Mailers were hoping at the last minute Wednesday that the House of Representatives could pass postal reform legislation before the House went out of session.
“I’d say there’s still a 50-50 chance,” said Tony Conway, executive director of the Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers, who noted that negotiations were still taking place as of Wednesday afternoon over several issues in the bill.
Others were less optimistic.
“If it doesn’t happen right now, it’s probably not going to happen,” said Gene Del Polito, president of the Association for Postal Commerce.
According to news reports, House Government Reform Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA) and ranking member Henry Waxman, (D-CA) have drafted a proposal they hope would entice the measure's Senate co-sponsors to sign and try to move later this week.
That proposal would uphold the Senate's version of a postal rate cap for 10 years, when the service would get access to a growing escrow account. Management of that account, which is another major sticking point, would be opened up in 2016 for the postal service to pay unfunded health retirement benefits.
Many in the industry think postal reform proposals—nearly 10 years in the making—effectively died in October when the Republican-controlled Congress went out of session without passing any legislation (Direct Newsline, Oct. 2).
What are postal reform’s chances after January?
Even if the new Democratic Congress comes up with a postal reform bill, President Bush is not likely to sign it into law because it would probably differ too greatly from the current measure, warned Del Polito.
“And he is the President for two more years,” said Del Polito.
So mailers may have to wait until at least 2009 for postal reform.
