WASHINGTON – Today, Congressman Ted W. Lieu (D-Los Angeles County) issued the following statement after the House passed the Delivering for America Act, which requires the Postal Service to return to prior operations levels. The bill prohibits recent changes to the Postal Service that impede prompt, reliable, and efficient service. The prohibitions would remain in effect for the duration of the coronavirus public health emergency or January 1, 2021, whichever is later.
“In the last few months, my office has received complaints about slow, incomplete and inadequate mail service in our district,” Rep. Ted Lieu said. “We now know that these recent problems are driven by cuts and changes made to the USPS by the Trump Administration. Poor mail service hurts our country. We just passed the Delivering For America Act because Trump’s efforts to dismantle the Postal Service haven’t gone unnoticed and won’t go unchecked. Americans rely on timely mail service for their businesses, their health, their finances and everything in-between. Good mail service is even more essential during the pandemic, and will be critical to our democracy in November. We are committed to ensuring everyone’s right to vote, and protecting our Postal Service is critical to protecting vote by mail.”
The Delivering for America Act would prohibit:
- Any change that would generally affect service on a nationwide or substantially nationwide basis;
- Any revision of existing service standards;
- Closing, consolidating or reducing the hours of any post office or postal facility;
- Any prohibition on paying overtime to Postal Service officers or employees;
- Any change that would prevent the Postal Service from meeting its service standards or cause a decline in measurements of performance relative to those standards; and
- Any change that would have the effect of delaying mail or increasing the volume of undelivered mail.
This legislation will also:
- Include $25 billion requested by the Postal Service and supported unanimously and on a bipartisan basis by the Trump-appointed Postal Board of Governors;
- Require the Postal Service to treat all official election mail as First-Class mail;
- Prohibit the removal, decommissioning or other stoppage of mail sorting machines, other than for routine maintenance;
- Prohibit the removal of mailboxes; and
- Explicitly reverse any changes already implemented to the operations or policies of the Postal Service that delay mail delivery