Senate passes postal reform bill that serves rural newspapers' interests, keeps six-day delivery - Entrepreneur Generations

On Tuesday the Senate passed the Postal Service Reform Act, a $107 billion overhaul of the U.S. Postal Service that serves rural newspapers' interests and could save the agency an estimated $50 billion over the next decade. President Biden is expected to sign it, Gillian Brassil reports for McClatchy. The bill received strong bipartisan support, with many rural Republicans joining Democrats to pass it 79 to 19.

The bill would allow newspapers to mail sample copies to non-subscribers in their home counties at the same rate they pay for delivery to subscribers. The current limit is 10 percent of annual home-county circulation, enacted more than a century ago. The bill would make it 50%, which would only enable more sample-copy subscription appeals but provide total market coverage for advertisers that don't normally advertise in newspapers.

The bill "gives community newspapers a new ability to regain subscribers lost by the past few years of slow mail delivery," said National Newspaper Association Chair Brett Wesner in a press release. "It also offers USPS a new lease on life by relieving debt to the federal government. Now we look forward to a revision of postage rates by both USPS and the Postal Regulatory Commission, which have attempted to retire some of this debt with dramatically higher postage rates."

The bill also "drops a mandate that the U.S. Postal Service prepay its retired employees’ health care benefits and requires future retirees to enroll in Medicare, the federal health insurance program for older people," Brassil reports. "It requires that the U.S. Postal Service stick to a six-day delivery plan. And it allows the agency to partner with state, local and tribal governments to provide services that are not related to mail, including to offer hunting, fishing and drivers licenses. The measure, which takes hold in January 2025, also requires the U.S. Postal Service to heighten transparency over its efficiency and practices with an online dashboard, a study on operational issues and stricter oversight."

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/OaTxSJI Senate passes postal reform bill that serves rural newspapers' interests, keeps six-day delivery - Entrepreneur Generations

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