The direct mail industry and Congressional plans to reform the U.S. Postal Service have come under fire from the Main Street Coalition for Postal Fairness.
The Washington, DC-based group, representing small and individual mailers, claimed that the postal reform legislation scheduled for reintroduction this week in the House will lead to the subsidization of direct mailers, increase the “ever-growing amount of junk mail in our mailboxes,” and higher mailing costs for consumers.
Legislation sponsored by Rep. John McHugh (R-NY) and cleared by the House postal subcommittee in the last session of Congress should “strengthen consumer protections, increase [the] Postal Rate Commission’s oversight [over the USPS] and eliminate provisions which would allow the USPS to negotiate customized postal rates for megamailers and discriminate against small mailers.”
Blasting both the direct mail/marketing industry and the USPS for supporting a provision in McHugh’s bill that would permit large mailers and postal officials to negotiate private service contracts, John T. Estes, the Coalition’s executive director, alleged that they would be developed “under a cloak of secrecy that runs counter to the postal service’s mandate as a public service monopoly.” The Coalition, he said, wants that provision dropped form the bill.
Referring to, but not identifying public opinion surveys that allegedly determined that most Americans “want less junk mail,” he said it was “vital to all small mailers that Congress give the Postal Rate Commission (PRC) more power to protect them, not allow the postal service to favor its largest mail customers at the expense of first class mailers.” Just what those powers could or should be were not detailed.
While there was no comment from McHugh and postal officials at deadline, most industry representatives like Gene Del Polito, Advertising Mail Marketing Association president, brushed aside the Coalition’s comments, calling them “claptrap.”
Under McHugh’s postal reform legislation, the USPS would be authorized to set many of its rates and service charges; divide its products and services into competitive and noncompetitive; create a private corporation to operate competitive operations. The measure would also increase some of the PRC’s regulatory authority over the USPS.
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