Senators renew effort to overhaul Postal Service

After months of negotiations with the White House, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., introduced a bill Thursday to overhaul the U.S. Postal Service.

The bill, which is largely similar to legislation approved by the panel last year, incorporates some new provisions suggested by the administration.

But the sponsors have not acquiesced to the White House on two major areas of contention: shifting the responsibility for the agency's military pensions back to the Treasury Department and giving the Postal Service access to money slated for an escrow account. The administration's opposition to those provisions kept the bill, which was also passed by the House Government Reform Committee, from moving to the floor of either chamber last year.

Collins and Carper said swift action is needed to pull the agency out of financial distress.

"It has long been acknowledged that the financial and operational problems confronting the Postal Service are serious," Collins said as she introduced the legislation. She noted the agency has at least $70 billion in "unfunded liabilities and obligations."

The Postal Service has said it will seek a double-digit rate increase to cover those expenses if legislation is not passed this year.

"Congress shouldn't adjourn this year without doing our jobs and sending this vital piece of legislation to the president's desk," Carper said in a statement.

At the White House's behest, the new measure adds provisions aimed at financial transparency, calling for the Postal Service to file SEC-like reports on a quarterly basis. The bill also would require the agency to get permission from the Treasury Department before investing certain profits. It also authorizes some increases in executive compensation. To lessen the bill's budget impact and make it more uniform with the House measure, the new legislation moves up the date the Postal Service would have to begin paying into an account that would finance retiree health benefits.