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Floor Speech

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Mr. MORAN. Madam President, I have taken the opportunity--well, all the time I have been in Congress--to speak in support of Congress acting to reform and improve the Postal Service. I am here again today, and I am pleased with what I think is going to transpire here within the next hour. I again express my strong support for the Postal Service Reform Act, and I urge my colleagues to support this critical, important piece of legislation.

The U.S. Postal Service is an indispensable piece of American infrastructure nationwide. Back in my home State of Kansas, the rural communities are especially reliant on the Postal Service for the essential public services the Agency and its employees provide.

However, due to the closure of numerous rural processing facilities in Kansas and post office consolidations and closures, the quality of service and efficiency of the Postal Service has significantly declined. The reduced effectiveness of the Postal Service hurts Americans across the board, but it has the most detrimental impact on rural places like Kansas.

For as long as I have served in Congress, Kansans have detailed to me the adverse impact the declining quality of the U.S. Postal Service has had on their lives and have expressed the need for reforms to improve its efficacy.

The concerns I hear from Kansans are characteristic of the larger picture. The Postal Service is struggling to keep up with its service commitments while still maintaining fiscal stability. Over the past decade, the Postal Service has slowly--and sometimes quickly-- eliminated services; and in that elimination of services, it created what I call a death spiral: shorter hours, fewer post offices, mail processing facilities further away and fewer of them.

This makes life extremely difficult for Kansans, especially rural and highly rural Kansans who rely upon the Postal Service to deliver essential items like medications because there simply isn't a pharmacy for pickup delivery nearby. And the customer looks for delivery services outside the U.S. Postal Service when the service is insufficient, and the Postal Service continues then to lose more revenue.

For as long as I have been in Congress, I think I have met with every Postmaster General, and I have really delivered two messages--one related to this point I am making right now, which is the solution to the Postal Service's financial condition can't simply be reducing the services. I have also suggested that instead of hiring high-priced consultants, the Postmaster General and the Postal Service should consult with their own employees about suggestions of how to deliver better service in a more effective and efficient way and save revenue.

Serving rural States like my own, I understand well the crippling impact that losing postal service would have on rural communities across the country; that is why I have repeatedly acted on my conversations with Kansans by encouraging congressional focus on Postal Service issues and have worked to get postal reform legislation passed for nearly a decade.

My colleague on the Senate floor with me this afternoon, Senator Tom Carper of Delaware, I have joined him on many occasions in the past several sessions of Congress. We are cosponsors--lead Republican and lead Democrat--in reform legislation, and I have met with him and the Postmaster General of the U.S. Postal Service numerous times. We recognize that smart reforms were needed to make certain the Postal Service could compete in this digital age, increase revenue, and not become a taxpayer liability.

Several provisions of the legislation that Senator Carper and I have introduced are included in the Postal Service Reform Act we are considering today: the elimination of the prefunding requirements of retiree health benefits, allowing the Postal Service to enter into agreements with other governmental entities for new avenues of revenue, and making 6-day delivery permanent by law.

In so many instances in my conversations with Kansans at a townhall meeting or on the street or talking to the newspaper editor, the lack of timely delivery of the mail has become increasingly a problem; and what would one expect when the Postal Service is closing post offices, shortening its hours and, most importantly, closing processing facilities?

I hope to make the case to the U.S. Postal Service after passage of this legislation that the postal processing facilities that have been closed in Kansas should be considered for reopening--in fact, should be reopened. Today, the mail will leave a rural community, go to some neighboring State--Nebraska or Texas or Missouri--only to be returned to the postal patron who lives a block from the person who mailed the letter to begin with. We need the return of those postal processing facilities, and their departure had dramatic and consequential effects upon the Postal Service.

I am pleased that the efforts of my colleagues and I have culminated now in the Postal Service Reform Act. From listening to Kansans, I have recognized for years that Congress must act with the Postal Service on a more sustainable path, and this week, the Senate will finally address this longstanding issue--address it in a way that a bill will become law.

Congressional action on postal reform will allow the Postal Service to continue serving rural America without the possibility of imminent service reductions and the uncertainty of the future of the Agency.

From the veterans waiting on critical medications to be delivered from the VA, to the farmer in rural Kansas needing a part for his or her machinery, to the grandparent just waiting to send a birthday card to a grandchild, this legislation puts us on a path to making certain the Postal Service can continue to be relied on to deliver when it matters most.

I thank those who work in the post office and the Postal Service in my home State of Kansas, many of whom I know, and--despite the challenges presented because of the U.S. Postal Service's decisions over the past decade--have worked hard to make sure that the mail is delivered and delivered on time and make sure that their customer, the postal patron, is cared for.

To ensure the Postal Service maintains its vital public services, I urge my colleagues in the Senate to support the Postal Service Reform Act when it arrives on the Senate floor shortly for a vote.

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