Group pours money into fight over USPS rate hike

The Magazine Publishers of America is following through on its promise to spend $10 million to defeat a 15 percent proposed rate hike by the U.S. Postal Service.

The association recently hired two firms to lead its campaign-Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds, a law and lobbying firm, and the Dittus Group, a PR firm. "Preston Gates will act as the quarterback of the team, obviously with us as the head coach," said James R. Cregan, executive vice president for government affairs at the magazine association. "Preston Gates has worked seamlessly with Dittus on other projects," he added.

Preston Gates, Cregan said, will be lobbying Congress, while Dittus will focus on advertising (though probably not on TV yet) as well as "plans to put spokesmen for the industry on the circuit-talk shows, media appearances and speechmaking, wherever we can get a date. We will be pretty aggressive and will come out of box in hurry."

The Postal Service's mid-January proposal, which levies different increases on different types of mail-must first be approved by the Postal Rate Commission, an independent oversight board. The Postal Service, its critics contend, overstated its financial needs by using figures from fiscal year 1998 rather than 1999 when calculating the rate increase. They also say the amount of the USPS's requested increase is roughly twice what it needs to prepare a unexpected shortfalls and to continue with its ongoing effort to pay down its debt.

"By law we're mandated to break even over time, and each class of mail must cover its own cost," USPS spokesman Greg Frey told govexec.com last month. "To accommodate the costs that are projected, what we asked for is what it will take to break even in the given time frame. I don't know what kind of adding machines [the critics] are using."

The magazine group-which "for now" is footing the bill by itself, Cregan said-will focus its campaign's message on the immediate impact of the rate hike on magazine costs. "But part of our exposition of that issue," Cregan added, "will be laying the groundwork for a broader debate over the future of the Postal Service generally. We want the guy in the street to become educated and concerned about the future of his nation's postal system."