Yesterday the Postmaster General sent a letter to Congress indicating that he has signed an agreement with the General Services Administration and DOGE representatives allowing them to assist the Postal Service in identifying and achieving efficiencies. DeJoy provided a list of some of the issues that DOGE might be able to help with, including miscalculations of retirement obligations, mismanagement of workers comp, and unfair mandates to fund retirement and health care accounts.
In the final item in the list, DeJoy renewed his attacks on the Postal Regulatory Commission. DeJoy calls the PRC “an unnecessary agency that has inflicted over $50 billion in damage to the Postal Service by administering defective pricing models and decades old bureaucratic processes that encumber the Postal Service. They have an anachronistic view of the Postal Service’s current business environment, they have failed to change as the times and the postal economy has changed, and they therefore stand in the way of the timely and necessary changes required to succeed as a self-funded enterprise in a competitive environment-which is what the Postal Service needs to do to survive.”
The PRC immediately responded with a statement of its own: “The Postmaster General’s statements about the Postal Regulatory Commission’s role during the recent mismanagement of USPS are false.”
The statement goes on to explain that “The Commission follows the law to ensure that USPS provides universal service to all Americans, including those in rural and remote locations, and also safeguards fair competition in package markets by preventing the Postal Service from abusing its monopoly position. The price cap the Postmaster General has complained about for years was established by law, not by the Commission.”
The Commission does not mince words: “So far, the Delivering for America Plan (DFA) has wasted that help, losing more money for the Postal Service (a $9.5 billion loss in FY 2024), making USPS less efficient, and collapsing service, especially for rural Americans. On April 1, USPS is planning to amplify that negative impact on rural areas by deliberately slowing mail to thousands of rural communities nationwide.”
The Commission says the DFA’s emphasis on package delivery at the expense of letters “has failed miserably to this point. DFA’s failures have received bipartisan scorn and are documented at www.prc.gov. DFA needs transparency and accountability.”
The feud between DeJoy and the PRC goes back at least to spring 2023, when the PRC began asking questions about the Delivering for America plan as part of a public inquiry docket. DeJoy has previously said the PRC has “actively participated in the destruction of the Postal Service.”
But yesterday’s letter to Congress may represent an escalation in the fight. DeJoy is apparently asking Musk for help in getting rid of the PRC.
That’s how Congressman Gerald E. Connolly interpreted the letter, anyway. Yesterday he issued a statement saying DeJoy’s letter “suggests alarming actions for DOGE to pursue that would easily lead to the privatization and politicization of the Postal Service. This includes DeJoy’s call to gut or even terminate the Postal Regulatory Commission, the independent regulator of the Postal Service created by Congress and responsible for approving rate changes and ensuring appropriate service.”
It’s not clear what Musk can do to help DeJoy get rid of the PRC, but given the reporting that Trump may fire the USPS Board of Governors and move the Postal Service to the Commerce Department, it looks as if the PRC and its Commissioners may also be in danger.
— Steve Hutkins
(Featured photo: PRC hearing on DFA and N2024-1, Dec. 4, 2024)