June 18, 2015

The House Appropriations Committee vote on June 17 to roll back mail delivery service standards to 2012 levels is financially and operationally indefensible, and the Postal Service strongly encourages the Congress to remove this requirement. In addition to immediate implementation costs, the cost of forgoing the benefits of our current operating model and service standards would be roughly $1.5 billion annually. The Postal Service simply cannot afford costly, legislatively-mandated inefficiencies that undermine our viability as a self-funding entity.

In order to remain financially viable, the Postal Service aggressively reduced our mail processing and other network costs and maximized our efficiency. We are in the process of implementing one of the most comprehensive operational transformations in our history. This has included consolidating plants, eliminating excess processing capacity, and changing operating windows and employee and machine schedules in all remaining mail processing facilities, and redesigning transportation systems. We took these actions in recognition of the economic reality that the volume of First-Class mail has declined precipitously and will continue to decline. We need to ensure that we will continue to be able to fulfill our obligation to provide prompt, reliable and efficient postal services to the American people.