Congress to Move Forward on Postal Service Reform After Technical Correction

The House this week unanimously approved a technical correction to prevent an issue that could have prevented the Senate from acting on Postal Service reform next week, Politico reports.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Thursday made procedural moves to enable progress on postal reform legislation that already passed the House, but according to a Senate aide, the House clerk sent text of the bill that lacked some amendments. This issue has now been resolved as of Friday afternoon, according to Politico.

The bill requires retirees from the U.S. Postal Service to enroll in Medicare and eliminates an old measure mandating the agency bank health benefits for retirees 75 years in advance after officials said it could not be done.

The House Committee on Oversight and Reform Chair Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., told Forbes earlier this week that the legislation will help "preserve the ability of the Post Office to exist."

Postal Service head Louis DeJoy said in a statement: "The Postal Service thanks the leadership of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform for their thoughtful, bipartisan collaboration to pass the much-needed Postal Service Reform Act."

"The American Postal Workers Union fully supports the legislation," said union President Mark Dimondstein in an interview with Politico. "We think it's good for the postal public. We think it's good for the public Postal Service, and we think it's good for postal workers."

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