The U.S. Postal Service has decided to appeal the Postal Regulatory Commission’s Sept.30 denial of its exigent rate hike request, arguing that the Commission misinterpreted the law.
Specifically, the USPS will file a petition before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, seeking a review of the Commission’s interpretation of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) of 2006. That law defined how prices can be set under extraordinary and exceptional or “exigent” circumstances.
The USPS also plans to ask the court to confirm its right to pursue exigent price increases under the PAEA.
When the PRC made its decision, the Commission rejected the postal service’s argument that current economic climate constituted exigent conditions
http://directmag.com/mail/1004-mail-mail/index.html
Overall, the PAEA granted the USPS annual rate increases based on the rate of inflation as defined in the Consumer Price Index. The rate hike request that the PRC turned down would have raised postal rates by an average of 5.6%, well above that rate.
If allowed to stand, the exigent request would have generated about $2.3 billion in revenue for the first nine months of 2011, said the USPS.
