Postal Service to seek billions in emergency funding

The Postal Service plans to ask Congress for several billion dollars to help in the fight against terrorism, postal officials confirmed Tuesday.

While the request has been rumored for several days, Postmaster General John Potter and Chief Postal Inspector Kenneth Weaver Tuesday acknowledged for the first time publicly that the cash-strapped agency cannot sustain a high level of attention to security without an infusion of capital.

"We view a lot of these costs as homeland security," Potter told the House Government Reform Committee. "We don't think the ratepayers should bear an additional burden." Potter delivered the same message to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee hours earlier.

Prior to Sept. 11, the agency predicted losses of $1.5 billion for fiscal 2002. Since the attacks, mail volume has slumped 6 percent and revenue is down $300 million from initial first-quarter projections.

Members of the House and Senate committees from both parties promised Tuesday to help the Postal Service get the additional funds. Initial estimates for installing decontamination equipment at mail processing facilities amount to roughly $2.5 billion. The Postal Service is also considering whether to buy equipment to help the Postal Inspection Service better screen mail.

The inspection service, Weaver said, is stretched thin. Practically all 1,900 inspectors have been assigned to investigate terrorist and anthrax threats, which are coming in at a rate of 600 a day. Almost 300 postal facilities have been evacuated for varying periods as a result of threats and hoaxes. Unless the Postal Service returns to normal operations soon, the inspection service will need additional resources, Weaver told Government Executive.

Congressional sources and agency watchdogs warned against giving the Postal Service a blank check. Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources suggested the agency rethink how it processes mail and look for ways to become more efficient as well as more secure. While congressional sources were confident that the agency would get additional funding, they said appropriators would likely demand assurances that the money will be spent wisely.

Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, said Congress would consider postal reform legislation as well. Several committee members, Postal Service officials and union leaders endorsed that sentiment.

While gaining support for the additional funding, Potter was questioned at length about the agency's slow reaction to the anthrax contamination. Two D.C. postal workers have died from inhalation anthrax and several others are sick.

The agency did not immediately close a processing facility in Northwest Washington that handled a contaminated letter sent to Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., because early tests did not show traces of anthrax. Potter said the agency relied on expert advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public health officials.

Health experts thought only people who opened a contaminated letter could be exposed.

"People just did not know that much about anthrax," Potter told the Senate panel. The agency now believes that the Daschle letter used a highly porous paper, thus allowing the anthrax spores to be released into the processing facility.

Union leaders testifying before both committees said they believe the Postal Service is taking the right steps to protect its workers. They applauded the agency's recent decision to shut down and decontaminate any facility where anthrax is found. There are exceptions to the rule, however. Processing plants in midtown Manhattan and Boca Raton, Fla., are still open despite the discovery of anthrax spores.

CDC officials advised the Postal Service that contaminated areas in those facilities could be quarantined and cleaned without having to close the buildings. The decision to keep the plants open was made with the consent of the American Postal Workers Union, which represents mail clerks.

"But we are not going to make the exception the rule," said William Burrus, the union's president-elect.

James Jarboe of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division told the House panel that the agency has yet to determine if the Daschle letter could have contaminated other pieces of mail. That raised the ire of Burton and Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who during the hearing, penned a letter to the CDC, the FBI and the Postal Service demanding that the agencies take a more proactive approach in determining the likelihood of cross-contamination.