As Congress passed a continuing resolution to keep the government running through September, with language designed to guarantee full delivery of mail six days a week, "There were much different conclusions in the halls of Capitol Hill on
what it meant for the effort by the U.S. Postal Service to end Saturday
delivery of first-class mail," Jamie Dupree writes for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Beyond that simple summary, it gets more complicated, and many news stories about the issue fudged or omitted details. Supporters of full six-day mail say the arcane language in the resolution requires USPS to maintain current delivery levels, but those who support its plan say as long as it delivers packages on Saturdays, it will meet the requirement. That may be settled in court, in an appropriations bill or by postal reform legislation; USPS officials said they would consult with the Postal Service Board of Governors about how to proceed with their plan to cut Saturday delivery in early August.
"It isn't clear how this will be resolved, as the Postal Service seems intent on making the Saturday mail change," Dupree writes.
The arcane language in the continuing resolution refers to a line in the 2012 appropriations bill for the Postal Service: "Six-day delivery and rural delivery of mail shall continue at not less than the 1983 level." The Government Accountability Office, the auditing and legal arm of Congress, said in a letter issued Thursday that the resolution continued the requirement, because continuing resolutions are designed to maintain the status quo until an appropriations bill is passed.
USPS had argued to the GAO that the legislation didn't apply to it because the measure didn't allocate money to the Postal Service for mail that it is required to carry free or at reduced rates. The GAO disagreed, but said it had not considered whether the plan to deliver only packages on Saturday would meet the letter of the law. The next step could be a request to GAO for its opinion on that question. A PDF of the letter is here.
In the end, Congress will make the decision, and newspapers lobbied hard in Washington this month for Saturday mail. Kent Warneke of the Norfolk Daily News in northeast Nebraska did a story about it.
Beyond that simple summary, it gets more complicated, and many news stories about the issue fudged or omitted details. Supporters of full six-day mail say the arcane language in the resolution requires USPS to maintain current delivery levels, but those who support its plan say as long as it delivers packages on Saturdays, it will meet the requirement. That may be settled in court, in an appropriations bill or by postal reform legislation; USPS officials said they would consult with the Postal Service Board of Governors about how to proceed with their plan to cut Saturday delivery in early August.
"It isn't clear how this will be resolved, as the Postal Service seems intent on making the Saturday mail change," Dupree writes.
The arcane language in the continuing resolution refers to a line in the 2012 appropriations bill for the Postal Service: "Six-day delivery and rural delivery of mail shall continue at not less than the 1983 level." The Government Accountability Office, the auditing and legal arm of Congress, said in a letter issued Thursday that the resolution continued the requirement, because continuing resolutions are designed to maintain the status quo until an appropriations bill is passed.
USPS had argued to the GAO that the legislation didn't apply to it because the measure didn't allocate money to the Postal Service for mail that it is required to carry free or at reduced rates. The GAO disagreed, but said it had not considered whether the plan to deliver only packages on Saturday would meet the letter of the law. The next step could be a request to GAO for its opinion on that question. A PDF of the letter is here.
In the end, Congress will make the decision, and newspapers lobbied hard in Washington this month for Saturday mail. Kent Warneke of the Norfolk Daily News in northeast Nebraska did a story about it.
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