Rate relief for charities and other nonprofit mailers took a step closer to reality Monday with the introduction of the Nonprofit Rate Relief Act by Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA), ranking minority member of the House postal subcommittee.
Fattah’s bill, capping nonprofit Standard A Mail rates at 40% below the U.S. Postal Services’ commercial rates and 5% below its first class, periodicals and Standard B Mail rates for library and educational materials, is identical to one introduced late last week in the Senate.
Senators Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Daniel Akaka (D-HI), chairman and ranking minority leaders, respectively, of the Senate Government Affairs Committee’s federal services subcommittee, co-sponsored the measure (S-2686).
Fattah said that both bills “will lock in the current rate relationship between nonprofit and commercial postage rates and protect all categories of nonprofit mail from future rate shock.”
Neal Denton, executive director of the Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers, said the legislation, which has the support of “a vast majority of the postal community including the USPS, makes technical corrections to the way nonprofit rates are set, locking the current rate-relationship between nonprofit and commercial mailers into law.”
Richard A. Barton, senior vice president of Congressional Matters at the Direct Marketing Association, joined Denton in calling for passage of both bills before the Postal Rate Commission files its recommendations on a proposed postage rate increase with the postal service’s Board of Governors.
The PRC is expected to file its recommendation on the proposed rate hike, averaging 6.4% for commercial rates and nearly 20% for nonprofit rates, in early fall.
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