Lawmakers oppose ending Saturday mail despite austere climate

Key lawmakers said Friday they oppose having the U.S. Postal Service eliminate Saturday mail delivery. 

The postal service ran an $8.5 billion deficit last year, and lawmakers are scouring the federal budget to find areas to cut. 

{mosads}But Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.), the chairwoman of the House Appropriations Financial Services subcommittee, said Friday that she’d support using the appropriations process to block a change to current policy regarding Saturday delivery. 

The Postal Regulatory Commission is finalizing its recommendation, which could include a five-day delivery week. Past appropriations bills have included language that would block this, and Emerson said she favors keeping the language in place even though the USPS has dire financial woes.

Subcommittee ranking member Rep. José Serrano (D-N.Y.) also said he opposes eliminating Saturday mail.

Postal Service Inspector General David Williams testified that the USPS will run out of money in September and needs Congress’s help to stay afloat. In September the service will run up against the legal limit it is allowed to borrow in order to keep running. It is expected to run a $6.4 billion shortfall in 2011.

The budget problems have come about because of mistaken payments to the postal service pension fund, and Williams said Congress could step in to reorganize the pension system. 

He emphasized that the USPS is “not looking for a bailout.”

“Let someone come in, construct a world-class pension and healthcare fund,” he suggested.

Emerson asked the inspector general, who has the largest federal IG office budget, at $244 million, if he can find additional savings for use in the budget-cutting continuing resolution coming out Friday.

“In our subcommittee we have to at least try to get our numbers back to 2008 fiscal levels,” she said. “Have you all actually scrubbed your budget to identify savings and efficiencies?”

Williams said that the IG’s office has in the past and promised to do so in the future.

The USPS is a semi-private corporation and receives only a small part of its budget, related to mail for the blind and law enforcement, from the appropriations process.