Biden gets postal-reform bill that ensures six-day delivery and offers a lifeline to newspapers that depend on the mail

On Tuesday the Senate sent President Biden a $107 billion postal-reform bill that serves rural newspapers and their readers, and could save the Postal Service an estimated $50 billion over the next decade. Biden is expected to sign it, Gillian Brassil reports for McClatchy Newspapers. The bill received strong bipartisan support, with many Republicans joining Democrats to pass it, 79 to 19.

One feature of the long-debated bill would allow newspapers to mail sample copies to non-subscribers in their home counties at the same rate they pay for delivery to subscribers. The current limit is 10 percent of annual home-county circulation, enacted more than a century ago. The bill would make it 50%, which would only enable more sample-copy subscription appeals but provide total market coverage for advertisers that don't normally advertise in newspapers.

The bill "gives community newspapers a new ability to regain subscribers lost by the past few years of slow mail delivery," National Newspaper Association Chair Brett Wesner said in a press release. "It also offers USPS a new lease on life by relieving debt to the federal government. Now we look forward to a revision of postage rates by both USPS and the Postal Regulatory Commission, which have attempted to retire some of this debt with dramatically higher postage rates."

The bill also keeps a mandate for six-day delivery, important in rural areas, and "drops a mandate that the U.S. Postal Service prepay its retired employees’ health care benefits and requires future retirees to enroll in Medicare," Brassil reports. "It allows the agency to partner with state, local and tribal governments to provide services that are not related to mail, including to offer hunting, fishing and driver's licenses." It takes effect in January 2025.

The co-sponsors of the House bill were Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and James Comer, R-Ky., chair and ranking minority member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee. The Kentucky Press Association lauded Comer in a news release, in which 2021 KPA President Sharon Burton said, “He faced backlash from his own party to get this done and it is a rare bipartisan effort. Imailt is very important for rural communities and has language specifically requested by our industry. He deserves a big thanks.”