Report: UPS Wants Changes to Postal Service Reform Bill

United Parcel Service is pushing for changes to the United States Postal Service reform bill, the Washington Examiner is reporting.

The bill, currently being deliberated in Congress, would put the postal service in better financial shape, according to the Examiner.

The outlet noted the postal service has lost money every year since 2009. However, it brought in $11 billion in 2020 for delivering packages. The figure was sparked in part by an increase in business as Amazon and retailers sent out packages during the pandemic.

But the Examiner noted UPS is lobbying to make things more difficult for the postal service.

UPS wants Section 202 of the bill removed, according to the Examiner.

The section states: "The Postal Service shall maintain an integrated network for the delivery of market-dominant and competitive products. Delivery shall occur, to the maximum extent practicable, at least six days a week, except during weeks that include a federal holiday."

Postal service spokesman David Partenheimer told the Examiner: "We continue to support the current language of Section 202. As Postmaster General Louis DeJoy expressed in his recent letter to leadership of our Oversight Committees, we understand that the point of Section 202 is to articulate certain basic principles underlying the provision of universal service."

"If Congress wants to codify the six-day delivery requirement as an important element of our universal service obligation, then Congress should also recognize as a matter of sound public policy the equally critical importance of the Postal Service providing both mail and package delivery across an integrated postal delivery network."

John McHugh, a former Republican congressman and current chief of the Package Coalition, noted in a column for the Inside Sources website: "There have been rumors in the past of eliminating service to five days a week or to restrict what the Postal Service can or cannot deliver, so this should be a no-brainer, non-controversial provision for everyone. Except, of course, UPS. UPS,  a competitor of the Postal Service, wants nothing more than to find ways to prevent the Postal Service from creating efficiencies in delivering packages to Americans to give themselves a competitive advantage.

"UPS abhors this provision, the certainty it would provide, and the efficiencies it would maintain for the only package carrier mandated to deliver to Americans in every ZIP code: the Postal Service."

The Examiner noted that UPS argued, in papers filed with the Postal Regulatory Commission, that it "strongly agrees that the Postal Service should have a clearly-stated, distinct mission. However, this mission should be the delivery of hard-copy information — not packages."

Regarding any lobbying efforts to rewrite or kill section 202, UPS spokeswoman Kara Ross would only say that "the provision isn't simple, and there is more to it." 

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