The 2022 Postal Reform Act (H.R. 3076) passed the Senate vote on March 8th , with strong bipartisan support of 79-19.
This legislation (the same bill that was passed by the House) includes:
- The repeal of the pre-funding requirement for Retiree Healthcare Benefits
- Integrating postal annuitants who had not yet subscribed to Medicare
- The Postal Service shall maintain an integrated network for the delivery of market-dominant and competitive products and delivery shall occur at least six days a week.
- Requires maintenance of on online “dashboard” reporting USPS delivery performance, accessible by the public.
- Requires a study and reform of Flat size mail processing.
This is the successful culmination of a variety of efforts to pass postal reform in one form or another for the last 10+ years.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) determined in its scoring that the bill would save the government $1.5 billion over the next 10 years, and the House Oversight Committee estimates the savings to the USPS at over $50 billion over ten years. Next step is for the legislation to go to President Biden’s desk for signing. Passage of this law should help mitigate some of future price increases as it should remove the need for 1.071% retirement factor and put the USPS in a better financial position. However, this bill does not yet remove their ability to use the density factor and non- compensatory surcharge. We do not anticipate that this legislation will have any impact on the upcoming July postal increase, which is currently estimated to range from 6% to almost 9%.
LSC Communications continues our work to make our voices heard in the House and Senate concerning your needs for further substantial Postal Reform.
