{"id":36224,"date":"2024-09-05T16:39:41","date_gmt":"2024-09-05T21:39:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=36224"},"modified":"2024-09-05T16:39:41","modified_gmt":"2024-09-05T21:39:41","slug":"senator-hoevens-statement-on-usps-decision-to-retain-local-mail-processing-in-bismarck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2024\/09\/05\/senator-hoevens-statement-on-usps-decision-to-retain-local-mail-processing-in-bismarck\/","title":{"rendered":"Senator Hoeven&#8217;s Statement on USPS Decision to Retain Local Mail Processing in Bismarck"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BISMARCK, N.D. \u2013 9\/5\/24 &#8211; Senator John Hoeven today issued the following statement after the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) announced that the Bismarck mail processing facility will retain local originating and destinating processing operations. Hoeven spoke with Postmaster General Louis DeJoy this week to discuss the decision, which follows the USPS roundtable the senator <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hoeven.senate.gov\/news\/news-releases\/hoeven-to-usps-district-leadership-be-transparent-and-collaborate-with-public-to-ensure-timely-mail-service\">organized<\/a>\u00a0in Grand Forks last week. In particular, Hoeven stressed to DeJoy:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The importance of ensuring timely delivery for\u00a0<strong>local newspapers<\/strong>, which will still be handled in Bismarck, rather than being sent to Fargo for processing.<\/li>\n<li>The need for\u00a0<strong>assurances that local mail service will not be negatively impacted<\/strong>\u00a0by any potential changes to mail processing in the state.\n<ul>\n<li>In response to Hoeven\u2019s roundtable, USPS established points of contact for stakeholders, such as developers, county officials and newspapers, to address localized issues.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cThis decision to maintain local mail processing in Bismarck is important progress in our efforts with USPS to ensure timely mail service across the state. However, concerns remain regarding proposed changes that could impact mail service in the Grand Forks region and rural delivery,\u201d said Hoeven. \u201cWith these changes being on hold and under review by the Postal Regulatory Commission until next year, we have the opportunity to provide feedback and raise concerns to USPS. That\u2019s exactly what we did at last week\u2019s roundtable and will continue to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pausing Mail Processing Changes<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Earlier this year, Hoeven successfully worked as part of a bipartisan effort to secure a pause of USPS\u2019s Mail Processing Facility Review (MPFR) implementation, which remains in effect until after January 1, 2025. Hoeven advanced this priority to give the public and local leaders time to review and provide feedback on any potential changes. Following the senator\u2019s efforts, USPS also agreed to open a process with the Postal Regulatory Commission to review the impacts of the proposed MPFR changes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Working to Ensure Timely Mail Service<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In addition, Hoeven is sponsoring legislation to help ensure reliable, timely mail service in North Dakota and across the country. This includes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0The\u00a0<strong>Deliver for Democracy Act<\/strong>, legislation introduced by Senators Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) to help ensure timely delivery of local newspapers by the USPS and limit excessive rate increases.\n<ul>\n<li>In recent years, USPS has consistently raised rates for periodicals under the guise of increased efficiency and improved service. However, local news has yet to receive those benefits and instead continues to face persistent postal delivery delays.<\/li>\n<li>Among other things, the bill would require USPS to either achieve at least a 95% on-time delivery rate for periodicals or an improvement of at least 2 percentage points to unlock its 2% surcharge authority for that class of mail;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0<strong>Postal Delivery Accountability Act<\/strong>, legislation introduced by Senators Tina Smith (D-Minn.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) to improve USPS delivery tracking and accountability systems.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/PEN-NEWS.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-29060 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/PEN-NEWS-300x176.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"176\" srcset=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/PEN-NEWS-300x176.jpg 300w, https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/PEN-NEWS.jpg 478w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BISMARCK, N.D. \u2013 9\/5\/24 &#8211; Senator John Hoeven today issued the following statement after the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) announced that the Bismarck mail processing facility will retain local originating and destinating processing operations. Hoeven spoke with Postmaster General Louis DeJoy this week to discuss the decision, which follows the USPS roundtable the senator organized\u00a0in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36224","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=36224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36225,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36224\/revisions\/36225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}