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Meng Statement On House Vote To Save Postal Service

August 22, 2020

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Rep. Grace Meng (D-Queens), issued the following statement today after she voted yes on the Delivering for America Act, H.R. 8015, which passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 257 to 150.

"Yesterday, Postmaster General DeJoy testified before the Senate and did not commit to putting back the nearly 700 mail-sorting machines that have been removed under his watch. The assurances he provided to the Speaker that he would pause operational changes does nothing to fix the damage he has caused," said Meng. "I have no confidence that Mr. DeJoy merely wants to make improvements to the postal service, especially during a national health crisis. While he did state at the hearing that his top priority is ensuring mail-in ballots are delivered, we must do more to ensure this. Postal Service operations must return to what they were at the beginning of the year. The House-passed Delivering for America Act does this and provides critical funding for its operations. Senator McConnell must pass this bill."

The Delivering for America Act would prohibit the U.S. Postal Service from making any changes to the operations or service levels it had in place on January 1, 2020. Specifically, it would prohibit:

  • Any change that would generally affect service on a nationwide or substantially nationwide basis.
  • Any revision of existing service standards.
  • Closing, consolidating, or reducing the hours of any post office or postal facility.
  • Any prohibition on paying overtime to Postal Service officers or employees.
  • Any change that would prevent the Postal Service from meeting its service standards or cause a decline in measurements of performance relative to those standards.
  • Any change that would have the effect of delaying mail or increasing the volume of undelivered mail.

It would also provide $25 billion in critical funding to the Postal Service.

The measure now heads to the Senate for consideration.

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