WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) today celebrated the Senate’s 79-19 passage of H.R. 3076, the Postal Service Reform Act, historic bipartisan legislation supported by Senator King to protect the long-term health of the United States Postal Service (USPS) and help ensure deliveries are made in a reliable, timely manner. Amid growing reports of postal delays affecting postal customers in Maine and across the nation, the bill would save the USPS billions of dollars by streamlining its retirement structure, create more transparency and accountability in mail-delivery, and put a legal requirement in place to guarantee permanent six days a week mail delivery. The bill now goes to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature.

“From life-sustaining medications and important financial documents, to postcards and letters from loved ones, the United States Postal Service’s timely, reliable delivery of mail to Maine households is an absolutely essential service for our state. The need for timely delivery has been especially important during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s why I’m glad the Senate passed the Postal Service Reform Act today to address recent delays, create much needed transparency, and shore up the long term-success of this fundamental American institution,” said Senator King. “The Postal Service Reform Act rises to the needs of both the USPS and the delivery expectations of Americans in 2022.”

“The legislation takes important steps to secure the USPS’s long-term health – including by eliminating the requirement for the USPS to prefund retiree healthcare costs for seventy-five years into the future, a massive competitive disadvantage that no private business or other government service faces,” added Senator King. “We’ve seen how this added burden has hindered their core mission of universal mail delivery, and the overwhelming, bipartisan vote today is a reflection of our confidence that this action can improve the USPS’s fiscal future without compromising service. I look forward to President Biden signing the legislation into law and seeing the improvements to the service for years to come.”

As one of the oldest and most rural states in the nation, the Postal Service is a critical service for Maine people. The Postal Service Reform Act will set the United States Postal Service on a more sustainable financial footing and support the goal of providing long-term reliable service across the country and in Maine’s most rural areas. This bill provides key bipartisan financial reforms, strengthens Postal Service transparency and accountability, and helps ensure the Postal Service can better serve the American people. 

Key Reforms in the Postal Service Reform Act

·       Medicare Integration: The Postal Service Reform Act would require future Postal Service retirees, who have been paying into Medicare their entire careers, to enroll in Medicare. Currently, roughly a quarter of postal retirees do not enroll in Medicare even though they are eligible. This means the Postal Service is compelled to pay far higher retiree health premiums than any other public or private sector employer. By more closely integrating with Medicare, the Postal Service estimates it could save approximately $22.7 billion over 10 years.

·       Eliminating the Burdensome Prefunding Requirement: The Postal Service Reform Act would eliminate the onerous prefunding requirement for retiree healthcare imposed in 2006 that has hurt the Postal Service financially and added billions in liabilities to the Postal Service’s balance sheet. No private company or other government entity has faced such an aggressive requirement, which mandated the Postal Service set aside billions of dollars annually to cover future retiree health benefits for current employees, no matter their age, contributing to 15 years of losses. The Postal Service estimates this provision would drastically reduce its prefunding liability and allow it to save roughly $27 billion over 10 years.

·       Service Performance Transparency: The Postal Service Reform Act would require the Postal Service to 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.

·       Six-Day Delivery: The Postal Service Reform Act would permanently require the Postal Service to maintain its standard of delivering at least six days a week.

·       Non-Postal Services: The Postal Service Reform Act would 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.

Senator King has repeatedly stressed the importance of mail service to Maine, and pushed for a more efficient, better United States Postal Service. Along with supporting the Postal Service Reform Act, in January, Senator King urged USPS Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to address repeated reports of postal delays and to ensure rapid COIVD-19 tests are able to be delivered to Maine people efficiently; this followed a similar letter letter to Postmaster General DeJoy he wrote in 2021, asking him what actions he was taking to restore on-time mail delivery. In his February 2021 podcast, he joined with Senator Gary Peters (D-Mich.) to focus on the critical importance of the USPS during COVID-19, and push for improvements to the service.