HR 5746 Introduced!
Legislation would return Civil Service overpayments back to the USPS
Just prior to the August recess the House of Representatives successfully marked up NALC supported legislation H.R. 5746. This bill would fairly recalculate the USPS surplus in the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) & would return assets paid for by RATEPAYER and EMPLOYEE contributions to the Postal Service's sub-account in the CSRS.
The bill was passed 8-1 on a roll call vote, California Republican, Brian Bilbray, broke ranks and supported the mark-up. The legislation will now be reported to the full Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Even though this is the first step in a long process to return the funds and address the inequitable cost the USPS has to pay to our future retiree health benefit fund we still must act quickly and gather our co-sponsors for HR 5746.
If your member is one of the remaining 42 California Congressional Representatives that has yet to cosponsor our legislation please write them and ask them to do so today (sample Letter to follow).
Members that still need to cosponsor HR 5746:
HR 5746 Sample Letter
Honorable (Representatives First & Last Name)
United States House of Representatives(Local Street Address)
(City, State, Zip)
(Date)
Dear Congressman ________________:
My name is _______ and I live in (City) . I work as a letter carrier for the United States Postal Service.
I am writing you concerning the plan the Postal Service has been pushing to reduce service to your constituents by eliminating Saturday delivery. Our State’s small businesses, expanding agriculture industry, and senior citizens heavily depend on retaining Saturday delivery for their livelihood. While it is true this plan is facilitated by the recent losses in revenue the Postal Service has been experiencing there is another way to address this crisis.
Recent legislation has been introduced to help ensure the Postal Service be treated in a fair and equitable manner allowing it to overcome the very difficult financial challenges it currently faces. H.R. 5746 would address a decades-old accounting error that led the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to overcharge the Postal Service, by billions of dollars, for payments into the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS). This overcharge, of at least $50- $55 billion, was confirmed this year by reports conducted independently by both the Postal Regulatory Commission and the USPS Office of Inspector General. These reports thus conclude the Postal Service has massively over-funded its pension liabilities and that the surplus funds in the CSRS postal account could be used to meet its obligations to pre-fund its future retiree health benefits – a congressionally mandated obligation.
H.R. 5746 does not repeal or in any way address the legally mandated pre-funding payments into the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefit Fund (PSRHBF), it simply fixes the massive over-funding to the Postal CSRS account and transfers it to the PSRHBF.
As a constituent I am asking your support to help fix the deep financial crisis the Postal Service is experiencing in large part as a result of these miscalculations by cosponsoring H.R. 5746.
Thank you for your consideration of this request. A return response to this letter would be sincerely appreciated.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
(Your Name)
(Your full Mailing Address)
H Res 173 Momentum Grows - USPS Still Pushing Flawed Plan
NALC supported legislation, H Res 173, a bill expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States Postal Service should take all appropriate measures to ensure the continuation of its 6-day mail delivery service, has building momentum due to our lobbying efforts from just 4 cosponsors to 49 in just three short weeks. Eight of these members are from our state.
While this is a great start we need to continue to push this legislation so that we have every House member in California signed on.
PMG Potter has not let up in pushing his ill advised plan to reduce delivery in the near future. He has been giving interviews to the press and even has gone so far as to get approval from the USPS Board of Governors to move to a five-day home delivery schedule. Recently the USPS launched a propaganda website that explains to consumers and businesses the prospective shift to five-day delivery.While all this can be intimidating to our membership it is important to remember that none of this can be done without action by Congress. With H Res 173 we can enlist support from the same Members of Congress Potter needs to enact his plans.
The following 30 members of the House of Representatives are current cosponsors of H Res 173 (as of June 25, 2010):
Joe Baca CD 43
Howard Berman CD 28
Ken Calvert CD 44
Lois Capps CD 23
Dennis Cardoza CD 18
Judy Chu CD 32
Jim Costa CD 20
Susan Davis CD 53
Anna Eshoo CD 14
Sam Farr CD 17
Bob Filner CD 51
John Garamendi CD 10
Jane Harman CD 36
Mike Honda CD 15
Barbara Lee CD 9
Zoe Lofgren CD 16
Jerry McNerney CD 11
Grace Napolitano CD 38
Laura Richardson CD 37
Lucille Roybal-Allard CD 34
Linda Sanchez CD 39
Loretta Sanchez CD 47
Adam Schiff CD 29
Brad Sherman CD 27
Jackie Speier CD 12
Fortney "Pete" Stark CD 13
Mike Thompson CD 1
Maxine Waters CD 35
Diane Watson CD 33
Lynn Woolsey CD 6
Doris Matsui CD 5
If your member is listed above please write them and thank them for their support of continuing six-day delivery and their co-sponsorship of H Res 173.
If your member is not listed above please use the sample letter below as a guide and write them a letter today and ask them co-sponsor H Res 173.
Thank you,
John Beaumont
President
California State Association of Letter Carriers
Sample Letter H Res 173
Honorable (Representatives Name)
United States House of Representatives
(Representatives Local District Office Address)
(Date)
Dear Congressman (or Congresswoman) ______________:
I live in (City) and I am a member of the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch __________ and a constituent of your congressional district.
6-day mail delivery service is an essential service that the American people have relied on since 1912. Reducing mail delivery service to 5 days a week would inevitably cause not only delays in the delivery of mail, but higher postal costs, due to the many hours of additional overtime that the Postal Service would require in order to handle the resulting back-up of mail.
Also, our senior citizens rely heavily upon the steady delivery of mail service 6 days a week. Social Security is the primary or sole source of income for many senior citizens, and any delay in the delivery of their Social Security checks would make it difficult for them to purchase even essential items, such as food and medicine.
Taking into account these items and other serious consequences that would result from reducing mail delivery services I am asking you to please sign on as a cosponsor or H Res 173. This bill, sponsored by Representative Samuel Graves, expresses the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States Postal Service should take all appropriate measures to ensure the continuation of its 6-day mail delivery service.
Thank you for your consideration of this request. A return response to this letter would be sincerely appreciated.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
(Members Name)
(Members Address)