A provision that would have allowed the U.S. Postal Service to set its own delivery standards is removed, but penalties for noncompliance with targets are also gone.
UPDATE: A waiver provision that would have allowed the U.S. Postal Service to sidestep new performance standards has been removed from postal reform legislation, according to a Prospect review of the updated bill text. The provision was removed after the American Postal Workers Union sent a letter to Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), the bill’s author, saying that the union would not be able to support the bill if the language remained.
Previously, the bill allowed the Postal Service to avoid compliance with preset performance standards if it deemed them “impractical.” Union leaders saw this as a recipe for postal leadership to adjust any service standards and slow mail service, without having to pay attention to oversight from Congress or the Postal Regulatory Commission. Given Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s interest in changing operations at the Postal Service, and the catastrophic degradation of standards over the past year, this was cause for serious concern.