PRC to Put Off Broad Look at USPS Global Activity
The Postal Rate Commission has temporarily shelved an examination of the U.S. Postal Service’s entire global operations–a survey requested by United Parcel Service–so it can focus on preparing its first (and more narrow) report to Congress on the revenue, volume and costs of international mail, which is due by July 1.
Annual reports on the postal service’s international mail operations were ordered by Congress last year when it passed legislation giving the State Department, instead of the USPS, the authority to negotiate international postal agreements.
On Friday, the PRC said because its first report will cover unfamiliar ground, it has to determine what information it needs and the availability of that data from the USPS before it can examine the international operations of the postal service in depth, as requested by United Parcel Service.
To help it determine what information should be in that report, the PRC said it is asking mailers to tell them by Jan. 29 what “international mail products or services they believe should be analyzed in the report” and why.
In mid-December Atlanta-based UPS asked the PRC to examine the postal service’s international operations, saying the results will finally determine whether the USPS is subsidizing “its competitive service offerings, including its competitive international service offerings, with revenues derived from other postal services.”
United Parcel, which competes with the USPS in the domestic and international delivery of packages and documents, has long contended that the USPS uses revenues from first class (letter) mail to subsidize Standard A (formerly third-class advertising) and international mail operations. Postal officials have repeatedly denied the allegation.
A little over a week ago the USPS, which lost $84.7 million since 1995 on 19 products and services, including several relating to international mail, increased its domestic and international rates by an average of 3%, although the cost of sending a two-pound package to Europe by surface parcel post went up 74% to $15.70 from $9 and the price of sending the same package by air to Mexico jumped 54% to $9.98 from $6.50.
