Postal Service Reform Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I thank the distinguished chair and our ranking member for this bipartisan bill, and I am pleased to speak today in support of the Postal Service Reform Act. Amongst other good policy, this bill would finally get rid of the prefunding of retirement health benefits that has unnecessarily marked the U.S. Postal Service's finances in a way that other Federal agencies are not treated, nor the private sector.

Under current law, the Postal Service is required to prefund retiree health benefits for all current and retired employees for 75 years in the future. This is a unique requirement, and I am pleased that this bill that enjoys widespread support would fix this. The bill amends the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act to correct this accounting problem, allowing the Postal Service to save an astonishing $27 billion over the course of 10 years. The accounting problem led to U.S. Postal Service showing losses annually of $5.2 billion since 2007 when the U.S. Postal Service, from 2013 to 2018, instead would have shown a surplus of nearly $4 billion.

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Ms. NORTON. I would be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to note my strong concerns about delayed and undelivered mail in the District of Columbia. Throughout most of the pandemic, I have written to the Postal Service to repeatedly raise these concerns. These problems at the Postal Service in the Nation's Capital and throughout the country need immediate attention.

I thank Congresswoman Maloney for her leadership on this important issue.

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