McCaskill, Blunt seek delay in Postal Service changes

Missouri's two U.S. senators were joined by 28 of their colleagues Monday in a letter to Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe, demanding that the U.S. Postal Service delay its plans to consolidate "up to 82 mail processing facilities" next year.

Sen. Claire McCaskill was one of 28 Democrats signing the letter, while Sen. Roy Blunt was the only Republican who signed it. Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders was the other senator endorsing the letter.

The lawmakers' demand followed a Postal Service Inspector General's report that the USPS "failed to fulfill its regulatory and statutory obligations to adequately study the impact of these consolidations on service standards and inform the public of these impacts."

Five months ago, the USPS announced plans for a "Phase 2" of its "Network Rationalization Initiatives," beginning in January - including closing the mail-processing centers at Springfield, with Kansas City taking over the work, and at Cape Girardeau, with St. Louis taking on the additional work.

The letter reminded Donahoe that the USPS' "own Area Mail Processing Guidelines" require any feasibility study to "evaluate service standard impacts for all classes of mail" and to "consider issues important to local customers."

The USPS also is required to "provide adequate public notice to communities" affected by a proposed change, the senators noted, give the public "ample opportunity to provide input on the proposed decision" and "take public comments into account in making a final decision."

But, the senators said in the two-page letter, the Postal Service's own inspector general found that the USPS "failed to complete the service standard impacts evaluation and worksheet in 91 of the 95" feasibility studies related to the rationalization plan.

"Without these completed worksheets, it is impossible to fully understand the effects of consolidation decisions, or adequately inform local customers and consider issues important to them," the letter said.

The senators acknowledged that the USPS "refutes" its inspector general's report, arguing "that it met its transparency requirements" because the language it used for each proposal said the final consolidations "are contingent upon the resolution" of a rule-making process that could make broad revisions in the current service standards.

The new standards are expected to be issued Jan. 5.

But, the senators said, that's "just days before the consolidations are scheduled to begin," so they told Donahoe they don't accept the USPS transparency claim.

"The language in the AMP is so vague and uninformative as to be meaningless to the public," the senators' letter said. "The purpose of public disclosure is to inform.

"This statement contains no useful information whatsoever."

In urging a delay, the letter said the Postal Service "gains little by deciding to continue the consolidation process on its own, arbitrary timeline."

In addition to Blunt and McCaskill, the letter was signed by senators from Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North and South Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.