The Affordable Mail Alliance (AMA), a coalition of large and small mailers, Monday called on the Postal Regulatory Commission to dismiss the U.S. Postal Service's “exigent” rate hike proposal filed on July 6, arguing that it violates the cost controls Congress put into law in 2006 with the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act.
Earlier this month, mailer groups blasted this proposal saying it would drive marketers even further away from the mail and questioned its legality (http://directmag.com/mail/news/mailer-usps-rate-hike-0707/index.html).
“Today the Affordable Mail Alliance is joined in an unprecedented unanimity of customers of the postal service opposing this proposal to raise postage rates 10 times the inflation index that they would be allowed to raise rates under current law,” Jerry Cerasale, senior vice president of government affairs at the Direct Marketing Association, a member group of the Alliance, told Direct Newsline.
“We think that this is not legally permissible and that’s what we’re asking the PRC to [rule on],” he continues, noting that only extraordinary and unusual circumstances such as terrorist attacks and major hurricanes would fit the criteria for “exigent.”
Cerasale warned that if this rate request is allowed to stand it would set a bad precedent for the USPS to ask for a rate increase whenever it was in economic difficulties and would have no incentives to control its costs --by reducing its work force and closing facilities, for example-- and would just continue to pass its costs onto its ratepayers.
