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‘Heard on the Hill'

‘Heard on the Hill’
By Bob Levi
NAPS Director of Legislative & Political Affairs

It’s been a month since about 500 NAPS members trekked to Capitol Hill to promote our legislative priorities. As part of the post-conference evaluation, we carefully examined the results of the online 2024 Legislative Training Seminar (LTS) surveys and the detailed, mobile-enabled, digitally submitted 2024 lobbying reports.

Regarding the LTS survey, the bottom-line is two-thirds of those responding rated the conference “Excellent.” Most gratifying is the tremendous value LTS attendees attributed to the innovative skills learned and essential information gleaned from the event.

In addition, LTS attendees appreciated being part of the NAPS Chat “live audience” for the episode posted on March 8. American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Kevin Kosar was the guest. For many years, Kosar was the Congressional Research Service’s expert on the Postal Service and is a regular postal commentator on a variety of media platforms.

Also, LTS attendees highly rated our visit with Adam Campbell of Voter-Voice, which is among the pivotal tools NAPS uses as part of our integrated legislative and political strategy. Campbell guided LTS attendees through an online, real-time engagement with U.S. senators regarding S. 3356, the bipartisan Postal Police Reform Act.

One of the most important aspects of the conference was LTS delegates’ opportunity to meet with their senators, representatives and members of their respective staffs on issues important to all EAS-level postal employees. Over 300 lobbying reports were filed online, so LTS delegates wore down their shoe soles on Capitol Hill.

Clearly, NAPS members advanced and reinforced our legislative agenda: Promoting postal security, which includes protecting postal employees through legislation to clarify the authority of postal police officers; advocating for a fair consultative process over supervisor, manager and postmaster pay and benefits by legislating a revised and timely procedure; furthering due process rights for postal managers assigned to USPS Headquarters positions by enacting legislation to permit all EAS employees to appeal adverse actions to the Merit Systems Protection Board; and encouraging Congress to finally pass a bill to repeal the Social Security Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset.

Nevertheless, what was most striking is what NAPS members “heard on the Hill.” That is, what members of Congress were telling them about the Postal Service and their concerns about agency performance. As I pored over the voluminous lobbying reports and spreadsheets, I was taken aback by the magnitude of congressional unease about eroding postal on-time performance and its trajectory over the next few years.

Particularly remarkable was the level of distress among elected officials whose states and districts already were impacted by facility realignments and consolidations. Comments from Virginia, Maryland, Texas and Georgia were particularly noteworthy.

We also were struck by the gnawing anxiety of members of Congress whose communities soon will experience postal logistics reorganizations. Notwithstanding recent town hall meetings in affected communities, collectively and individually, House and Senate offices shared their angst about the lack of transparency, paucity of constituent engagement and, of course, deteriorating performance.

These fears were validated by a March 28, 2024, Postal Inspector General (IG) audit report on the RP&DC consolidation in Richmond, VA. In part, the IG concluded the consolidation contributed to a drop in on-time service, which now classifies Virginia as the worst in the country. As reported by the Associated Press, the IG indicated “only 66% of First-Class Mail was delivered within two days in the current fiscal year.” In addition, the IG declared the Richmond project to potentially have increased costs rather than realized USPS-predicted savings.

Unfortunately, alarm bells are ringing nationwide, stretching through America’s heartland and into many and diverse urban areas. However, USPS leadership’s response to this congressional anxiety is akin to 19th-century political commentator Alex De Tocqueville’s observation: “A perpetual utterance of self-applause.”

The “postal worry” shared by Congress to NAPS members publicly revealed itself in several actions by Congress taken after LTS. Different coalitions of senators and representatives forwarded communications to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, asking that further realignments and consolidations be delayed until a more comprehensive and transparent evaluation could be conducted. A group led by Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) pointedly commented that the operational changes raised serious performance issues in rural areas.

They expressed alarm that the changes could undermine the presence of post offices whose carriers would be relocated to large delivery facilities. More pointedly, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Gary Peters (D-MI) sent a stern letter to the PMG as a follow-up to a December 2023 letter.

The more recent March 18 letter protested that USPS responses to Peters’ earlier letter were inadequate. Therefore, he called on the USPS to “pause all network changes until it can clearly demonstrate that such changes will not degrade local mail service.”

At end of this latest letter, Peters declared that postal performance, as impacted by network realignment, “will be a top priority for this committee.” At the same time senators were voicing their displeasure, there were too many communications from House members to count.

Concurrent with the ongoing congressional critique, the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) was concluding its 2023 Annual Compliance Review, a proceeding to determine whether the Postal Service is complying with the law. As part of one of his filings, the PRC-designated “Public Representative” remarked:

“Reports are now appearing in the press of serious mail delays emanating from the associated Atlanta RP&DC. … Although some hiccups are to be expected when opening new facilities and designing the network, the Postal Service, like a punter trying to kick out of his own end zone, can only take so many steps back before stepping out of bounds and incurring a safety.”

Efforts by Congress and the PRC to shed more light on logistics realignment and consolidations cannot be met by persistent obstruction. Such actions undermine postal credibility and shield the agency from constructive efforts to restore performance and improve its finances. This is what NAPS “Heard on the Hill.”