Democratic senators want ‘improvements’ to Postal Service bill (Washington Post)

February 15, 2012

By Ed O’Keefe

Most Senate Democrats are asking for changes to a bill to overhaul the U.S. Postal Service before it comes up for a vote in the coming weeks.

A bill co-sponsored by Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Scott Brown (R-Mass.) has emerged as the leading Senate proposal to confront a series of financial and structural challenges facing the cash-strapped delivery service. It is expected to once again lose billions of dollars this year, mostly due to unique prepayments it must make to fund future worker health benefits.

The bill would permit the end of Saturday mail deliveries and the closure of thousands of post offices and processing centers. It also would overhaul the system’s finances and give it back billions of dollars it’s paid into federal retirement accounts.

But in a letter sent Tuesday, 27 Senate Democrats asked for “significant improvements” to the bill. The same coalition, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), successfully convinced USPS to wait until at least May 15 to begin closing smaller, less utilized post offices across the country.

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