The U.S. Postal Service anticipates getting as much as $4 billion to sanitize the mail from exposure to anthrax or other toxic biological agents. But it is less certain of getting a $2 billion to cover business losses that it has incurred since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to CFO Richard Strasser.
And the USPS is not saying what it will do if Congress fails to come through. At a press conference yesterday afternoon, Strasser sidestepped questions about whether the USPS would file another rate case if it does not get the money.
“We’re already in the middle of a rate case,” he said.
Yesterday, Postmaster General Jack Potter asked the Senate Appropriations Committee for two special appropriations to help it survive these two disasters on top of its more than $1 billion deficit that prompted the current rate case. The Senate panel gave the PMG until next Tuesday to give it a final figure for the cost of sanitizing the mail through next June.
The USPS has already started awarding contracts for equipment that would irradiate the mail and kill off the harmful agents and has begun using them in a handful of facilities around the country. But Strasser could not say when these efforts would be deployed nationally or how much it would cost.
“The final cost will depend on the technology we use,” he said.
Gene Del Polito, president of the Association for Postal Commerce felt the USPS would probably get about $2 billion for the cleanup effort and nothing to cover its losses since Sept. 11.
He also wasn’t so sure the USPS wouldn’t file another rate case to cover these costs if Congressional outlays weren’t enough.
“The money’s got to come from somewhere,” he said.
In a related development, a federal judge in New Jersey ordered the temporary closure of the Bellmawr mail distribution and processing center where anthrax was found in one machine and workers mistakenly cleaned another machine.
In his ruling Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Jerome P. Simandle said the processing center should stay shut until an arbitrator decides on the complaints from the South Jersey American Postal Workers Union.
He set another hearing for next Tuesday.
