Rep. Issa launches website highlighting GOP push to overhaul Postal Service

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has launched a new website to highlight GOP efforts to overhaul the U.S. Postal Service.

The website details the fiscal problems facing the USPS, which lost roughly $3 billion in the most recently completed quarter, and highlights Issa’s legislation with Rep. Dennis Ross (R-Fla.) to reform the service.

In all, the USPS is on track to run at least an $8 billion deficit for the second consecutive year, and has said it will not be able to make a $5.5 billion prepayment for future retiree benefits that is due at the end of September.

To help battle its financial problems, the Postal Service is looking into laying off a fifth of its workforce, a move that would require congressional approval because of collective-bargaining agreements between the USPS and postal unions. The agency has also announced that as many as 3,700 local offices could be shuttered.

Issa’s new website includes editorials backing his bill with Ross, as well as resources from the Oversight panel’s recent hearings on the USPS.

In addition to the House GOP bill, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and House Democrats all have separate proposals to revamp USPS.

The four pieces of legislation differ on a number of issues, including whether to give the Postal Service the option to scrap Saturday delivery and whether to give the USPS assistance for the scheduled September payment.

Collins and Carper would allow the service to tap into those overpayments to help make the September payment, while the House GOP bill would not.

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