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• POINT OF ORDER VOTE IN THE HOUSE ISSUES SETBACK FOR MAIL DELIVERY AND USPS - July 8, 2016

• House Republicans Block Effort to Deliver Mail Faster and Keep USPS Facilities Open

  By Eric Katz Government Executive

  The House late Wednesday blocked a measure to require the U.S. Postal Service to revert back to the delivery standards it maintained before 2012, which the mailing agency said would have cost it $1.5 billion annually.

  A committee had unanimously approved an amendment to a spending bill last month to require the Postal Service to deliver mail more quickly, but Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah -- who recently introduced a more comprehensive measure to put USPS on a path toward financial solvency -- used a legislative tactic known as a “point of order” to block the measure. Chaffetz argued the postal provision held no relevancy to an appropriations bill, and in a mostly party-line vote the Republican House majority concurred.

  The Postal Service previously reduced the amount of mail it delivered overnight and shifted a substantial amount of mail from a two-day delivery standard to a three-to-five day range. Overall, USPS downgraded its delivery standards for about 28 percent of first-class mail. USPS cited those changes as necessary to enable it to consolidate facilities and rely less heavily on air delivery. The agency shuttered 141 processing facilities in 2012 and 2013, and had begun closing an additional 82 in 2015 before it suddenly decided to cancel those plans last year.

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