Lawmakers say they’re ‘very close’ to deal on post office overhaul

Bipartisan legislation to help the struggling U.S. Postal Service could be enacted and sent to President Obama’s desk within months, top lawmakers said Wednesday.

Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), testifying before a Senate panel, said that last-minute efforts at postal reform in the previous Congress came very close to a bipartisan agreement.

Cummings, the ranking Democrat at the House Oversight Committee, even went so far as to say the legislation could make it through both chambers before the end of March.

“We spent some time in the red zone,” Cummings said at the Senate Homeland Security hearing. “But America expects us to get into the end zone.”

“I believe we are close” to an agreement, Cummings said. “I believe we are very close.”

Lawmakers also expressed varying degrees of confidence that they would get a postal bill done during the last Congress before falling short.

{mosads}And, as Wednesday’s hearing illustrated, rural lawmakers remain deeply concerned by a new Postal Service plan to end Saturday letter delivery starting in August, but to continue delivering packages six days a week.

After testifying, Issa told reporters that he thought the timeline laid out by Cummings was probably too ambitious, but that he wanted to move quickly as well.

“To begin moving bipartisan, bicameral legislation — no, I think we certainly could have it out of our committees as soon as the end of March,” the California Republican said.

Congress could also face some added urgency this time around to come together on a postal overhaul.

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe reiterated on Wednesday that he believes USPS has the authority to move ahead with its five-day plan, at least in part because the government is currently funded through a temporary spending measure that runs through March 27.

But lawmakers have questioned that stance, and Donahoe has said he wants to work with Congress to clear the issue up over the next six weeks — putting even more importance on Cummings’ timeframe.

At Tuesday’s hearing, Donahoe implored lawmakers to allow the agency to transition to five-day delivery, and said that taxpayers could be forced to foot at least a $45 billion bailout of the agency by 2017 without congressional authority to change its business model.

USPS lost almost $16 billion in fiscal 2012 — roughly $11 billion of that from defaults on required prepayments for future retiree healthcare. The agency says scrapping Saturday letter delivery would save about $2 billion annually.

“Changes of this magnitude require courage,” Donahoe said.

“It is clear that the Postal Service cannot continue along our current path,” he added. “Our existing business model is unsustainable, and projections show continued and increased losses into the future — unless a comprehensive set of changes is made.”

Donahoe also pressed lawmakers to allow USPS to sponsor its own health plan, something he said could save up to $7 billion a year.

Another witness at the hearing, Gene Dodaro, the U.S. comptroller general, told lawmakers that they should adjust the postal service’s retiree prepayments. That requirement, postal unions and some liberals say, is mostly to blame for the Postal Service’s financial troubles and should be scrapped altogether.

The Government Accountability Office also said that USPS should be given more freedom to alter its business model in the face of declining mail volume, and that the service’s financial condition be taken into account during any binding arbitration discussions with postal unions.

For their part, Cummings and Carper said USPS needs to be given more options to grow its revenue stream – something that Cummings noted has drawn some objections from Republicans.

And even though Donahoe wants to put the five-day delivery discussion behind him, lawmakers that favor Saturday delivery are pressing ahead.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) introduced legislation on Wednesday that would both keep six-day delivery and get rid of the required prepayments.

“If we’re going to have a mail service that’s going to work for urban America, it damn well better work for rural America, too,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said at Wednesday’s hearing.

Despite the hurdles that remain, Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), the chairman and ranking member of the Homeland Security panel, expressed optimism at Wednesday’s hearing that Congress could move swiftly on postal reform.

Carper, responding to concerns about the USPS push to get rid of Saturday delivery, said Congress would have failed if it was still debating that issue come August.

“It’s imperative that we act,” Carper said.

This story was updated at 3:08 p.m. and 6:23 p.m.