Providing for Consideration of H. R. 22, Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 22, POSTAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND ENHANCEMENT ACT -- (House of Representatives - July 26, 2005)
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Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time and for his work in bringing this bill and this rule to the floor.
The reason that my colleagues are hearing such kudos for the chairman, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Davis), subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh), the ranking member, the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) will be understood, I think, if you understand that it has taken us 11 years to get here. So only great tenacity and skill could have brought us this far.
I have been in Congress for 15 years. It seems to me that this has been before us forever, but never on the floor before, and there is a good reason for it. It is not because there were special interests or cantankerous Members; it is we are trying to do almost the impossible. We are trying to make an agency meant to be only partially competitive stand alongside one of the most competitive parts of our economy.
So what was necessary was to somehow bring the likes of UPS and FedEx on board at the same time that all of the unions could be brought with us, UPS and the entire industry. That is why it has taken so long and why in reverence we have to be thankful for those who have accomplished this mission. Understand we are dealing with an industry that is 9 percent of our GDP, nothing to be taken lightly.
Yet what you have before you is something of a miracle. It is a unanimous and bipartisan bill where Members have put aside their selfish concerns, and we do have them, for the greater good of the Postal Service, because one thing we have to come to grips with is not a single Member that can go home and say, well, it was not good enough for me, so I put your Postal Service in jeopardy. Just try that out on your constituents.
At the same time, the Postal Service had to wake up to the 21st century, had to modernize in ways that 9/11 had nothing to do with, had to modernize because the world has come forward with technology that challenges them, the way UPS and FedEx will never challenge them. How do you do that?
They are still trying to do that. But one of the things you do is give the Postal Service some of the flexibility that is associated with the private sector, as much of it as you can, consistent with the fact that this is a controlled section of the economy, because there are some things that the Postal Service must do and nobody else can do; that is, go to some of the far reaches of your rural districts where they better get their mail on time the way I do mine nine blocks from the Capitol.
Even those who had serious problems with this bill, the mail handlers, for example, have a real problem and one that has to be taken seriously with the way in which the bill deals with single pieces of parcels, single parcels, where we have allowed the Postal Service to transfer revenue in order to keep this part of the service lower, and we are getting rid of that to make them more competitive with the private sector.
They say, watch out because you are going to raise the costs, and that is not good. But you know what they have said and agreed to? Perhaps we can resolve it in conference. So they say, pass the bill. I say as well, because we need to modernize the Postal Service. And we have even gotten around for ourselves the part that says that we might contribute to the deficit by giving back to the Treasury what they put on to the Postal Service, which is the cost of military pensions.
We say you have held billions of dollars from the Postal Service. Tell you one thing, if we did not do that, what it means is that the Postal Service, which has already filed for a rate increase, would be forced to go ahead. I, for one, do not want to go home in 2006 and say, I voted for a mail increase. That is what you will vote for if you vote against this bill.
My thanks to the sponsors once again for this historic work.
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