Press Releases

Last night Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) voted to improve mail delivery and strengthen the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) with the Postal Service Reform Act, which passed on a bipartisan vote. The bill now heads to the Senate for further consideration. The Postal Service Reform Act directs billions in funding to USPS, and would make reforms to increase performance transparency and create new sources of revenue, strengthening the financial footing of USPS. Northern Virginians have reported widespread delays and problems with mail delivery in recent years.

“The U.S. Postal Service provides a crucial service that Americans depend on for delivery of their prescriptions, paychecks, and much more, but that service has been severely stretched. The Postal Service Reform Act is strong bipartisan legislation that will help solve problems with mail delivery across the country and in our local community,” said Rep. Beyer. “The pandemic worsened decades of underinvestment and onerous financial restrictions, putting an unsustainable strain on this key government agency, which Northern Virginians have felt keenly.  The Postal Service Reform Act will ensure that Americans can rely on USPS for reliable, nationwide mail service for generations to come.”

Because of the extremely unusual requirement that the Post Office fund 75 years of retiree benefits in advance, this institution is on the path to insolvency, facing an urgent shortage of funding as its delivery obligations continue to grow. The Postal Service currently provides mail to nearly 159 million delivery points and adds an additional one million every year. Yet even as postal workers service more locations, revenue has continued to fall due to lower mail volume. Having suffered fourteen consecutive years of net losses, the Postal Service is projected to run out of funds entirely by 2024, threatening to worsen delays and service reductions that are already hampering mail delivery.

The Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 enacts several overdue changes to address these financial challenges, improve mail delivery and support postal workers and retirees, including:

• Welcoming all future postal retirees into Medicare, delivering quality health care to our committed public servants while saving the Postal Service $22.6 billion over the next decade.
• Repealing a burdensome requirement forcing the Postal Service to prefund retirees’ health care 75 years in advance, saving $27 billion over the next decade.
• Promoting reliable delivery and transparency through a public-facing, online dashboard featuring national and local level service performance data.
• Codifying the Postal Service’s longtime tradition of delivering mail and packages six days per week.
• Allowing the Postal Service to raise additional revenues by offering non-commercial property and services to state, local and tribal governments.