The U.S. Postal Service would have to continue Saturday mail delivery for two more years and would face a one-year moratorium on closing rural post offices under a bill the U.S. Senate approved yesterday. Both of Iowa’s senators voted for final passage of the bill, although Republican Chuck Grassley had previously supported GOP efforts to block the legislation. More details on the postal reform bill and key Senate votes are after the jump.
The U.S. Postal Service is seeking to close many post offices and mail sorting facilities in order to save money, but those cuts are unpopular with Republicans as well as Democrats in Iowa and across the country. S. 1789, also known as the 21st Century Postal Service Act of 2012, would delay most of the service and job cuts. Instead, a commission would study costs, revenues, and business models, while new revenue opportunities would open up with Postal Service shipping of “beer, wine and distilled spirits.” The American Postal Workers Union posted a detailed bill summary here (pdf).
In late March, a Republican filibuster blocked consideration of the postal reform bill on the Senate floor. Grassley supported that filibuster (roll call). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid worked out a deal to allow the bill to be debated by the full Senate.
After spending most of Thursday [April 19] negotiating which amendments would be considered, Reid announced that, with a 60-vote threshold, 39 amendments would be considered Tuesday to add to the bill. Reid also announced that there would be a final 60-vote threshold on the actual bill.
Most of the amendments under consideration are related to Postal Reform. A pair of them would end the service’s monopoly on first-class mail and prohibit collective bargaining for union postal service employees, respectively. Another one would bar any reforms from closing postal service offices.
The compromise came after Reid invoked a procedural measure to block Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) from adding an amendment to Postal Service reform bill that would have cut off American funding to Egypt. Reid said Paul’s amendment was too broad. Paul’s amendment did not make the list of 39 that Reid announced.
Before the Senate voted on any of those amendments, Republican Jeff Sessions tried to derail the bill by raising a budget point of order. Pete Kasperowicz covered his objections for The Hill.
Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said the Senate legislation would require the U.S. Treasury to pay back $11.4 billion to the U.S. Postal Service. This is the amount that the USPS overpaid to its own employee retirement system, but Sessions argues that money should still be offset by cutting spending elsewhere. […]
He also said the bill would allow the govenrment to defer $23 billion in payments that would go toward the USPS’s retiree health benefit plan, an amount he said taxpayers would ultimately have to fund. That’s a total of more than $34 billion taxpayers would likely have to find years down the road in order to implement the bill.
Sessions added that the bill violates language in the Budget Control Act that prohibits committees from reporting bills to the floor that are not paid for. […]
Sessions spoke shortly after Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) defended the bill as a way to give the USPS the authority to take creative new steps to avoid post office closings across the country.
After Sessions spoke, Collins said the Congressional Budget Office’s score of the bill, showing how much it will cost the government to implement, is “incredibly misleading,” and insisted that no taxpayer money would be used to implement the bill. For example, she said the $11.4 billion overpayment comes from money raised only by the USPS, not taxpayers, and thus there would be no real cost to taxpayers.
“These aren’t taxpayer dollars that went into the overpayment in the first place,” she said. Collins added that it only appears to be an $11.4 billion cost when the unified federal budget is looked at, and stressed that the CBO score does not take into account the source of various funds in the unified budget. She said if these factors were considered, the bill would be scored as saving taxpayer money.
Grassley was one of 37 GOP senators who backed Sessions on this vote, but the attempt failed as nine Republicans voted with the entire Democratic caucus to let the postal reform bill be considered.
During Senate debate, all of the amendments that came up for roll-call votes were defeated. Click here for details on those votes. Grassley and Tom Harkin were on opposite sides most of the time. For instance, Harkin supported an amendment to “extend the moratorium on the closing and consolidation of postal facilities or post offices, stations, or branches.” Grassley voted no, as did most Republicans. But even Grassley voted with Senate Democrats against a Republican amendment to prohibit postal service employees from engaging in collective bargaining.
Senators did approve by voice vote 11 of the 39 proposed amendments to the postal reform bill. Daniel Strauss summarized most of them here. They included Republican Rand Paul’s effort to close many of the post offices at the Capitol and Democrat Chuck Schumer’s amendment to preserve “all current door delivery point services.”
Finally, Senators approved the postal reform package by 62 votes to 37 (roll call). Harkin was among the 49 Democrats to vote yes, joined by Grassley and 12 other Republicans. Grassley released this comment on the bill yesterday:
“This legislation isn’t perfect, but it takes steps to correct Postal Service problems that could result in mail delivery coming to a halt entirely, if not addressed. Unless we help the Postal Service cut costs, the borrowing authority of the Postal Service will run out in the fall, and it will be unable to make payroll. By acting now, and with this legislation, it’s likely that fewer post offices will have to be closed and there will be more accountability regarding which offices are closed. I voted for the bill, even if imperfect, to address a looming crisis now and avoid either a disruption in mail service or a taxpayer bailout, both of which would hurt the economy and take money out of the pockets of hard-working Americans.”
Jamie Dupree’s reporting suggests the Senate version of postal reform will go nowhere in the Republican-controlled U.S. House.
“Unfortunately, action by the Senate today falls far short of the Postal Service’s plan,” read a statement from the Postal Service Board of Governors.
“We are disappointed that the Senate’s bill would not enable the Postal Service to return to financial viability,” the board added.
Also blasting the Senate’s effort was a key House lawmaker.
“The Senate’s approach is wholly unacceptable,” said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who is leading reform efforts in the House.
“Worst of all, the Senate bill does not stop the financial collapse of USPS, but only delays it for two years, at best, when reforms will only be more painful,” said Issa. […]
“If this bill were to become law, the Postal Service would be back before the Congress within a few years requesting additional legislative reform,” said Postmaster General Patrick Donohoe.
Issa’s approach to postal reform, which has not yet come up for a vote in the U.S. House, would close post offices and end Saturday mail delivery, among other cost-cutting measures.
Governor Terry Branstad and Iowans in Congress from both parties have sharply criticized plans to close small post offices, with Representative Bruce Braley calling particular attention to the issue. However, Iowa politicians failed to stop the closure of a mail processing facility in Sioux City last fall. In December 2011, the U.S. Postal Service delayed further closures of post offices or mail processing facilities until May 15, 2012; Iowa’s members of Congress welcomed that decision. Quite a few rural post offices in Iowa are potentially on the chopping block, although the U.S. Postal Service backed off from plans to close mail processing facilities in Waterloo and Cedar Rapids.
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