McCain steps into USPS debate

Sen. John McCain has joined the push to overhaul the struggling U.S. Postal Service, whose bleak finances have put it on the cusp of default.

The Arizona Republican announced Friday that he was introducing a Senate companion to legislation being pushed by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee.

The Postal Service expects to hit its $15 billion borrowing limit before the end of the current fiscal year, which occurs in a week. The agency expects to lose as much as $10 billion during the fiscal year, and has already said it will not pay a $5.5 billion payment for retiree healthcare that’s due at month’s end.

“Congress can no longer enact temporary fixes that avert financial crisis for only a brief period,” McCain said in a statement. “Congress, the Postal Service, labor unions and the mailing community must be willing to lay everything on the table and make hard choices now to save the Postal Service for the future.”

Issa’s USPS measure, which is also being pushed by Rep. Dennis Ross (R-Fla.), passed an Oversight subcommittee this week and is ready to be considered by the full panel. Supporters say it would help the agency tame labor costs, which account for 80 percent of USPS expenses.

The bill, among other things, creates a new oversight board that would recommend branch closures and other cost-saving moves. It would move USPS away from to-the-door delivery in many cases, increase advertising revenue and allow the agency to move to five-day delivery.

“This is the only postal reform legislation to be introduced in both the House and the Senate,” Ross said in a statement. “The time for talk is over. We need to act now.”

Still, the Republican bill isn’t even the only GOP proposal in Congress to revamp the Post Office.

Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) — both senior members of the Senate Homeland Security panel, which oversees USPS — have introduced their own legislation on the matter.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), the chairman of that panel, signaled early this month that he wanted the panel to mark up a bill that blended those two proposals with a separate reform package from the White House. That administration plan was released this week.

Collins and Carper both would like to give USPS at least some leeway to make its retiree healthcare bill payment with overpayments into federal retirement programs. The stopgap spending measure the House and Senate are bickering over would push off that payment until mid-November.

But Collins opposes allowing the agency to scrap Saturday delivery, while Carper does not.

House Democrats have introduced their own blueprint for giving USPS a hand, which would allow it to, among other steps, push into the check-cashing and facility-leasing fields.