The News Media Alliance applauds the passage by Congress last night of the long-awaited Postal Service Reform Act, H.R. 3076, originally sponsored by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and James Comer (R-KY). The Bill will reduce costs of the Postal Service to curb postal rate increases for newspapers.
The Alliance was part of a stakeholder coalition supporting the bill and signed on to numerous letters.
“We are very encouraged that Congress recognizes the importance of reforming the Postal Service, which local newspapers rely on to deliver important news and information to the American public,” said Alliance President and CEO David Chavern. “This vote is a meaningful step towards reducing unnecessary costs and maintaining reliable service to consumers nationwide. However, more work needs to be done to stabilize postal rates and the Alliance will continue to push for solutions that will help protect news publishers and our communities’ access to high-quality journalism.”
In addition to reducing Postal Service costs, key provisions of the Bill include the repeal of mandatory pre-funding of retiree health benefits; expansion of special rates for local newspaper distribution to promote local news organizations; greater transparency in service performance, including a new public-facing, online dashboard with national and local level service performance data updated each week to help promote compliance with on-time delivery of mail; six-day integrated delivery; and a study of operational inefficiencies in Postal Service flats and magazine processing.
The Bill now goes to President Biden for his signature.
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Members of the News/Media Alliance staff have contributed to this post.
