On May 26, House Government Oversight and Reform Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), House Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Resonse and Recovery Subcommittee Ranking Member Peter King (R-NY) and House Subcommittee on Government Operations Chair Gerry Connolly (D-VA) introduced "The Postal Preservation Act" (H.R. 7015). This legislation is "stand alone" U.S. Postal Service emergency legislation to provide pandemic-related relief to the agency. The COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged postal revenue, placing the Postal Service and the services it provide in imminent jeopardy.
H.R. 7015 would make a $25 billion emergency appropriation to the USPS and prioritize the acquisition of protective equipment for its employees. The bill also would authorize Inspector General oversight of the appropriated funds. These same provisions were included in the House-passed HEROES Act, H.R. 6800. Earlier this month, the HEROES Act passed by a 208-199, but failed to achieve bipartisan support because of provisions unrelated to postal relief. Many lawmakers who voted NO indicated that would have supported the postal provisions had they been voted on separately and, thus, the postal aid would have received overwhelming bipartisan support. Consequently, Maloney, King and Connolly introduced the H.R. 7015 to demonstrate bipartisan House support of such emergency postal aid to persuade the Senate leadership and the President to include emergency postal relief in the next COVID-19 bill, which is currently being drafted in the Senate.
NAPS urges its member to immediately contact their elected representatives to cosponsor and support HR 7015. In addition, we continue to ask NAPS members to urge their senators to support pandemic-related emergency postal relief.
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