VIDEO RELEASE: Senator Carper Applauds Long-Awaited Postal Reform

To view Senator Carper’s full remarks, click here. 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.), senior member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC), applauded Senate passage of the bipartisan Postal Service Reform Act of 2022.

“Americans need medicine for loved ones, ballots to vote. Farmers up and down the First State need seeds and fertilizer to keep their farms running, and small business all over the country need affordable, reliable service that they can count on to serve their customers,” said Carper. “This legislation means putting the Postal Service on stronger financial footing, so that Americans have access to timely, reliable mail delivery for years to come. Today’s bipartisan bill is a win for the people all across the country — because Americans need the Postal Service, and Americans know the Postal Service needs reform.”

Background

In 2006, joined by Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), Carper helped lead his colleagues in passing the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, a bipartisan bill that made the Postal Service more flexible in price setting, more competitive with private delivery services, and held the Postal Service to higher service standards to monitor and improve delivery across the country.

But after the onset of the Great Recession, the Postal Service incurred 15 years of losses and $160 billion in debt in large part as a result of the Postal Service’s requirement to prefund health care benefits for all future retires — an obligation no other federal agency or private company has to take on. 

The Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 will shore up the financial foundation of the Postal Service by eliminating the burdensome prefunding mandate for future Postal retiree benefits, and by requiring all Postal Service retirees enroll in Medicare when they become eligible for benefits — a provision championed by Carper.  

Additionally, the legislation would require the Postal Service to develop a public, online dashboard updated weekly to show national and local service performance data, and permanently require the Postal Service to deliver mail at least six days per week — all while saving the Postal Service an estimated $49 billion over the next decade.

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