Sessions: There are Signs of Progress in Postmaster General’s Plan to Improve Postal Service, More Work to Be Done

WASHINGTON—Subcommittee on Government Operations and the Federal Workforce Chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas) opened today’s subcommittee hearing to examine the Postal Service’s implementation of the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 and the impact of Postmaster General DeJoy’s “Delivering for America Plan.” In his opening remarks, Subcommittee Chairman Sessions expressed support for Postmaster General DeJoy’s ten-year plan to transform and improve the U.S. Postal Service. He also noted that there is still work to be done to ensure an efficient Postal Service for the American people.

Rep. Sessions’ remarks as prepared for delivery appear below.

I welcome you all to this hearing Postmaster General DeJoy to discuss the condition of the Postal Service.

Specifically, we want to understand what progress has been made returning the Postal Service from the brink of insolvency, largely through the Delivering for America plan, an effort to modernize the Postal Service’s business model.

In May 2020, Louis DeJoy became postmaster general.

He inherited a Postal Service that was some 60 days away from running out of cash and an organization in desperate need of modernization.

Since his arrival, Mr. DeJoy has shown himself to be a man of action.

Unlike his predecessors, he developed a plan – Delivering for America – and has stepped forward smartly in implementing it.

He came to this Committee and was pivotal in the development and ultimate passage of the Postal Service Reform Act. 

The PSRA gave him and the Postal Service some breathing room, but its future rests squarely on his shoulders.

I want Mr. DeJoy to succeed.

And I want to do what we can to help him.

But at the same time, it is our duty to perform oversight and monitor the Postal Service’s progress.

The first two years under the Delivering for America plan saw promising results.

But the first two quarters of this year have seen significant losses.

It is important to understand why these happened, and what they mean for the long-term success of Delivering for America.

I appreciate that we are only in the second year of a ten-year plan.

Some of the initiatives are going to take time to implement, and even more time to determine whether they work.

And there will be mistakes, but we have to allow for these as long as corrections are made.

We must also remember the Postal Service is subject to economic and market forces just as any institution is.

The past several years have seen the highest inflation in 40 years, and it would be foolish to assume the Postal Service was, and is, immune to this.

And the market for shipping and mail products may be cooling.

That is not the Postal Service’s fault.

So, we have to properly gauge which factors are in the Postal Service’s control and which are not.

I believe there are signs of progress.

Service performance seems to have stabilized, for example.

But there are many challenges ahead.

There are too many specific topics and issues to list them all, but during this hearing we will have an opportunity to learn more about many of them.

I look forward to Mr. DeJoy’s testimony and the questions from the Members here today.