Thursday Committee Vote on Postal Bill
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa has scheduled a Thursday morning (October 13) “markup” of HR 2309, the Issa-Ross postal bill. HR 2309 was placed on the committee calendar Friday afternoon.
As referenced in previous posts and in past issues of the eNAPUS Legislative & Political Bulletin, the bill would be extremely harmful to postal operations and its employees, would devastate service to small towns and rural areas, and fails to acknowledge the USPS’ $55 billion to $75 billion Civil Service Retirement System overpayment.
NAPUS anticipates that members of the Committee will propose numerous amendments, in an attempt mitigate the serious damage that the bill could wreak on the mail public if it were to be enacted. Moreover, we expect that one amendment would seek to protect full mail service to rural America. NAPUS is working with key committee members on such an amendment.
In addition, in preparation for this week’s committee markup, a conference call was conducted on Monday evening (Columbus Day) with NAPUS Chapter Legislative Chairs from the states that have Representatives who sit on the Oversight and Government Reform panel. NAPUS members are reminded to contact their Representatives and urge them to oppose HR 2309.
It is expected that the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will markup a postal bill next week. The text of the bill may be President Obama’s proposal to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. See the September 19 issue of the eNAPUS Bulletin for information on the President’s proposal here.