US Senate proposal would prevent re-evaluation of USPS mail plants

The assistant majority leader of the US Senate has added a clause in a finance appropriations bill to protect a mail processing plant in his own district in Illinois. Perhaps indicative of the political challenge facing the US Postal Service as it seeks to “right size” its processing infrastructure, Senator Dick Durbin said the legislative addition would help protect jobs at the Processing and Distribution Annex in Quincy, Illinois.

More than just a parochial move, however, the new clause could prevent future re-evaluation of the entire USPS processing network.

Durbin, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Finance and Government Services, was responding to the USPS list, revealed on Thursday, of 252 mail plants across the country it is considering closing.

The Senator, who is now hoping to meet with Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe to talk about the Quincy plant, appeared to be angry that he learned of the review of the Quincy plant from the media.

He said of the USPS announcement: “It is neither fair nor prudent to announce major changes without proper study and consultation.”

The Quincy plant was considered for closure in 2009, when it was cleared to continue operations. Durbin’s new addition to his finance bill could prevent USPS from considering a mail plant for closure if it had been previously reviewed and cleared – even if circumstances had changed in the intervening time.

If successful, the legal change would challenge the new USPS policy of continuously reviewing its processing network to ensure it is running at an optimal level, as laid out by USPS vice president of network operations Dave Williams earlier this summer.

Writing to Donahoe, Durbin said the wording of his clause was: “The Committee directs the Postal Service to suspend any consolidations, closings, or job reductions at area mail processing facilities that have not had the benefit of a full AMP study and those where previous Postal Service analyses have found no significant cost savings or efficiencies would be gained by such action.”