House panel has a ‘near-universal consensus’ on pausing the U.S. Postal Service’s planned changes

The USPS will have new leadership who may rethink
 recent plans. (Photo by Clay Leconey, Unsplash)

Over the past few decades, the United States Postal Service has struggled to stay financially afloat and transition from a letter-delivery service to more of a package-delivery service. USPS leadership has faced an uphill battle to maintain its mission — to accept and deliver mail to every address in the U.S., its territories, and possessions — while remaining solvent.

The last Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, retired after his 10-year plan, Delivering for America, floundered and repeatedly angered lawmakers. “As a new leader takes the helm of the U.S. Postal Service, a House panel debated the future of the independent entity,” reports Sean Michael Newhouse of Government Executive. “There was a near-universal consensus on pausing and even reversing" DeJoy's plans. 

Mike Plunkett, the CEO and president of the Association for Postal Commerce, told the panel, “Under the Delivering for America plan, our members have suffered unprecedented rate increases and service degradation. . . . If the incoming PMG is to have any chance at success, the postal service must immediately pause implementation of Delivering for America.”

Plunkett suggested a “moratorium on rate increases, a pause in spending on building new facilities and halting any product changes while new leadership assesses what reforms to keep, modify or unwind,” Newhouse writes. “Jim Cochrane, the CEO of the Package Shippers Association, a trade organization, testified that USPS needs a ‘new vision’ to improve its finances.”

David Steiner, who previously served as the CEO of Waste Management and as a member of the FedEx board, was selected by the bipartisan USPS Board of Governors to become the next Postmaster General.

“DeJoy was pressured to resign [in March] due to conflicts with the Department of Government Efficiency," Newhouse reports. “President Donald Trump, who reportedly backed Steiner, has mused about privatizing USPS or folding it under the Commerce Department.”