Senate Dem looks into postal regulator's travel

A key Senate Democrat is raising concerns that the head of the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) is engaging in too much world travel.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), who chairs a Senate Homeland Security subcommittee that oversees postal issues, wrote to the PRC’s Ruth Goldway on Wednesday, asking for detailed travel records for both her and the commission’s previous two leaders.

The letter comes after The Washington Post and other media outlets reported that Goldway had brought on more than $70,000 in travel charges since becoming PRC chairwoman in 2009.

The commission is the top regulator for the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service, which loses billions of dollars a year. And as Carper noted in his letter, the PRC gets all of its funding from postal revenue.

“Given the Postal Service’s ongoing financial challenges and the amount of work the commission has on its plate, a significant increase in travel by you — or any member of the commission — raises questions,” Carper wrote to the postal regulator.

For her part, Goldway defended herself in a recent interview with the Post, saying that travel constituted roughly 1 percent of the commission’s $14.3 million budget.

In recent months, Goldway has traveled to Portugal, China, Switzerland and Scotland, but chalked up the increase in international visits to a “confluence of events.”

“I find I learn a tremendous amount when I meet with my colleagues who are involved in postal issues internationally,” Goldway told the newspaper. “It’s an opportunity to hear about their innovations, about the problems, about the dynamics of the international economy.”

Lawmakers in both chambers are currently working to hash out a plan to overhaul postal operations. The postmaster general says that USPS needs to cut $20 billion out of annual expenses by 2015.

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