{"id":3092,"date":"2011-11-03T15:58:14","date_gmt":"2011-11-03T20:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=3092"},"modified":"2011-11-03T15:58:14","modified_gmt":"2011-11-03T20:58:14","slug":"senate-postal-quartet-introduce-postal-legislation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2011\/11\/03\/senate-postal-quartet-introduce-postal-legislation\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Postal Quartet Introduce Postal Legislation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"highslide\" onclick=\"return vz.expand(this)\" href=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/NAPUS.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-3093\" title=\"NAPUS\" src=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/NAPUS-150x150.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>National Association of Postmasters<br \/>\nNovember 02, 2011<\/p>\n<p><strong>Senate Postal Quartet Introduce Postal Legislation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Today, key bipartisan members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee introduced S. 1789, the \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.napus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/21st-Century-Postal-Act-2.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">21st Century Postal Service Act of 2011<\/a>.\u201d The bill was introduced by Committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Committee Ranking Republican Susan Collins (R-ME), Postal Subcommittee Chair Tom Carper (D-DE) and Subcommittee Ranking Republican Scott Brown (R-MA). It has been reported that Chairman plans to schedule the bill for a Committee vote Wednesday, November 9.<\/p>\n<p>The Committee released both a short <a href=\"http:\/\/www.napus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Short-Summary-final.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">bill summary<\/a> and a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.napus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Sec-by-sec-Final.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">section-by-section analysis<\/a> of S. 1789. NAPUS is currently reviewing the legislation; however, there are a number of noteworthy provisions that would be of interest to Postmasters, active and retired. Those provisions would:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Transfer the estimated $7 billion Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS) overpayment to the USPS, which may be used to provide a retirement incentive for postal employees<\/li>\n<li>Require postal retirees 65 years old and over to enroll in Medicare Part A (hospitalization) and Part B (doctor charges), and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) would establish a Medigap Plan for Medicare-eligible postal retirees<\/li>\n<li>Restructure the USPS\u2019 retiree health care pre-funding payments<\/li>\n<li>Authorize the USPS to negotiate with postal unions over a postal-only health plan (any one union could veto such a plan)<\/li>\n<li>Require the USPS to consider the impact that alternative retail channels would have on rural communities, and to solicit community input when such changes are proposed<\/li>\n<li>Require the USPS to develop retail service standards that guarantee customers postal access, consistent with current law<\/li>\n<li>Phase-out door mail delivery, and permit 5-day delivery in 2 years<\/li>\n<li>Permit the USPS to offer non-postal products<\/li>\n<li>Overhaul the Workers Compensation Program for ALL federal agencies \u2014 not just the USPS<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This legislation represents the integration of postal legislation pending before the Senate Committee (S. 353 and S. 1010) and a few provisions in HR 2309, the Issa-Ross bill that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee approved last month.<\/p>\n<p>It is important to note that S. 1789 maintains the current statutory protections afforded to rural post offices (e.g., a post office cannot be closed solely for operating at a deficit, and the USPS is required to provide a \u201cmaximum degree of\u201d service to rural areas). Nevertheless, the legislation includes provisions that could harm NAPUS members, including the provision to require Medicare Part B coverage. We will be carefully reviewing the bill and will be sharing our thoughts with the Senate Committee, as well as members of the entire Senate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>National Association of Postmasters November 02, 2011 Senate Postal Quartet Introduce Postal Legislation Today, key bipartisan members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee introduced S. 1789, the \u201c21st Century Postal Service Act of 2011.\u201d The bill was introduced by Committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Committee Ranking Republican Susan Collins (R-ME), Postal Subcommittee [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3092"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3095,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3092\/revisions\/3095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}