Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA), the Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation, led a bipartisan group of lawmakers in writing to the Postal Board of Governors to bring to their attention severe deficiencies in United States Postal Service (USPS) operations that risk the security of the mail and mail facilities and threaten the safety of postal employees and members of the public. The Members urged the Board of Governors to take action to address these issues and requested information from the Board to ensure effective oversight of their progress.
In addition to Connolly, the letter was signed by the following Members of Congress: Kweisi Mfume (D-MD), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), Marc Molinaro (R-NY), and Blake D. Moore (R-UT).
“The Board of Governors is responsible for overseeing the operations of the USPS, setting the strategic direction of the USPS, approving important and significant USPS policies, and holding USPS leadership accountable to upholding the mission of one of our nation’s most prized assets,” wrote the Members.
“As such, we bring to your attention for immediate action a series of recent reports by the USPS Office of Inspector General (OIG), which have identified serious lapses in existing postal operations and a glaring lack of oversight by the USPS over its own facilities and contracted suppliers and services,” the Members continued. “The concerns raised by the OIG can be grouped into three primary categories: access to postal facilities, contract trucking safety, and repeated violations of federal wage laws under the purview of USPS contracts.”
The Members requested answers to the following questions:
- Does the Postal Service currently have a record of every driver and carrier (i.e. trucking company), including subcontracted carriers, that accessed Postal Service facilities in FY 2022, FY 2023, and FY 2024?
- Does the Postal Service know how many drivers it has permitted to access its facilities without a postal-issued ID security badge and how many of those drivers would have qualified for a badge after completing the nonsensitive security clearance and driving record review?
- Does the Postal Service uniformly record the driver’s license, or the information contained therein, for those individuals that access postal facilities without first obtaining a postal badge, how is that information stored, and has any analysis of that data ever been performed to determine if these drivers would qualify for a postal-issued photo ID security badge?
- Does the Postal Service maintain a do-not-use carrier or driver list and does the Postal Service share that list with its transportation contractors to ensure that unsafe subcontractors are not utilized?
- How many traffic fatalities have occurred involving Postal Service transportation contractors and subcontractors, respectively, in FY 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024, and are these companies still performing transportation services for the Postal Service? Are those incidents reported to the Board of Governors?
- Have the measures cited in the Postal OIG’s February 2024 report on Contract Trucking Safety regarding implementation of a process and method for tracking contractor crash and fatality information, along with written instructions regarding policy and procedure, been completed given the target date of July 31 provided in the report?
- Was the Board of Governors aware of the Postal Service’s intention to use its freight auction board for routine trips or given a projection that the Postal Service would spend approximately $1 billion in FY 2024 on the freight auction board to contract transportation?
- Was the Board of Governors aware of the Postal Service’s intention to abandon its postal-issued ID security badge process for contractors operating on the freight auction board and did the Board of Governors agree with or authorize this policy decision? Did the Board of Governors, collectively or individually, express any concern about the potential consequences of this policy decision in light of the significant increase in freight auction utilization?
- Why has the Postal Service failed to comply with the requirements of the Service Contract Act after receiving the Department of Labor’s denial of its requested exemption on February 22, 2022? How many freight auction contracts or trips in 2024 failed to include the SCA-required wage determination?
- Does the Postal Service track criminal activity by transportation contractors or subcontractors, such as trailer theft, mail theft, or loading commercial freight in sealed trailers carrying mail? If so, how many such incidents occurred in FY 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 and what types of incidents occurred?
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Full text of the letter is available here
