US Senators introduce Rural Postal Act
US Senators Heidi Heitkamp, Jon Tester, Claire McCaskill and Gary Peters yesterday (9 July) introduced the Rural Postal Act of 2015, which aims to “improve rural mail service and delivery, and increase protections for rural post offices”. In an official statement published yesterday, Senator Heitkamp – a member of the Senate committee overseeing the Postal Service – said that she had introduced the legislation “to specifically address the postal concerns and challenges in rural America”.
The Senator said that since she launched her “Fix My Mail” initiative in January 2014, she had received hundreds of stories from residents of North Dakota (her home state) “about issues they have encountered with delayed mail delivery and poor service from the U.S. Postal Service”.
As previously reported, Senator Heitkamp earlier this year brought together the first bipartisan meeting of Senators from rural states to speak with the U.S. Postmaster General.
In her statement yesterday, Senator Heithamp claimed that in the Dakotas only about 65% of non-local mail arrived on time within three to five days last quarter, which is about 30% below the US Postal Service’s own annual goal. “And from 2001 to 2013,” added the Senator’s statement, “nearly 400 post offices closed across the country, hurting mail service, particularly in rural communities.”
“Mail is a critical lifeline in rural America, and all North Dakotans deserve access to high-quality mail delivery and service, regardless of where they live. But in too many places in North Dakota and rural America, that has not been happening,” said Heitkamp. “Through my Fix My Mail initiative, I’ve heard from folks from across our state that they aren’t receiving their mail and prescription drugs on time, or their local post office has had its operating hours significantly reduced. That can’t be the way the Postal Service operates.”
Senator Heitkamp said that her “commonsense bill” aims to address the needs of rural families and postal employees.
“This isn’t the final step to fixing all the problems with the Postal Service,” said Senator Heitkamp, “but any effort to do so needs to include these kinds of protections and support for rural America, and I’ll keep building support so we can meet the postal needs of all Americans.”
The bill’s main aims include: improving mail standards (and, significantly, this would involve placing a “two-year moratorium on the closure of additional mail processing plants”); meeting the needs of rural postal customers (and this would involve preserving six-day mail delivery); protection rural post offices (from closures or reductions in hours); and improving postal employee morale (and in order to do this, the bill would establish the role of a Chief Morale Officer within USPS who would oversee working conditions, staffing, communication, and training efforts).
For a one-page summary of the bill, click here.
Earlier this month, Senators Heitkamp , McCaskill, and Test (all movers of the Rural Postal Act) together with Senator Tom Carper requested that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) review the US Postal Service’s calculation of delivery times and standards.
