WASHINGTON, DC- Senator Susan Collins, who is author of comprehensive postal reform legislation, has released the following statement on the postal rate increase that is scheduled to go into effect this Sunday. Senator Collins is chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which oversees the US Postal Service and has been working to modernize the Postal Service in an effort to hold down rates.
“This rate increase, which will likely be followed by another rate increase next year, highlights why postal reform legislation is necessary. The U.S. Postal Service is the lynchpin of a $900 billion dollar industry that provides 9 million jobs nationwide. It is critical to our economy, but under its current business model, the Postal Service’s financial future is not viable.
“In an effort to ensure the future of the Postal Service, I have joined Senator Carper (D-Delaware) to introduce comprehensive reform legislation that calls for the most sweeping reforms of the Postal Service in more than 30 years. It modernizes the rate-setting process to provide more predictability for its users and helps ensure a stronger financial future for the organization, which currently faces billions of dollars in unfunded liabilities.
“Despite the broad support this bill enjoys however, it has been stopped in its tracks by an effort on behalf of just one segment of mailers. This one association, unlike the vast majority of the mailing community, wants to maintain the status quo in ratemaking, which involves ten months of expensive and cumbersome litigation before the Postal Rate Commission - a system that virtually every expert tells us is a vestige of a different era.
“More important, failure to pass reform will cost all postal ratepayers billions of dollars over the next several years. If postal reform has been enacted when it should have been, the price of a First Class postage stamp likely would not be rising by two cents on Sunday. Worse yet, the Postal Service is already planning another rate increase for 2007, to again fulfill a financial obligation of the organization that would be eliminated by the enactment of postal reform.
“It is crucial for our nation’s economy and for the future of the U.S. Postal Service that the Collins-Carper legislation be enacted.”
The Collins-Carper postal reform legislation is supported by the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service -- which represents hundreds of large and small mailers; the Financial Services Roundtable, United Parcel Service, FedEx, R.R. Donnelley, the city and rural letter carrier unions, the postmaster and postal supervisor associations, and numerous non-profit organizations such as AARP, the Disabled Veterans of America and the American Institute for Cancer Research.