“While I question the legality of the Postmaster General’s decision to suspend Saturday mail delivery, this unfortunate scenario could have been wholly prevented if the House had passed the Senate’s bipartisan postal reform bill in the last Congress. Cutting down mail delivery to five days per week will not save the Postal Service from insolvency. This short sighted measure will deal a crippling blow to the millions of Americans and small businesses who rely on the timely and reliable delivery to every community in our nation.

“Given the importance of the Post Office to communities in Nevada and across our nation, such a drastic policy change cannot be enacted without approval from Congress.  Instead, the Postmaster General relied on flawed legal guidance to claim that he can circumvent Congress’ authority on the matter. The Postmaster Generals’ actions have damaged his reputation with Congressional leaders and further complicates Congressional efforts to pass comprehensive postal reform legislation in the future.”

“No one disputes that the Postal Service is in urgent need of reform. Passing meaningful postal legislation is one of my top priorities for this Congress and I hope House Republicans will finally join the Senate in bringing a bill up for a vote.”

BACKGROUND:

For nearly three decades, Congress  has mandated that the US Postal Service maintain 6 day delivery through a provision in an annual appropriations bill.  The USPS is relying on questionable legal guidance to claim that they can administratively reduce mail delivery since the provision remains in effect under the current government funding resolution.

Last year, Senator Reid worked to ensure the passage of a bipartisan postal reform bill (S. 1789) to update the Postal Service’s business model, preserve the postal network, and protect rural post offices.  The bill would have sustained over eight million jobs and modernized the USPS so it can keep pace with today’s rapidly changing technology.

During a week of floor debate in April 2012, Senators voted on numerous amendments, including five day delivery, and the legislation passed with the support of 62 Senators. Regrettably, the House failed to consider S. 1789 or any postal reform legislation and Congress adjourned without acting to solve the crisis at the Post Office.

For more than 200 years, America’s postal system thrived and grew in spite of rapidly-changing technology.

The Postal Service survived the invention of the telegraph and the telephone. It expanded despite radio and television. It grew regardless of the fax machine.

The post office was created in the days of quill and ink, and mail bags slung across horses.

But it grew through the days of horse and buggy, steamboat and railroad into the age of airplanes.

It adjusted to the expansion of the suburbs, to the growth of cities and to the explosion of our population.

And it adapted from hand sorting and conveyor belts with the invention of zip codes and optical sorting machines.

The post office has always found creative, cutting-edge ways to move more mail more quickly.

In fact, for two centuries, the Postal Service actually relied on technology to cope with constant growth – growth in the volume of mail it delivered and the number of homes and businesses to whom it delivered.

And for 200 years the Postal Service has kept up with the flood of packages and letters, mail-order and online purchases, catalogues and fliers, live-saving medications and absentee ballots, bulk mail and overnight delivery.

Today the Postal Service handles nearly half the world’s mail – 554 million pieces every day. That’s 6,400 pieces each second.

The feat would be impossible without modern technology, and world class workers and facilities.

But now technology is both a solution and a problem.

In the last 5 years, the Postal Service has seen mail volume drop by 21 percent. That trend is expected to continue.

Email and online bill payments has significantly contributed to this crisis.

Today letters, orders and payments cross the world with the click of a mouse.

And the challenge facing the Postal Service is how to adapt to decreasing volume of mail rather than how to deal with increasing demand.

The bipartisan compromise before the Senate today will help the system do just that. It will build a leaner, smarter post office that offers new products and services while protecting its mission – delivering the mail six days a week to every corner of this country.

The postal reform legislation before this body will sensibly restructure the system while preserving overnight and Saturday delivery.

And the legislation will save the Postal Service from insolvency.

It will responsibly reduce the Postal Service workforce and the number of facilities it maintains.

But it will also protect postal employees – including 130,000 veterans of the Armed Forces. It will also safeguard the than 8 million jobs that depend on a vibrant postal system.

And, most importantly, it will look out for the needs of millions of seniors, people with disabilities, small business owners and rural Americans for whom the U.S. Mail is an important lifeline to the outside world.

Unlike the unacceptable bill Congressman Issa is pursuing in the House, this bill preserves the Postal Service we know and rely on.

The House bill, by contrast, would immediately eliminate Saturday delivery.

And it would set up commissions to unilaterally cut costs by closing post offices and processing plants, voiding union contracts and laying off tens of thousands of workers when our economy can least afford it.

That may be why Congressman Issa’s bill hasn’t come to the House floor. Even the Tea Party is having trouble supporting such reckless ideas.

The Senate bill we’re considering today is not perfect.

It won’t save every post office, every job or distribution center. It won’t please every Senator, every postal worker or every customer.

But unlike the House legislation, it is a strong, bipartisan bill that will modernize an institution enshrined in the Constitution without gutting its mission.

I hope we can work together to pass this worthy legislation quickly.

Enshrined in the Constitution by the Founders, the U.S. Postal Service has delivered this nation’s letters since the day of quill and ink well.

Through the years when stamps cost a nickel. Through the years when mail traveled up and down America’s waterways by steamship. Through two world wars, when soldiers sent letters home to their sweethearts.

Through it all, the U.S. Postal Service has been there to deliver the mail – rain or shine.

When I was a little boy Con Hudgens, an old man, walked 22 miles through three feet of snow to deliver the mail to Searchlight from a train in Nipton, California.

But today America’s postal system is in crisis.

Today a personal note from a friend or a payment to the electric company can be delivered online with a few, quick keystrokes.

And this changing technology has meant serious, new challenges for an organization that has served the citizens of this nation – whether they live on city streets or rural routes – for more than two centuries.

Although the world has changed, the postal system’s mission hasn’t – to deliver letters and packages, vital medicines and online purchase, birthday cards and phone bills to hundreds of millions of Americans no matter how rural the places they call home.

Neither has the current crisis changed the importance of that mission.

Nearly half of rural households don’t have broadband internet access, making it difficult or impossible to pay bills or ship packages online. Rural families in Tuscarora and Baker and Elko, Nevada rely on the U.S. Postal Service.

Small businesses benefit from cost-saving options offered at the post office, such as bulk mail. American businesses rely on the U.S. Postal Service.

For seniors who can’t leave their homes, mail carriers deliver life-saving medications and an important link to the outside world. Elderly Americans rely on the U.S. Postal Service.

But unless we act quickly, thousands of post offices, many of them rural, could close.

Hundreds of mail processing facilities could close.

And the jobs of tens of thousands of dedicated postal employees could be at risk.

Timely, dependable mail delivery isn’t the only thing at stake in this debate.

Today the Postal Service employs more than half a million middle-class workers.

And the postal system gives more than 130,000 men and women who volunteered to defend this country a second chance to serve. A quarter of all postal employees are veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces.

The Postal Service has been played an integral role in the history of this country and the lives of its citizens for more than 200 years.

But it has also seen a 21 percent drop in mail volume over the last 5 years, and is on the verge of insolvency.

Changing times demand a leaner, more modern post office. And to make that possible, the Senate must act.

We must change the Postal Service’s business model to keep pace with technology and keep up with the times.

The bipartisan bill before this body enacts reforms that are major but measured.

It would reduce the number of employees and facilities the Postal Service maintains in a responsible way that protects employees and millions of Americans who rely on the U.S. Mail.

It would responsibly restructure the postal system while preserving overnight and six-day-a-week delivery.

It would help the Postal Service innovate and grow by offering new products that will attract new customers.

And, most importantly, it would save the Postal Service from insolvency. It will help an institution enshrined in the Constitution modernize to meet the challenges of a changing world.

It’s not a perfect compromise. It won’t make every Senator happy. It won’t save every post office.

But it’s a good compromise, and a bipartisan one. And it will save an institution that has been part of the fabric of this nation for more than two centuries.