Issa & Cummings - A Duel in the Sun

The House Oversight and Governmental Reform Committee held the hearing on postal reform last week.  Out of this hearing has come two, new postal reform bills.  Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) introduced HR 2748 - The Postal Reform Act of 2013 and Ranking Minority Leader Elijah Cummings (D-MD) introduced HR 2690 - The Innovate to Deliver Act of 2013.

The bills have some similarity in that they both call for creating a Chief innovation Officer for the USPS who would be charged with the responsibility of the development of new products and services.  They both would also permit the Postal Service to develop new sources of revenue by expanding non-postal services such as check-cashing, public internet access and other ideas.

The addition of these two bills now make a total of seven postal reform bills now in the congressional system.  It does seem that Congress is ready to move towards some form of postal reform.  More information will be posted when further details of HR 2748 and HR 2690 are released.

Terry Grant, President OPWU