The Postal Rate Commission Monday rejected a bid by the U.S. Postal Service to either suspend hearings on the Continuity Shippers Association’s challenge to last fall’s change in Bulk Parcel Return Service (BPRS) fees or consolidate it with the recently filed rate case.
In a three-page ruling, the PRC said the “contested issues in this complaint are quite narrow and it appears that these proceedings will be compete before the rate case begins.” Hearings on the postal service’s proposal for a January 2001 rate increase averaging 6.4 percent, are not scheduled to begin until sometime in March.
In addition, the PRC said suspending proceedings in the pending case “would compromise the complaint process and might result in an injustice to the complaint process.”
The CSA, representing hosiery, book, record, audio and videotape continuity mailers, is challenging a postal service rule change that went into effect last Oct. 3 in which the postage-plus-30-cent fee for undeliverable or unwanted machinable Standard A Mail parcels weighing less than one pound was replaced with a flat fee of $1.75.
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