Hearings to examine reforming the U.S. Postal Service's business model.

The committee will now come to order. The Postal Service is once again telling Congress that it's out of money, running out of money. And once again the answer seems to be send the bill to the taxpayer, just give us some more money. Every private business in America lives under a discipline the Postal Service has escaped. When demand falls, a business makes hard choices, cuts cost, uses contractors when they can do the job for less, and when something fails, it stops doing it. A company that refuses to adjust does not double its line of credit from the treasury. It goes out of business. The Postal Service plays by different rules. When volume falls, it does not cut headcount, it adds. We've added over a hundred and twenty thousand employees. It's the opposite of what you do. When a private partner can do the work for less, you pull the work in-house. Instead, you've been pulling the work in-house at a higher cost. When a capital project fails, the post office keeps writing checks. And when the bill comes due, the post office doesn't answer, hasn't answered. It comes to Congress asking for a higher credit limit and calls it reform. That's the heart of the problem. The post office has been protected from the hard choices that would stop So the bleeding never stops. Look at the record. We were told that the twenty twenty-two reform law, which shifted a hundred and seven billion dollars away from the Post Office would pull the Postal Service out of the hole. We were told that the delivering for America plan would modernize the network and restore solvency. We were told this time it would be different. It was not. Since those promises, the Post Office has lost another twenty-six billion, and it is spending money it does not have on infrastructure it may not need. Since two thousand and seven the postal service has lost more than a hundred and seventeen billion dollars nine billion dollars in the last year. Before anyone calls those losses uncontrollable its own numbers say otherwise. It has roughly eighteen billion in controllable losses since two thousand and seven, three billion just last year. This is not a rough patch, that is a broken business model. The Postal Service has already maxed out all fifteen billion dollars it can borrow from the treasury. The Postmaster General warns it could run out of cash as soon as September, if it continues to meet all statutory obligations. So the question is not whether the Post Office needs more money. The question is whether Congress will keep rewarding failure without requiring change. This is a business built for a country that no longer exists, and it refuses to adjust to the one that does. First class mail is down thirty four percent since two thousand and fourteen. Over the same period, the post office grew its career workforce by nine percent. That makes no sense. Volume down by a third, headcount up. No private business would do that. Labor is about eighty percent of the postal service costs costs. At UPS, also unionized, it's closer to sixty percent. So the difference is not the union. The difference is whether management will adjust to reality. Instead of adjusting, it made things worse. Since two thousand and twenty, even as revenue fell, the Postal Service converted about two hundred and eighty-five thousand workers into career positions, raising their pay and locking in decades of pension and health obligations it has no plan to fund. When a private company's volume falls, it reduces labor costs. When the Postal Service volume fell, it added employees and made them more expensive. This is not reform, this is the opposite of reform. The new Postmaster General did not make all of these decisions, but he controls whether they continue. The fleet electrification, the multi-billion dollar network redesign, the capital projects without a clear return. These are not unavoidable costs. They're expensive choices and Congress deserves to know whether new leadership will continue them. At the very least, the Postmaster General should immediately implement a hiring freeze to get labor costs under control. There are estimates that one point eight billion dollars could be saved in the first year with a hiring freeze. We've had a year and haven't seen anything, any any action in this direction. And while it runs up these costs, the Postal Service will still price its core product below a delivery cost. A stamp is seventy-eight cents heading to eighty-two, still among the cheapest in the developing world. With its dominant products priced below cost, it's no wonder the Postal Service can't break even. That is not a business plan, it is a hidden tax. Before Congress considers another dollar of relief or more borrowing authority the Postal Service should show the committee five things. A real plan to bring labor costs under control. Proof that private partners will be used where they cost less. A commitment to stop capital spending that shows no return. a willingness to consolidate facilities that no longer make sense, and proof the service mandate can be met without permanent losses. And if it cannot, an honest debate about the mandate itself. Anything less is not reform, it is a slower, more expensive way to fail. And as always, the bill will be sent to the American people. Senator Peters.

Thank you uh, Mister Chairman, thank you for uh convening today's uh important hearing. Uh, for more than two hundred and fifty years, the United States Postal Service has uh helped bind our country together. It's connected families, uh it supports uh small businesses, it ensures that Americans nationwide can receive the essential mail and goods, uh no matter where they live. The Postal Service is the only carrier that delivers to every single address in America. That's a feat that for-profit competitors don't even try to meet. For communities across the country, particularly harder to reach rural communities, the Postal Service and its workers provide a an essential public service each and every day. In twenty twenty two, I was proud to lead and pass the bipartisan Postal Services Reform Act, which increased transparency around postal delivery performance, ended overly burdensome retiree health uh care pre-funding requirements, and integrated postal service retirees' health care into Medicare, and codified six day delivery service. However, it's clear that the Postal Service continues to face significant challenges. The Delivering for America plan has not worked. Costs are up, service is down, and customers are paying the price. The plan has not yielded the financial results needed to stabilize the Postal Service's bottom line. Over the past five fiscal years, posted nine point seven billion dollars in controllable losses. Earlier this year, Postmaster General Siner testified in the House that the Postal Service could run out of cash as soon as this year. Since then, the Postal Regulatory Commission gave the Postal Service flexibility on how it spends revenue from its additional rate authority, providing the Postal Service with an additional two point four billion dollars this year. The Postal Service has also temporarily suspended its normal contributions to the employee retirement plans to preserve cash. While the Postal Service, uh, has not provided a formal estimate of exactly when it will exhaust its available funds, it's clear that Congress and the Postal Service must take action to ensure Americans continue receiving mail reliably and affordably for the next two hundred and fifty years. The Postal Service has shared some proposals with Congress that would help put it on stronger financial footing, including investing its pension funds, revising its calculation for its civil service retirement system obligation, as well as raising the borrowing limit. The Postmaster General is also now asking Congress to consider reviving an appropriation for the postal service. These proposals certainly deserve serious review. But any reform must come with real transparency, real accountability, and clear service improvement plans. The Postal Service must also do a better job of ensuring that every employee returns home safely at the end of each day. Last year, Nicholas Acker was tragically killed in an accident at a processing facility in Allen Park, Michigan. That facility was cited by OSHA on its safety standards compliance. And am I urging the Office of Inspector General has now launched a nationwide facility safety audit. I expect the Postal Service to fully cooperate with the audit and double down on its efforts to protect all of its employees when they're on the job. And finally, we can't discuss the future of the Postal Service without addressing the recently published proposed rule on voting by mail, that would enable President Trump to hijack the Postal Service for his own political gain. Postal service is a proud tradition dating all the way back to the Civil War of successfully delivering absentee ballots. In twenty twenty four they securely delivered almost one hundred million ballots. Last year the postal service reaffirmed that its job is simply to transmit the mail and explicitly said they do not administer elections. The President's March executive order directs the Postal Service to create, quote, " new mail-in absentee participation list", which they will use to verify which voters are eligible to receive and cast ballots through the mail. This would give the Postal Service unprecedented authority over American elections and is a unconstitutional subversion of the Postal Service's duty. I'm disappointed that the Postal Service chose to give in to the President's illegal demands by issuing a proposed regulation that risks disenfranchising millions of eligible American voters nation-wide. The Board of Governors did not even vote on these approved changes. Under the proposed rules, states must submit each absentee voter to a new national database, controlled by the Postal Service, and comply with new federal ballot mail-in requirements, or they will be prohibited from using the mail-in voting in their elections. The Postal Service will also conduct undefined ballot verification processes to ensure states meet these new federally imposed standards. Ultimately, the federal government will serve as the final arbiter as to who can actually vote by mail. Yesterday, I led the entire Democratic caucus to once again insist that the Postal Service abandon its effort, uphold the law, and return to its core functions. The Postal Service has one mission, to deliver the mail, no matter who sends it, and no matter where it's going. Mister Steiner, I urge you to abandon these efforts and return the Postal Service to its constitutional role of simply delivering the mail, not acting as a partisan tool for the President. And lastly, I would like to reiterate that the Postal Service must be transparent and responsive to this committee so that we can work collaboratively on the many issues that we face. I hope that today's hearing will be a productive conversation about how we can work together to improve the financial position of the Postal Service and uh protect its ability to deliver for each and every American. Please, Mr. President.

It is the practice of this committee to swear in witnesses, will you please rise and raise your right hand. Do you swear that the testimony you will give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth to help you God. Thank you. You may be seated. David Steiner is the seventy-sixth Postmaster General of the Po of the United States, and Chief Executive Officer of the US Postal Service. He was appointed by the organization's Board of Governors and began his tenure on July fifteenth, twenty twenty five. In his role as Postmaster General, Steiner also serves as a member of the Board of Governors. Steiner is the former CEO of Waste Management, a twenty point four billion dollar waste and environmental services company operating throughout North America, with nearly fifty thousand employees. He was CEO from two thousand and four to two thousand and sixteen. Mister Steiner, you are recognized for your opening statement.

Thank you so much. Good morning, Chairman Paul, Ranking Member Peters, and and Senators of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the future of the postal service. a venerated institution that has driven the growth of these United States for over two hundred and fifty years, longer than the country itself. The title of this hearing is apt. The Postal Service has a broken business model, and we welcome the committee's focus on fixing it. You know, levers available to private sector enterprises and to government agencies are unavailable to the Postal Service. So, For example, first, we're mandated by law to deliver to every address, more than a hundred and seventy million of them, six days a week. And there are over a million new stops added every year. This leads to eighty-four percent of city delivery and fifty-two percent of rural delivery routes being financially underwater. Moreover, fifty-eight percent, or eighteen thousand, of our post offices are losing money, incurring over two and a half billion dollars in operating costs. In a normal business model, if seventy percent of routes are losing money, you would adjust the routes. In a normal business model, if sixty percent of the stores you had were losing money, you'd close them. We're not allowed to do either. That is a broken business model. Second, we're not allowed to unilaterally raise prices, and we're required by law to give billions of dollars in discounts to many mailers. Third, we can only invest our retirement assets in US Treasuries. If we were able to invest conservatively in other assets, we could have had nearly one trillion dollars in additional retirement assets. And our retirement plans would be well overfunded rather than underfunded. Fourth, we pay an unfair allocation of CSRS benefits for retirees, that were with the Post Office Department before it became the independent postal service. That costs us about three and a half billion dollars a year. Fifth, we cannot borrow more than fifteen billion dollars due to a statutory limit that was established decades ago that has not been adjusted for earnings or for inflation. Sixth, we're not allowed to manage our workers' compensation claims, costing us anywhere from four hundred to eight hundred million dollars a year. Now, despite all of these operational and accounting restraints, we're taking steps to fight our way back. That includes reducing transportation costs by two billion dollars. We also reduced work hours by fifty-six million hours, equivalent to three billion dollars, and reduced our overall headcount by twenty-eight thousand. We've also made dramatic progress in improving our service scores, recently hitting on-time delivery numbers not seeing in at last, in at least the last five years. This is significant progress, but it's not enough. And we will continue to drive costs and drive service. So, to me the, the choice for Congress is clear. Either remove the mandates that create the unsustainable business model, or compensate the postal service for those money-losing mandates. I will note that Reimbursing the Postal Service for money-losing mandates is not a novel idea. In nineteen seventy-one, Congress foresaw that they would be asking the Postal Service to do things that were guaranteed to lose money. In return, Congress decided to pay the Postal Service four hundred and sixty million dollars a year for those public service mandates. However, this public service reimbursement has not been appropriated since the nineteen eighties. Our preferred proposal is that Congress this public service reimbursement to reflect the true current costs of those mandates, and allocate us those funds. However, we can also achieve profitability if we remove the money losing mandates. But doing so doesn't just affect the postal service, but the entire ecosystem around it. That ecosystem supports two trillion dollars in revenue and eight million jobs. If the Postal Service reduces service and raises prices, that ecosystem suffers. Jobs are lost, and the overall economy suffers. So in closing, I'm here to tell America that we can do anything they desire. But we can't afford to do everything they desire without more help. The Postal Service has been an integral part of the growth of America, subsidizing the growth of steamships, railroads, aviation, and technology. So subsidizing the Post Office has been a spectacular investment for the United States. We believe this economic engine and that investment is worth saving. And we look forward to discussing with you how to best do so. Thank you, Mister Chairman, and now I'll be glad to take some questions.

Thank you for your testimony. We'll now r- proceed to questions. Um, there are things you can control and things you can't control. And the mandates, I frankly would have removed the mandates and and Treat it more like a business. I just removed them completely. Um, even some compromises. You know, you go from six days to five days, you'd let you save three billion. You go to four days, you save three billion. No three billion, that'd be six billion. That's two thirds of your annual debt, just by going to four days. Um, you could let people pay if they wanted six days, they'd pay an extra thirty dollars a month or fifty dollars a month to get it. I think what you'd find is in the marketplace, almost nobody would pay. They'd get used to getting it in four days. But there are things you control. Um, hiring freeze. um hiring freeze uh we see estimates as much as one point eight billion a year and actually cumulative cumulative cost going up higher why no hiring freeze

uh we actually did institute a hiring freeze probably about forty days ago um put out a memo not only with a hiring freeze but a spending freeze

um how does it work to have the postal rates change the the postal regulatory commission does it do you ask them to do things what is the communication between the board of governors and the prc are they completely separate how do rates go up

yeah so um our rates are capped right now um our rates are capped by an inflation factor and then a a a number of stops basically type of fact

right but do you submit something to them saying we're losing money we're below the market rate we have to go up do you submit that to them

well we we yeah we recently so so it limits us as to what type of price increases we can get. Um, we recently filed a petition, and they have undertaken a five-year review. We recently filed a petition that said, allow us to raise prices to meet this this loss gap that we have. Um, that, uh, petition is under is under consideration right now. I would hope that the PRC would, uh, give it full consideration. You know, the the truth is, uh, Mister Chairman, that, um, in my opinion, um the pr c has not put the financial sustainability of the post office first and and they will tell you they have a number of factors that they have to balance i completely agree with that but at a time when we are failing um i think they should give more uh credence to to allowing us to uh do the things that we need to do to to become profitable and they have prevented us from doing a number of those

if some of the numbers were accurate you're telling us you'd would have gone a long way towards uh reducing the nine billion saving two billion in transportation costs saving three billion in hours that kinda goes along with hiring freeze that'd be half of your deficit for the year but i don't i don't uh believe next year's deficit is gonna be half of nine

yeah i mean you know look anyone that um you know i've i've been associated with a number of businesses um ran uh a very large one for a long period of time and and the problem that you've got in any business is that you've got inflation uh in your wage base you have inflation in your supplier base you have a lot of different inflation so what you try to do is to get enough productivity to offset that inflation in your cost base wow uh this year we will offset all but point two percent of our cost uh increases

right

but the problem is in order to make money any business person go to any business school they will tell you get productivity to offset your uh inflation your cost base and then price and volume can drop straight to the bottom line you become profitable.

So, so currently I just wanna be clear, there is a hiring freeze at the post office.

There is.

And raising the price from seventy eight cents to ninety five generates about one point six billion hiring freeze about one point eight billion in the first year goes up over time three billion for each day reduced um you know I I think the hiring freeze could have come earlier but you at least you will start saving some from forty days ago um there are some people reporting that um this really isn't a full hiring freeze. I would like details on exactly what a hiring freeze means to you to make sure it means the same thing to us. I think that when you and I had talked and when we had talked with your staff coming into this, what we really wanted was you to prepare for us, this is where we spend our money, this is where we we could reduce, this I can do on my own, and this I can do with con- Congress's help. that's what i would do if i were in charge i would put out things and say well instead of just complaining about the mandates tell us specifically you know looks like for each one day is three billion dollars and um you know congress needs to address that part of this is congress's fault you know cause they're unrealistic mandates that make it hard for you but the previous postmaster expanded the post office he made the post office bigger the only thing you really can control is you can outsource not insource We have known that since the beginning of time, it's not rocket science. Contractors cost less than the government employees. Eighty percent of your cost is labor. Reducing labor is the only thing you can do. And contractors do it better. I don't care if you outsource ninety eight percent of it and have no post office, and you're a, you're a shell for contracting. Because, it's the only thing you can do, because nothing the post office does is efficient or makes money. So, what I would like, is for you to send us, a more detailed this is the money that comes in this is what we would do this is what happens if the the rate goes up we have sent a letter to the postal uh commission i really think that we ought to consider combining it and just having one just have a board of governors have no postal rate commission just have one commission the people who run it should be setting the prices and there could be a veto power by congress if they didn't wanna do it but the problem is when you vote on prices nobody wants higher prices so everybody wants to please the public and so everybody would always vote for lower prices but then that's why we that's part of the reason why we're here so uh i hope you would least pledge to us that you'll send me a more detailed analysis of what you can do what you can't do because the gist of what i got from you today is we just need to borrow more money and that to me is i think defeatism and not something i'm interested in doing just loaning you more money when you lose nine billion a year and it's not just you it's the mandates But it's also the system and, you know, the hiring freeze should have outed on that day one. I still hear reports that it's not a complete hiring freeze. So we pledge to send us more information on what exactly we need to do to make the Post Office a whole.

Absolutely, absolutely.

All right.

Uh, glad to do it. And, and you know, Senator, um, when I took this job, I took it and had the very narrow focus of how do we make the postal service profitable. As I've gone through this job, I've recognized that you can't look at the postal service in isolation. You have to look at the postal service in the context of this two trillion dollar industry that is, is virtually a hundred percent dependent upon the postal service. And, and so what I'm trying to figure out, and I think what the discussion should be, is how do we do what is best for the American people, and what's best for the American treasury, right? How do we get the most net dollars into the treasury? Um, And I wouldn't have told you this, even three months ago, but I would tell you that today, I think it's worth discussing whether um, having us act as act as an economic engine, a development company if you will, of this two trillion dollar industry that surrounds us, um, if that wouldn't generate more net dollars, generate more net jobs, generate more net service for the American public, then um, then reducing days of service and reducing numbers of post offices. Now again,

you know i think that our

again i'll do it i'll do it either way we can do it either way

you know you

but i think that's the discussion we need to have

you could argue that the egyptians building the pyramids created trillions of dollars in jobs you know um i think it's a false argument cause the money could be spent somewhere else so we could build pyramids we can build the post office bigger and call it oh for every dollar we create another dollar but what you're ignoring is for every dollar you put in the government that dollar would have been spent much more effectively in the profit marketplace senator peters

Postmaster General Steiner, the uh the Postal Service's proposed uh vote by mail rule, published on June second uh at the direction of the uh the President, as I mentioned in my opening comments, I believe should concern every American. Uh this rule marks uh certainly an alarming departure from the Postal Service's uh long-standing tradition of neutrally delivering all types of mail. You get a piece of mail, then address on it, you make sure it gets delivered to that address, is in a timely fashion. You don't ask any other questions. What this basically rule will do is gonna turn the postal service, however, into a ballot verification agency that's gonna would control basically a master database of every American absentee voter. It would also give the postal service new power to determine whose ballots uh get uh delivered. I think the Constitution is clear. Elections are to be administered by the states, not the federal government. We have a tradition of our local communities and states administering these elections. And it can once again, not the federal government. So my question for you is under what legal authority can the Postal Service regulate who and how people can vote by mail?

Uh, yeah, you know, as you as you know, our our regulations are proposed regulations, not final regulations. Um, you know as to the authority i i used to be a lawyer but i was a business lawyer not a constitutional lawyer and so i'd i would have to defer um that to the courts to to to understand the authority

well i think it's clear that in the there's no we're in a constitution there's no federal law uh that the postal service is authorized to create these types of voter databases ballot verification systems or mandatory standards uh it just simply doesn't exist It's hard to interpret a law when it doesn't even exist there, which is what we have. Uh, just because President Trump wants to do this does not make it law, doesn't make it right, doesn't make it constitutional. There there is uh certainly a a massive uh difference between general mail requirements and regulating elections. Routine changes to the postal network can have a a small impact uh on election mail, but this effort is a power grab to swap constitutionally mandated state control for what uh the the president wants. I think it's very clear. So last year, mister steiner, you issued a rule that explicitly said that the postal sor- service has quote, no role uh in administering elections. What has what has changed?

Um, I I don't think anything has changed. You know, uh, senator, I'm not a political person and uh the postal service is not a political organization. We, as you said, i think you quite aptly said, we deliver mail, that's what we do, we deliver mail and um that's what ballots are, ballots are mail, now they are a special kind of mail obviously, they need special care and so years ago we recommended what we call kit six hundred and kit six hundred the fundamental premises of kit six hundred is a unique barcode and a unique envelope um that allows us to move those ballots more efficiently more securely um the that is what our proposed rules uh suggest is that we have unique barcode unique envelope and that is not something that is new that's something that's been being used by states throughout the country on both sides of the political spectrum so california has followed it oregon has followed it arizona has followed it florida has followed it among many other states and so

i don't know who says that

um you know to me um it's not a political question it's it's a question of how do we most efficiently and securely move ballots we've been recommending this for for many years all this does is make it um a requirement

well well certainly uh best practices are are different than having a mandatory requirement uh you can follow best practices to to deliver more efficiently without having control of vast voter rolls and having the ability to have that data. This is basically a backdoor way for the federal government to get voting information that states control under the US Constitution. So yes or no, if if a state refuses to turn their absentee voter list over to the federal government, will the Postal Service still mail their ballots, uh, under this proposal route?

Under our proposed regulation, no. We would tell the state that we need the manifest in order to you know, look, what what we're asking for

So, I mean, that that that's that's the answer you tell no so the proposed rule basically coerces states to conform to these new requirements and hand over their absentee voter rolls or face the consequences of not being able to vote by mail some states that's all they do oregon is completely vote by mail if they say no we control the list the states control the list we're not gonna give it

no and oregon has followed oregon has followed six hundred since the day they started voting by mail

the definition

this is a different issue, this will be a lot different issue. You're telling these states either give the federal government this information, trust the federal government, trust the Trump administration, we'll take good care of these. And if you don't do it, you can't mail absentee ballots. You're gonna make a decision that people cannot vote by mail. That's unacceptable.

Well,

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

all that does, all that does, Senator, is make sure that we match the ballots that a state believes they're sending out, to what actually gets sent out, right? So, all the state gives us is a list of here are the the voters that are supposed to get ballots and here are the ballots. We then compare the two, make sure that that the ballots that are supposed to be sent get sent. You know, if Maryland had followed that, they probably wouldn't be in the problem they're in today. So,

Well

it is a much more efficient, a much more effective way to make sure that states, I would think that states would want the information to ensure that the ballots that they think are sending out or the ballots that are actually being sent out.

Well, uh, they do know what they're dropping mail, they I I think they can understand that. They they think if they put an address with their voter rolls on a piece of mail for a ballot and give it to you, they do expect you're actually gonna deliver it. You don't have to say we want all of your information, we want that information in in our control. You mentioned Maryland, I think there was a printing error. This this regulation wouldn't have done nothing uh to fix what happened uh uh in Maryland. The states c- control their own elections. That's pretty clear in the Constitution. And an effort by this administration to nationalize elections and have the federal government having this information is incredibly dangerous precedent. You can imagine sharing this information with the Department of Homeland Security, and using this these list for a variety of nefarious purposes. We need to protect the integrity of the voting roles. We need to protect the separation of elections. from federal government and ensure that our state and local governments are the one administering their own elections. That's what this is about.

Well, we we are the postal service. All we do is deliver mail. We're trying to deliver it securely, efficiently, and accurately.

Senator Johnson.

Uh, Postmaster General Steiner, welcome to the committee. Uh, thank you for taking on this very thankless task and and and bringing your business acumen to the to the table here. Um, for from my standpoint there's two problems, there's the operational problem, there's the unfunded liability problem. And if there's a root cause to any of this it's because Congress, who has allowed us become thirty nine trillion dollars in debt, tries to micromanage the uh postal service with the mandates, with all kinds of other things. So uh I would agree with President, or with uh Chairman Paul, uh I would love to see you use your, you know, take take, you know, set the the mandates, the congressional uh requirements aside and just use your business acumen and go, this is what we would need to do to make the postal system solvent operationally. Again, the the, I mean this is a business that's been losing revenue, losing volume for years, and this isn't something new. OK, so that's that'd be my request as well, is you know, gi- give us a detailed plan for, forget all the congressional mandates, but what would you do as a business person looking this is a business? let's talk about the unfunded liability. when i became chairman of a of this committee in twenty fifteen got lot of pressure to do postal reform and the post reform always was a taxpayer bailout which would not fix it would not address the operational uh in twenty twenty two we did postal reform and we offload about a hundred and seven billion dollars of the unfunded liability into medicare which by the way is not particularly solvent either um We still have a hundred and sixty six billion dollar unfunded liability, correct?

That's correct.

Um. How many years does somebody have to work in the postal service before they can retire on full full retirement pay?

I don't plan to be here that long, so I never ask that question.

I'm not, I'm not. Do you do not know?

I do not know.

OK, I I think it's pretty short, do you know what it was in your business?

Pardon?

Do you know what it was in uh waste management?

in waste management we had we didn't have a retirement plan we had four oh one k's

ok well anyway be interesting to have that information you know what what is the postal service what is you know average in in private sector cause i i think one of the problems is

i i do believe senator i believe and and uh i may misspeak but i believe you start vesting at five years i'm not sure when you fully vest

but i i'd like to know that cause that that's key information in terms and then compared against the private sector Um. I have to bring this up. I know the house passed a bill, uh, with seventy four additional zip codes. You know, we get requests, you know, city wants your own zip code. Uh, you respond to this committee. I think the, uh, cost of setting that up would be eight hundred million dollars and then ninety million dollars a year when you're hemorrhaging billions of dollars a year. Can you just describe for the committee the the problem in these, I'll call them vanity zip codes.

Sure. And, and, uh, first off i i do believe that we have some alternate type of solutions that we can do other than doing uh their own dedicated zip code and so would love to have our staff speak with um with your staff or or with any of the other uh members of the senate or congress that um that are looking at their own individualized zip code i think we can come up with some other solutions the the problem you know it's interesting cause um you know being the newbie here you would think new zip code pretty simple right Uh, the problem is, every single digit in that zip code means something. And so, um, if you change a digit, what do you have to do? You have to put a receiving facility there to receive that mail, right? And then, as you go through our process, remember a hundred and ten billion pieces every year, call it three hundred and some odd million pieces every single day. Our machines are set up by zip code, so that boxes get transported to zip codes. you start adding zip codes, what do you have to do? you have to start adding more bays and more boxes, not in one plant, but in every plant throughout the united states, that's why you know that eight hundred billion of capital that it would cost to do it sounds like a crazy number, it's not a crazy number because you have to make that change everywhere throughout the system, and so um what we're trying to do is to come up with ways where we can do it without a zip code you know part of the reason why folks want their own zip code have nothing to do with the mail it's because it might give them different insurance rates right let's let's address the underlying problem rather than adding another eight hundred billion dollars of cost to the program

how's that eight hundred billion or million

um i'm sorry eight hundred million

billion that's what i thought so just to underscore we we did a post reform bill in twenty twenty two hundred and seven billion dollars off the American taxpayer it didn't even come close to solving the problem. I think we need to really focus on that. Again, that's that's what I resisted during my chairmanship, now I'm not gonna do until you fix the problem. Hundred seven billion dollars, didn't even touch the problem.

Yeah, and and you know, I think it's, I think that is a perfect example of of how we got where we are, right? The problems that were fixed there were what I call the accounting problems, right? Welfare, retirement, different things like that. They weren't the operational problems that plagued the post office, right? The mandates that I talked about in my opening remarks. And so, that bill took care of a lot of the accounting issues,

Again,

not all of them.

at at the expense of the American taxpayer who

It actually, but it exacerbated the operational problem. How did it do that? It required six day a week delivery. And so, instead of, you know, I what I'm here to say is let's have the discussion on how we holistically look at fixing both the accounting issues and fix the operational issues, because the operational issues have not been addressed in in the prior reform acts. Thank you.

Senator Hassan.

Well, thank you, Mister Chair, and Ranking Member Peters for this hearing, and welcome and it's good to see you, Mister Steiner. Um, as you already discussed with Senator Peters, the Postal Service recently proposed a rule that would allow it to unilaterally block ballots from being sent to certain voters before they, ever have the chance to cast a vote. This un-American plan will inevitably result in some law abiding US citizens not being able to receive the ballots they're entitled to, and reduce citizen participation in our democracy. And in my state of New Hampshire, where people vote absentee only if they are physically unable to be at the polls on election day, and often don't know that that will be the case until kind of the eleventh hour, it means that some eligible voters will be unable to vote in my state. The plan is also blatantly illegal. The Constitution is clear that states are responsible for elections, not the Postal Service. So, I'll join with other colleagues in urging you to immediately withdraw this rule. But even setting aside the merits of the rule and your own views about whether it is legal, I wanna ask a more basic question about the rule of law. If a court tells you to withdraw your rule or to not enforce it, will you follow that court order?

Obviously we've, yes, we follow court orders.

Good, OK, moving on. Um, on-time delivery for first class mail in the New Hampshire region has fallen by more than ten percentage points over the last eight years, and is now more than five percentage points below the Postal Service's own target of eighty-seven percent. That means nearly one in five letters are failing to arrive on time. Prior efforts, including cuts to overtime and moving some mail processing out of New Hampshire, likely have contributed to those delays. As Congress considers options to address the Postal Service's financial deficit, those options will depend on your commitments to meet certain service levels. And I think you laid that out today pretty well. What specific commitments can you make to maintaining on-time delivery in rural areas and how can this committee hold you to them?

Yeah, I mean, you know, we don't wanna maintain uh on-time delivery, we want we want to improve on-time delivery,

Right.

cuz it really is you know, to me that is the calling card of the postal service, right? That is the price of admission that we have. If we can't effectively and efficiently serve our customers, then I I I completely agree with you, you shouldn't uh give us any help. And so, you know, as I've looked at it, um, a big part of what we've got going on is the fact that we don't have end-to-end visibility. And uh, that is sort of what I've called the moonshot. at the postal service now is how do we get end-to-end visibility? Cuz what happens, I won't go into a lot of detail, but what happens is when that box that's going to New Hampshire gets delivered and then a you know it's supposed to go first in first out, and then another hundred boxes get delivered. It gets buried somewhere and lost.