that would have destroyed the finances of any large corporation. The bill now goes to President Biden’s desk to be signed into law.

“So many Americans—especially servicemembers and seniors—rely on our Postal Service for the timely delivery of medicines, bills, correspondence and countless other pieces of vital mail, which is why I’m so proud the Senate has passed this bipartisan bill to enact commonsense reforms that will help USPS improve its performance and modernize its operations,” said Duckworth. “Today’s successful vote marks an important step in preserving the Postal Service and I hope we can move forward with approving new, strong leadership at USPS to help ensure the strength of this agency for future generations.” 

Once signed into law, the Postal Service Reform Act will provide the Postal Service with support that would potentially enable USPS to improve service standards, modernize operations and better achieve its constitutional mission.

Specifically, it will:

  • Eliminate the onerous prefunding requirement for retiree healthcare imposed in 2006 that has hurt the Postal Service financially and unfairly added billions in liabilities to the Postal Service’s balance sheet;
  • Enable future Postal Service retirees, who have been paying into Medicare their entire careers, to enroll in Medicare;
  • Develop a public-facing, online dashboard with national and local level service performance data updated each week to provide additional transparency and promote compliance with on-time delivery of mail;
  • Permanently require the Postal Service to maintain its current standard of delivering at least six days a week; and
  • Allow the Postal Service to partner with state, local and tribal governments to offer non-postal services (for non-commercial purposes) that provide enhanced value to the public, as long as they do not detract from core postal services and provided the agreements cover their costs.

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