america's cable television companies in 1979. today, we are brought to you by these companies, who provide c-span as a public service. ♪ >> postmaster general louis dejoy told house lawmakers that he would give himself an "a" for performance. some in the committee pressed on him on delays in mail deliveries that continued in the pandemic and the next steps and the role of congress. this is a little more than an hour and a half. half. >> i would like to remind members the chair or staff may mute participants microphones when they are not under recognition for the purpose of eliminating inadvertent background noise. members are responsible for muting themselves and if i noticed you're not unneeded yourselves although i would ask the staff to unmute you and if

you indicate approval we will mute your microphone i remind all members of five-minute clock still applies if there was a technology issue we will move to the next member until the issue is resolved and you retain the balance of your time and try guest able to suggest given the five minutes please try to allocate and i know is difficult and i apologize if you came to the point of recognizing each member has five minutes in the question in as difficult as that we appreciated. you notice the clock that will show how many time is remaining with one minute the clock will turn yellow with 30 seconds remaining bible tapped the gavel to remind it's almost expired when your time is expired will turn red and i will begin to recognize in a member. finally house rules require me too remind you you set up an e-mail address in which members can send anything to submit in

writing at any of our hearings or markups, that has been provided in advance to your staff i'm going to keep this open and very brief so we can have ample time for questions. it should be noted we are glad to welcome an honor to welcome the 75th postmaster general of the united states louis dejoy appointed by the board of governors of the postal service he started his tenure in june 2020 we want to thank you for being here today. the reason i said a special notice it is been nearly 20 years since the u.s. postal service has testified before the subcommittee. that is 20 years of catching up to do. obviously this hearing could not of come into more important time given the vital role of the usps during the pandemic we are glad to have this hearing today. by delivering essential equipment during the pandemic it is literally saved lives by

helping americans maintain social distance limiting the spread of covid in allowing people to vote safely. let me say this louis dejoy we spoke the other day we recognize there's a lot of issues, let this be a hearing where we talk about the issues and solutions in the sense cut to the chase. i have had a thousand postal cases in my district since the beginning of the year end we typically have 500 and year. with that being said i'll tell you i know this committee in congress wants to help, we want to find solutions working with you in here that we restore the effectiveness necessary impossible for the postal service. with that i would refer to wister mont matt with his opening. >> welcome to the committee postmaster to joy over the past year the postal service has faced a lot of challenges

including the coronavirus and its impact on postal employees and their families, significant decline and the significant increase in package volume. shortage an airplane and truck capacity significant winter storms making mail delivery all the more difficult. i will commend the postal service employees for their hard work and commitment to deliver mail regardless of the challenges they face and i've seen it firsthand just the other day after a major snowfall in northwest arkansas i was alerted to traffic coming to my driveway and they're coming through the snow was the u.s. postal service. i gotta hand it to my postmaster or my male deliver jesse who braved the elements to make sure i had service that day and i know it was a complicated route he was running. we are all appreciated the

efforts of these essential workers help americans during these difficult times. there are several areas where the postal service needs improvement delivery standards have declined resulting in holiday gifts after the holidays payment sent in arriving late resulted in fees and interest charge for many americans. challenges for businesses that use the postal service to receive supplies and deliver products. in addition the postal service is not on a sustainable fiscal path while the postal service does not rely on taxpayer dollars to fund most revenues from the sale of postage products and services have not kept up with the cost. since 2007 usps has recorded significant net loss each year including nine-point to billion in 2020. i understand without significant reform to lose 160 billion over the next ten years. the majority bill from this past summer propose providing the

postal service with billions of dollars of taxpayer funds without requiring structural reform. i'm on record as opposing such taxpayer-funded bailouts. i understand you along with the postal service board of governors plan a ten year strategy to get the modest disdain about path is a welcome first step and i look forward to seeing it. the postal service has a great history which began with the condo congress appointed ben franklin as a first postmaster general and i want to work with you chairman quickly and the authorizing committee to ensure postal service becomes financially stable and continues its long history of providing a high level of service and with that i look forward to her q&a and that i yield back the balance of my time. >> thank you mr. ranking member i recognize that chairwoman of the appropriation committee. >> thank you very much for holding this item hearing.

it's been a bustier since united states postal service board of governors selected you mr. dejoy as a 76 postmaster general of the united states pretense in the postal service has frankly become wholly unrecognizable from one to once was under your leadership, on-time delivery for something as simple as a letter to a loved one declined. to just 60% and still not fully recovered. because of covid-19 pandemic americans are now relying on the postal service for everything, medication, food, bills and even livestock. but even as the pandemic was putting an enormous strain on the postal service you in implemented a new rule that led to severe and unnecessary mail delays. we have all heard the stories from our constituents some have been forced to pay interest because their bills were not delivered on time.

small business owners are losing money in the mail and those who are sick or waiting days if not weeks for life-saving medication. my own district and heard from the government three days late and had to get to the da to provide the dosage he needed in order to survive. in a depressed constituent of mine waited 17 days for shipment of medication to go for main street in east haven connecticut to new haven connecticut for miles away. and i heard from a small business owner in milford who is facing financial hardship because hundreds of clients have never arrived so we've since been able to track down the mail, 50 of which were client payments and 30 of which were bills he had to scramble to pay

about 200 pieces of mail are still missing. i want to take a page from my colleague congressman womack said i want to commend our postal workers they know how to deliver the mail, they have been doing it for very long time what happened at the post office is unacceptable and frankly your leadership is the postal service and even after all this hardship you are working on a plan and perhaps even more outrageous yet to provide $10 billion in the cares act to help address the impact of the pandemic and continue to but the health and safety of your employees at risk

it's my understanding that almost 56000 postal employees have tested positive in 170 have died. i am appalled it's time to put in into the delays. restore service and reliability. prioritize the health and the safety of the iraqi people and you do not want to make the postal service better and i do call into question what you took on this job. i am pleased with president biden's decision to nominate three new members of the postal service board of governors late last month and i urge the senate to quickly confirm their appointment ensuring oversight to the damage that i believe your calling and with that i want to say thank you determine quickly into ranking member and

i yield back. >> thank you, madam chairwoman again postmaster general we appreciate you being here today without objection your full written testimony will be entered into the record and with that in mind please summarize your opening statement in five minutes if you could. >> good afternoon chairman quickly, and members of the subcommittee thank you for calling this important hearing the 2022 budget request and also to discuss the actions we are taking to put the organization on firm financial footing to ensure we can fulfill our vital universal service mission and to provide the american people with the service that they expect and deserve in a self-sufficient manner.

it is important to note that in regard to the postal service the independent establishment is by design is self-sustaining we are required to fund the operation and with a few exceptions expectation bill into law is that we will run our business efficiently and in a manner that produces enough revenue to pay her own way. and when congress created u.s. postal service in 1970 and pledged to appropriate funds to pay for the cost of certain subsidized process that has been deemed such as premium for the blind and overseas i viewed this promise is consistent with the mandate that we be

self-sustaining and congress required us to under charge for services or to provide services free for public policy and it makes sense congress should pay for the services or make up the difference. in fiscal year 2022 budget request for these reimbursements which total $330 million in revenue for go on maps. let me place are justified budget request in context. much for comprehensive action must be taken if we have any hope of revitalizing the postal service underage investment under t-mobile sever standards and the lack of operation precision has resulted in a system that does not have adequate resiliency to adjust and adapt to changing circumstances. i expected do not shy away from your own observations and questions about recent service performance in your home

districts. confronting and understated the problems and services in the diagnostic step towards finding solutions. my time is a postal service has been focused on the diagnostic process. i acknowledge our current service performance is unacceptable and the status quo should be acceptable to no one. i also believe the solutions are within reach if we can agree to work together. in that regard, we have developed and will soon announce a plan to revitalize the cook under postal service and ensure financial stability and service excellence. that embraces our public service mentioned in the continuation of six-day delivery. our strategy will be important postal service obvious strength and address are obvious weaknesses. in enable us to continue to meet the needs and expectation of the american people and their universal service mission. the key commitment of the plan will include number one our commitment to six and seven day week delivery service to every

address in the nation. in a key ingredient to our future success. number two a commitment to stabilizing and strengthening our workforce. especially for associates not yet a your position. we want every postal up way to have the tools necessary to enjoy a long-term career with us. number three, a commitment to investing in our network infrastructure including vehicles technology and package to equipment. in the weeks ahead i look forward to sharing more information and engaging in discussions about the strategy of public policymakers, our unions and management association, our employees are stakeholders and with the american people. it's difficult work fix the stomach problems out of flood the postal service pray but those problems can be solved and i see a bright future ahead for the postal service in the publicly served if we have the collective coverage to add. thank you chairman quickly and ranking member womack for the opportunity to testify in support of the filling funding

for our fiscal 22 budget request and i welcome any questions you and the subcommittee may have. >> thank you we will begin with questions. >> let me ask you point-blank, the fact that we have a long period of time are insufficient can we be as specific as possible as is so workforce shortage, through large extent being backed up because the service can handle the dramatic increase in package delivery, is this because air service issues is it because of anything else mechanical, distribution centers, processing equipment of any sort?

to the extent we can be as specific as possible in chicago in as a place out the same way as the rest of the country why are we having wide we have severe problems in the holiday and why are they still playing out. >> thank you, that is a fair question and given the time i address it in a robust manner. our network and financial condition and service have been eroding for years we've been in a bad business model allowed to exist by the congress and buyer regulators in previous management scenes and in some cases they have their own reluctance to take on the challenges that needed to be take on to address the change. our performance owners peak period is a result of an extreme

change in the dynamic of our market meaning packages, significant significant increase in package volume. which from a cubic movement standpoint which is how we go about moving and delivering our service, a tractor-trailer we do not have the air or ground transport or physical distribution capabilities from a space standpoint or equipment standpoint to handle this. there have been extreme delays throughout the whole system starting from the peak period. also we have had historically significant turnover in the pre-career aspects of our

workforce. this year we hired 200,000 people and didn't move the top line number 650,000 employees and inch. many of the career employees who have leads and were in fact had to deal with the growing reach of the pandemic as we moved from march of last year into the end of this year is spread more around the country and we had tremendous more of the value ability and temporary hires, these almost got to the point where the day workers asked to operate our machinery and our plans and they walked in our plans and they see the type of environment that they need to

work in and many turned around and went home. in chicago, detroit and philadelphia we had 750 routes we only had 400 carries to go out on a day. the pandemic of the postal service experience a pandemic like everyone else. and a final thing if we got mail and packages for the most part throughout the nation to our delivery units we delivered over 90% of the time over 97% of the time that the strength of the organization and that's why i'm optimistic of how we go about fixing it. we had days where i deliver 40 million packages in one day and we can only do 30 - yet we had 150 milli- packages in the system because we cannot get it

to the delivery units, they were caught up in plants or trucks and caught up on terminal handling and processes with airports and so forth and with those packages everything we've had at it. >> i appreciate that to my own rose and the bond and the next question by the ranking member mr. womack. >> mail volume down 42%, package volume up 120%. you already spoken how that impacted your organization those are numbers that speak for themselves, maybe i'm asking you to give us a glimpse into your tenure plan and what is it we need to do because coronavirus is cost a lot of people to shop

online i think we train people to shop online i'm not optimistic that the traffic on the mall once upon a time is prodded under probably robust because people are comfortable shopping in pajamas by logging onto the computer. what are you doing and what should we be doing in order to adjust to this change in the mail volume? >> thank you. >> the first thing i would say is that while everybody recognizes the decline in mail volume that has been happening over the last ten years, over 40% and is projected to continue to decline 35 - 40% over the

next ten years we have not adjusted adequately for that change in operating structure. we still have many, many mail sortation genes in our plans. we have transportation that runs 30% utilized to around the country to deliver mail. we have to recognize that and make the changes that are necessary to address that. the second thing the package volume which is or cubic volume moving around the country and as you know the projections are viewed anywhere over the next six years or seven years could double we see consumers ordering smaller things online and getting work consumables and so forth, this time optimistic on how we move forward our carriers reached even during the pandemic

161 million addresses every single day and we do that at a 98 plus% hit rate which is an unbelievable accomplishment and the strength of the organization and you are package delivery volume and we only deliver 35% of the packages that are delivered in the country. we need to reorganize ourselves which is part of what the plan will do to address to adjust the marketplace. and operate our network as a whole. in this plan is about service excellence moving forward and affordable prices, and committed to maintaining six and seven day week week delivery that's invested in organization our plan will have big numbers investing into the organization workforce approaching $40 billion and innovation for growth which we prior to the

pandemic we were losing ground on the package market and it's about becoming self-sustaining and some of that requires legislation that chair when the melania is working on her bill to integrate medicare which is something that is an unfair burden on the organization and we look for everyone's support on that. >> i want to move to the second part of my question and i call it price and delivery model is our price and delivery model right is it up-to-date instance sustainable, maybe i'm not using the right term but a certain amount of cost that goes into getting a package or letter whatever from point a - to point b so speak to that for me. >> we have two types of areas we have competitive pricing which gets reviewed and it's pretty

much in our control we have a market dominant price which is part of the legislation in 2006 and a big part of our problem over the last 14 years this was an experiment which we were frozen in a business model pricing and volume relation of the cost relationships that were established in 2006 subsequent to 2006 mail volume dropped out. american geography expanded where people live, about a million addresses a year end a cost relationships were totally out of whack and we were pretty much price capped the cpi after ten years we were supposed to get a ruling that took four years to study that and we finally got the really last december which addressed a lot of the issues going backwards in terms of recognizing the reduction in math flow but

during that process it led an extreme amount of damage to the organization. >> i am out of time. >> i get it, thank you very much, i yield. >> take you sir. >> i yield to the chairwoman. >> thank you mr. chairwoman, just for the record in 2019 the postal service delivered 800 million packages between thanksgiving and christmas the ability of the postal service to handle packages is well known with what they've done and holiday times in the post office delivery packages to homes than any other shipper in this notion

that packages have to get the process appears to fly in the face of actual data with regards to the post office. i believe there was an attempted assault on the post office service by the previous administration i appreciate the efforts in the hard-working men and women in the postal service to ensure that an unprecedented number of mail-in ballots were delivered on time and increase of $22 million from the 2016 election. however, these efforts rely heavily on extraordinary measures like extra transportation and overtime to handle the search does your plan that you are going to release shortly that a clued changes to allow the postal service to better skills operation of increased use of mail and voting

is a new normal, in a recent report your office of the inspector general said and you are only able to measure service performance of over half of the ballot. what steps are you taking to increase that number and ensure that there is visibility for all balance entered ballots. >> chair i thank you for recognizing our ability to deliver packages we delivered 1.1 million packages this holiday season but there's probably 1.5 million packages which is what resulted in delays with regard to measurement we have processes to measure but this is also part of the election process throughout the state and all 50 states have different rules and regulations

there different types of mail, if you have a barcode on a ballot we can track it. >> if you give me a second i want to abide what the chair is doing in regard to time. what is your plan going to do with regard to allowing the postal service to better scale this operation if as i believe is the case the increase use of mail-in voting and that is the new normal what are you doing to change operation to deal with that. >> we dealt with the mail-in voting that we had last year some 25% of something higher than the 2018 election we had and 99 - 98% very high performance level is about 2% of

our mail during the process and the capacity is going to process election voting is there as i stated throughout the election cycle and the bigger focus we need to have is on the overall operations so it doesn't continue to erode our performance. but any amount of election mail that we have we can handle. >> your own i inspector general said your only able to measure services just over half the ballot. my issue is not what happened in the past but where are you going in the future with your future plan because if you take a look at the commentary you plan to eliminate a tear of first-class mail in an area that is already struggling in a first-class mail to leadership by air fund.

it does not sound to me you need to let us know what you are doing with what have been the delays, the shortfall, et cetera going forward and that's all we want to know. what is going to be different forward and we have in the recent past. >> again i want to stress the fact that we are adequately prepared to handle election mail and if the chair would like to see higher measurement with the report that report in general we need to work with election boards to get a more collaborative methodology to tender to the ballot. we did that quite extensively last year and we continue to do that in the future but i could only measure what is prepared to be measured and if you go to the plan a plane will be

forthcoming. one last thing with regard to service standard change over 80% of w the male will stay especiay today product will remain today's with a adequately prepared with any election going forward. >> will look carefully and support and deal with the recommendation. with that i apologize i overstep my time and i yield my time back. >> neverov a problem. >> thank you. >> thank you mr. chairman we touched on the stuff that i was interested in i'm going to yield back. >> take you mr. chairman, many of the problems usps faces can be back to last summer the chairwoman is correct there is efforts to dismantle the mail sorting missing, cut overtime, restrict deliveries remove blue

mail bob in the name of operational efficiency i have no doubt you will attempt to deny or justify as you have previously but we all seem the reports and my constituents did not experience an increase in efficiency in any way instead they experience delays as well as missing and misdelivered mail and yet you want to try this again you propose more service because doubling down instituting higher in region specific pricing and lower delivery expectation. so i have three questions for you number one americans are clearly relying more than ever on the united states postal service that before the pandemic why are you doubling down on the policies that have led to massive delays in our doubling down on these policies to helpat

create and to help americans receive their mail on time and number three given the severe issues that the postal service is faced then she were a appointed postmaster general can you explain why you thank you are still qualified to hold that position? >> congressman i don't agree thwith the premise that you introduce with the question in regard to the changes i've been plummeted that have caused these issue and as i said earlier the network and the financial condition of the postal service have been eroding substantially and we did have to operate in the pandemic dislike every other operation in the nation. with regard to the changes that we are looking to make and were looking to capitalize onre our

strength and address are obvious weaknesses. >> it is about maintaining six and seven day per week delivery, investing in the organization and spurring innovation to grow. and, importantly with this congress fails to recognize, to be self-sustaining. that is what this board, this management team is trying to address. we suffered almost $10 billion of losses last year. we suffered a most $80 billion in losses over the last seven years. if i paid all my bills, i would be out of money tomorrow. and i'm trying to take this board and myself and this management team, we are trying to take seriously the issues that face us, that we are in a broken business model and changes need to happen. when we roll out our plan i think any reasonable person would understand that challenges

we face but they will also see the optimism of the plan. and why should i stay? because i'm committed to seeing this change. i have the expertise to do so and i have the tenacity and stamina to undergo this type of questioning. so in the tenacity and the stamina to undergo this type of question. >> mr. detroit on december 21st 2020 i wrote a letter asking how you plan to improve delivery standards given the manys concerns that the people in my district in northeastern pennsylvania had shared with me about the meal service, i received your response which stated you are doing everything you could to provide timely and efficient service, that was december, christmas is over the election is over it is now march and things are simply not getting better in northeasternrt

pennsylvania what is it that caused the delays to continue well into march, what is the usps doing to ensure these urdelays are resolved as soon as possible and specifically how are you dealing with staff shortages to ensure there are enough workers to do thee work necessary. >> a fair question throughout the country and in different urban areas we have had absentee issues with regard to carriers but for the most part throughout the nation if mail and packages got to our carriers we delivered overer 90% of the time, we have over 200,000 people in less than a year trying to fill a position, we have converted 10000 people and you said we are not converted people in many, many years.

we are very committed to stabilize the workforce as my number one thing i'm focusing on and i been working with our leader union chip to change the trajectory of our turnover in that area but the rest of the problem is not thehe deliver unit, we have standards that required flying planes, we don't own any planes we are overwhelmed with any aircraft that we are significantly short on aircraft to move volume around. trusting the network is problematic but we also overwhelm that in terms of that capacity. we brought every bit of transportation we could get and it just was not enough with regard to march we were still delivering season volume author january we delivered 1.1 billion pieces up to the end of the year and had significant it took us january to work it down and then

we got hit with the storm i came in one morning in the winter storm was there 71 million addresses impacted in many of our hubs they got down to 20 million in many of our hubs were frozen and we cannot get mail and packages through the network. the problem is bigger than your locality it is a network operation in our network is in bad shape. >> mr. chairman i am no further question for the witness. >> thank you mr. stewart thinks of the chairman and the ranking member in the postmaster general idea of a couple of questions before i do that i would just like to express that i recognize you took on a no normans challenge and perhaps there has been mistakes made along the way i think that's probably true of any of us would take on a

challenge and i think some of the criticism you received today is probably exaggerated and dumbfounded. again i think we cande do bettei hope you can do better i think you're clearly committed to doing better but in my view it's a little bit like signing a captive to the titanic after it to the iceberg and blaming that captain for the damage that took place beforehand the challenge of the postal service is a icgenerational challenge this is something that has been years in the making and it's going to take time to fix it. so once again i want and encourage you to make the forms that are necessary but i feel bad that the criticism you received today i think is dumbfounded and exaggerated. having said that let me ask a couple questions, the first is the ability of someone in china

to create that and i'll be in the worst example because it's so compressed and so easily shipped, the reality many times hithat is shipped to the postal service. in fact the primary vehicle for the deadly drugs that have been brought into the country. and i would like you to address how and what you've done already and how you intend to address in the future. >> sorry toer interrupt can you turn your camera on for house rules. >> i am a camera on as far as i can tell. it says my camera is on. >> always see username. anyway please continue. >> mine says if you want me too stop maybe i'm happy to do that. >> were on. >> i don't know it's going on

i'm going to continue. >> go ahead. >> talk to me how you will stop the personnel from them coming in and very briefly address in your plan how you will protect rural postal service it's important to my district into the west and parts of the country and we have to sure constituents that their rural service will not bee interrupte. >> thank you for your question i'll start with the second one first with regard to rural americans and as i said i am committed through six and seven day a week delivery to every address in america, and our board is committed this is a strong position that we are taking in our ten year plan and as you know when the pandemic hit we saw many of the areas were not delivered to many

private enterprises and that's with the essence of the postal service was founded around trying to serveer every american with regard to that our plan stays committed to six and seven day permitted under delivery the stop act and senator portman, the state department and everybody on the stop act and have been monitoring the traffic coming in of our inspection services and monitoring traffic coming in from overseas and quite frankly i has come down from china i don't remember all the specific numbers i get briefings every month most of the volume is coming in and one

that is coming into the southern border and through the mail but we are very close we extended the stop act that was supposed to be implemented at the end of gthe year that got pushed out o march 31 or government initiative that is going on and were very close to having ali sampling plan and identification plan and a compliance measurement system to really address a foreign entry into the mail system we still have domestic issues that we have to confront. >> my time is expired and hopefully we will concentrate on that is clearly important to our culture and society that we not have access and again, the rural communities depend on you and i

apologize if my videos not working. >> thank you we moved to mr. spokane. >> thank you, mr. chairman we appreciate it and mr. postmaster for being with us, what was your first day on the job? >> july 15 of 16. >> about 8 - 9 months under your belt? >> yes, sir. >> what grade would you give your performance. >> i don't give grades. >> go ahead and try. >> i don't want to. >> why don't you give me. >> i'm not going to give myself a grade. >> re: satisfactory questioning. >> would you save done a satisfactory job? >> we are getting feedback.

>> mr. postmaster general. >> i'm sorry i did not hear the question. >> i was trying to ask the performance that you have done. >> what's the grade spectrum. >> a, b, c, d, e, f. >> i would give a for the planning and effort and as i did my last testimony as a congress leader of the organization i take responsibility for how we have delivered during the season and i apologize to the american public and my apology was not just on behalf of -- on the regulatory board and this congress. >> i would like to reclaim my time.

>> i'm looking at the inspector general report in your performance they said that you communicated which resulted in confusion inconsistent application off operational changes, they said you implemented changes without study or analysis of the impact of changes, they looked at performance of first-class postage delivered and went down to below 80% in first class packages and priority all declined in performance when there was a court order theyy asked you to rollback the changes, we actually improve the delivery times on the changes that you made from dismantling equipment to not paying overtime to not hiring the adequate amount of people in holiday season in your structure and more. let me ask two questions. the first one do you really think that that is excellent service for

the first question in the second question let me ask you about wisconsin fortunately my numbers were worse than the national number so wisconsin are first-class mail delivery dropped to a low of 63.69% the week of december 19 and outside of some challenges from the holiday the week of september 19 it was 77% while the national rate was 84%. first question do you thank you deserve an excellent grade and second are there specific problems causing delays innd wisconsin and what are you doing to addresses? >> i'll take the second one there are specific things that are affecting what's been delivered in wisconsin and delivered around the rest of f e nation i cannot get my mail, i have more mail than i have ability to transport throughout the nation. i have more mail and packages

that i have the ability to process. as we were coming off the volume we had a storm, that is the majority -- >> if i interrupt we took the storms in wisconsin wee had them with the haircuts i thank you know what i'm talking about timeline wise it's been a while -- >> the situation is new about having bad mail service? >> under your leadership as the performance has unfortunately increased in wisconsin i knowf you've taken in some of this happened prior to taking the outside of the state but it was pretty clear that our rates areu pretty awful your grade a service why is this having a bad impact to wisconsin? >> first of all i disagree with

how you interpreted and what the oig report says. many of these things as we move into collection boxes and removing sorting machines which were 30% underutilized even thee collection boxes there were regional and local practices that enable thosesee things to happen in a been going on for many years before i got here and it was incorrectly associated with my directive and i had no impact on mail delivery so it focused on the wrong things. the thing that i did do was try to get the trucks to run on time. seven area vps they put together a plan to run the trucks on time, it failed they eventually recovered after two or three weeks and hadit nothing to do wh federal orders, judge orders and so forth so your putting together a whole bunch of

activities which the postal service doesn't government we have 600,161,000,000 addresses a day in your conflating a lot of things to come to my grade. >> i appreciate that let me move on. >> thank you mr. chairman postmaster dejoy in northern ohio according to your statistics is the third worst in the country of the third quarter of last year i understand you had problems and i understand what you're saying but of the problem with it being christmas time the local tvv station was showing truck with the main post office mail on top of each of

the problem with workers in whatever and receiving those delays i know you're working on a tenure system trying to get the strategy and maybe the problems are hearing here today would you enlighten us on what the tenure strategy looks like? >> the plann focuses on service reliability at affordable prices and it maintains six and seven day week delivery as we backup from that we had significant issues in the alignment of our network most of our network is built out the service mail and we have increasing package business in a package business that we think we know will continue to grow in the american

people have shown through the pandemic that they like to use the united states postal service for package delivery we have a significant alignment to make and how we run our network because i'm optimistic it is doable but we have to make change, if we don't make changes will continue the pandemic and the service impact that a we had over the last several months are few of what's tof come if we don't make change we could be running trucks around the country with ten pieces of mail and continue to package business of road as it was doing before the pandemic. we need to make some big changes involved investments in larger facilities and new equipment and new package flotation equipment it doesn't involve a serviced interchange so the service standard that wear have now the

last seven or eight years there not achievable in the current environment we cannot go to california and york and three days without going on planes of part of the business model has been the last leg and you working those packages into the rural area with a cost efficient for ups or fedex to enter the delivery service to go? what is your plan if you're trying to condense the system what is your plan for the rural areas and the strategies? >> my plan is committed to the rural areas in the plan withit e density in the private carriers were going after dense areas and leaving the postal service to do in the rural areas.

that's why i get back were onlyv doing 35% of the deliveries in the nation. my plan is about growing in that business and the rural areas myself in this management team are committed to keeping our service into rural america and when we rolled out the plan we will see a big part of this is to attain financial sustainability and have revenue growth to help offset and become self-sustaining which is part of the mission is to things in the legislation that we have we self-sustaining and deliver six days a week and were gonna continue to do that and we think

those are things to be proud of of an organization to be achievable we cannot make another change we can stay where we areta a right now. >> thank you, mr. chairman i yield back at this time. >> thank you mr. lawrence please. >> she is not there. >> ms. torres? >> they can mr. chairman first of all thank you coming before a committee i want to associate my staff with the concerns of my colleagues regarding mail delivery and being unraveling the machines during a time where we needed them the most even though you say that 30% that were not being utilized at 30%

of the time, i want to move on from that and make you more comfortable to address other issues that you are against our committee, our committee is in charge of appropriating the funds that you need in order to operate the post office, i'm going to bring up to issues number one my experiences been a much higher use for the post office and the payments and the checks in the mail they utilize that more because many do not have bank accounts or other means of delivery they don't have set up accounts with other services. my hometown of pomona and city

when i was the mayor of 163,000 population 163,000 people in adjacent city population of about 30000 people and then looking at two cities in the middle class and a low working class community. and on the wing community where i live and post office a smaller community post office was shut downhu completely. the only post office that is left in my community is in a terrible state. we have boxes that are out of service . . . this is the welcome that they get in my community. versus a beautiful post office in an affluent city with 30,000 residents. additionally, the hours of operation are not

torres: with the people there are having to drive 40 miles work. and they don't get home until seven or 8:00 o'clock at a nigh. in the post office is closed. so limited access for them. i am very concerned about that printed and very concerned at the post office denial to clean up this mess. the post office represents the image of the post office represent the federal government. is that the image of this in my community. i like to ask these photos be submitted for the record. secondly, and this question but i do want to put it on the record because i would like to have the h conversation with you moving forward it. and serious concerns about the workplace environment of the santa ana district of the usps which serves much of my district

printed over the years i have spoken to employees voices and concerns about these issues. harassments no place in retaliation for filing complaints they jar. supervisors who are not company trained when they are promoted and instead holding them accountable for retaliating against employees, they are rewarded by giving them promotions. an ongoing issue of managers having relationships, personal relationships with employees. that is unacceptable. it is unacceptable behavior. so what is being done to address this workplace misconduct printed we need proper training and we cannot simply move about in plain transfer them to

another facility for them to continue to harassed or abused other employees. so those are my concerns and want to give you, there's no macho. so i hope there's follow-up and have more conversation about this pretty. >> the point that hugh make are very important ones. and i'm reflective of historical circumstances and something that were very much focus on moving forward. underinvestment in our retail that is something that i'm very mad at this management team are very concerned evan that is our plan. our employee turnover is unacceptable that it is something that has been around for a number of years and something a very committed to working v on. i would love to hear your thoughts going forward and we can set up a phone call or

something. i think you will see were pretty aligned on trying to make it proven to the organization. torres: i understand it these are sensitive concerns that i have but my roll here is to support a budget request moving forward in on any other record that i cannot do that given the circumstances that i've experienced. i yelled back. dejoy: if i could just add to that, just one thing and hopefully you will reconsider. the other reason for the situation and we are in the loss was $10 billion last year, $8 million the year before and on and on and on with any unfunded mandates that are put on us by congress, any limitations upon us by congress. in a regulatory board so i would

ask thatt you reconsider this is a small amount of money here the blind and for overseas and i understand all of your concerns. i can assure you that we are trying to address number you have all the money away from us is really not going to help. >> i do need to go forward. ms. lawrence is now recognized pretty. >> thank you. it is my understanding that the united states postal service announced the following organizational changes last week and your consolidating 67 district into 5000 district territories it will be aligned with state boundaries. the district will align with the communities of postal service and providing similar boundaries

employees and customers. it goes on and on. your previous and your predecessor meantime she had a plan to change and reorganize the postal service. she give a briefing to the oversights which you knoww i'm on, which gives oversight and improving the operational issues with the postal service. you have denied us that. and he continues to question your leadership because you are new to the postal service. but you're doing this massive organizational changes. and what that feels like because i was a postal service of 30 years printed when you reorganize at that scale, you're literally flowing down operations every was trying to figure out who's on first you gotta go through whole selection process for new people and you do this on top of you already

being challenged but not figuring out why you continue on the service issues., i disagree with you we never had the service issues that we are sing. i work for therv postal service have never seen trust backup for miles to get into the facility and the responsibility of all of these things that you mentioned us on your shoulders i would give you a grace period in our be very clear about this if you wanted to correct your problems with retention, so that you can have a stable workforce before you going in and turning everything up. you know you hit hard because in the middle off the election and in a pandemic, you knew were taking out boxes and you are changing overtime policies all these things. the entire country responded to

that and said what are you doing because unlike the congress on the postal service is over 90 percent approval rating. this because of postal service has every american and seven days a week. they trust the delivery and now i get calls any of the gotten them to fully literally delivered mail but once or twice a week to a community. and for them, that is unsettling. that is not the norm. at a minimum of a mr. postmaster general, the courtesy and respect of the organizational ststructure to come into the postal service and to the united states congress to give a briefing and not subject us to sitting at home and reading and crafts conferences are sing it on tv. because right now, were all talking to you about her

challenges their communities in this country and all you say is noi have a plan. no one here knows what it is and can you tell me in my time that is left, where is the analysis of your changes that will have or we are ready have this issue and turnover on morale and on sustaining deliveries. and while you're redrawing the lines of talking about trust in our vehicles and while your restructuring these lines, because every time you change and you know this, every time you change a process or a truck to deliver mail to a facility, you have built-in the miss deliveries is you have to connect all of those boundaries the talked about. you have to change processes with an the plan to allow that

dispatch to meet the delivery of the truck. and i have not gotten anything like that from you. an analysis of this committee and at the responsibility of appropriating funds in our government oversight for the postal service. so i will ask that question. i am going to use all the power have to require you to stop doing press releases on massive changes into at least give the united states congress the courtesy of knowing your plan. dejoy: congresswoman, you are well known and respected within the postal service for your career and your position today. but honestly, the postal service

of today and the condition we are in is not the postal service of 2008 when you retire to. it's really are in a dire financial crisis. and we are not positioned to serve the market . [inaudible]. [inaudible]. sue and i not hear you. i am sorry. >> i am not naïve. i came to congress and i had responsibilities for eight years for the operations of the postal service and i had my thumbprint said please do not apply that i'm ignorant. dejoy: i am not saying that your naïve party to. >> up the responsibilities of hearing the voices of people in the united states cry about the service. dejoy: with regards to the

organizational change, this is been worse since august.ip by the leadership in the organization, they established 30 or people within the organization. the previous organization structure has led to any of the problems that we have today. there's a number of reasons that basically had summary people run 600,000 person organization which created a lot of confusion and lack of priority and inability to implement change. and this is all been worked on through any people throughout the organization has been planned week gave a notice that we were supposed to do to the congress. but the point i am making with 2008 as we do not have another

ten years ahead of us if we don't get moving on change. [inaudible]. i'm sorry. i just have to make sure we try to get to any second round. so i need to move on to the next person. >> thank you mr. chairman. a thank you for having this hearing. and thank you mr. d joy for being here and helping the committee out. thank you louis dejoy. as you may know, represent southern arizona including parts of tucson's american 2011, the postal service moved to consolidate the processing center in tucson. and targeted forta permanent closure. fortunately this closure did not come to fruition. thanks to coordinated effort in tucson. and throughout the state to

demonstrate the value. that said, the facility lost its postmark in 2013 and is been threatened with further consolidation ever cents. further the u.s. postal service has chosen to shift postage from tucson to phoenix and processing and it goes back to tucson. so this seems the whole state relies on phoenix which has led to problems that were exasperated by the pandemic. these problems only get worse as the population in tucson and throughout arizona continues to grow and rapid pace. in my view, it is feasible to forgo in operation in tucson itself. so last week i joined with some of your sinners that are members of our delegation in such a letter about the greater detail

about this issue and it requested to moves to reserve te partial consolidation of cherryville in tucson in light of the problems we identified in our letter. so i have three questions mr. chairman. my first question is will you commit to reframing from further consolidations of cherryville and give serious considerationan to reversing the consolidation that is already occurred. dejoy: congresswoman, no i will not commit to anything but we will and we are very very engaged in evaluating growing in future conditions of population around and how we serve that population. and as you said arizona was a growing state. we plan to get on that and plan

have all of our services we decided to be at 95 percent and willwi appropriately position facilities and transportation and resources to get to that level and t with regards to a specific site and where it is right now, whenever in 2011, we need to get back to you on that. but the big take away from this is if there are equal in need, we will reach them at a high performance level. we need to but we do need to have that expectation of what it is were able to do. because we are losing a lot of money. kirkpatrick: i appreciate your answer. i share the concerns you have. my second question is any partially answered this. will you commit to taking an ovulation growth and when you're

considering service consolidation of closures. dejoy: absolutely, without population growth. we knowwt that we have to go for this people, not just the big part of how we plan to grow. i will say this plan has some $20 billion of growth and it is reaching the changing economy and reaching out to her the people are. with the appropriate services and reliable timeframe. so i suspect based on what i hear and what i know, that they will be in good shape going forward. kirkpatrick: imparted by district is rural i and represet lots of veterans who live in rural areas in arizona. they rely on the postal service to get the medications. any of them live in areas where there's no doctor and you've

just done a very good job for our veterans. i want to applaud you for that. so my third question is, do you think that tucson's postage active phoenix for processing and ship it back to tucson for distribution. dejoy: it may be with the analytics it depends on the traffic flows that we have but the key thing that we want to be committed to his what about service and only making it a 95 percent of the time. and from that, as i said earlier, if we get mail to our carriers, it's going to get there. t 90 percent of the time, it is getting there and the problem in the cost of that the cost of our network. that is costing to do that but his legislative been something we are committed to thend cost f living mail and packages around

and network and running is what drives our cost up. and it may be that that is the solution for getting the mail there. but as you begin to grow as the communities began to grow, that is the key thing. we have failed to evolve over the last ten years. in terms of our strategies. we do incremental things for was happening, more incremental, would be in better shape. we would have to be where we're at right now. i'm sorry. thank you read. >> were going to try to do a third round into my colleague, please try to stick to a three minute question if you could please. so we can get as any people to ask questions as possible. mr. postmaster, very quickly, there's been much talk about your new fleet in the fact there

such a small percentage of electric fleet. youher's limitations as described in terms of the infrastructure to have the charging and so forth. but it seems that we've tied her hands and feet purchase a fleet is really meant for the last hundred years and by the time this fleet will served its purpose very few cars will be operating in the same manner. at the same time, here we are as congress talking about ans infrastructure package and it would seem that before you go forward and block things into a plan and is hard to change, give the communications with this type about how to work together in a sense printed i know that there is an issue between where the vehicles are built, that is not the question here. the question is. [inaudible]. dejoy: i'm very v very glad you

asked me that question pretty think there's a misunderstanding out there. i sent a letter to congress to explain. we are very very excited about having a full fleet to the greatest extent that we can. of an electric fleet and the decision that we are facing, we have a 30 -year-old fleet. we need trucks. the 10 percent was getting us in the position to engage in the electrification of our fleet predict we have a year to decide what the actual volume is. but is about $500 million which we do not have two kickoff the engineering and the plant building for the supporting of the electric fleet printed these drivetrains are convertible. so if we were able to get the funding, we would be able to of

the first 50 percent of electric. but there's a huge infrastructure cost associated with it. >> let me get to the chase free to get what you're saying. good talking about unfolding are plan as well. some of the things that you have supposed enough plan, may alter given your discussions with congress. so this is just one example and were limited on time and i ask you to consider that as you unveil your plan for the future that you take in considerationon some of those assumptions that you might have would be alteredo of congress and the summa we want. were willing to help to avoid that eventuality. wthat's only point. dejoy: and h we would welcome to help with that matter sir. it. >> okay. >> in the interest of time i'm

going to yield my times back and thank postmaster general for his today. thank you. >> thank you and i will move on to mr. cartwright. >> just one question for louis dejoy, the usps has a pre- funding requirement for healthcare and pensions for any years and into the future. it is enacted in 2006. next is eczema and successive members of top management at the postal service have expressed in ways that were not the case which is a burden to know the government related agency faces. it last year in the u.s. house we passed the u.s. ps fairness act which had more than 300 cosponsors including more than five dozen republicans. what is your position on that mr. louis dejoy and is it advisable to pass that and will it help with other problems

printed. dejoy: that's a very important question in the big part of our plan. i have been working with the team here in the leadership to get two things out of legislation and one is integration of medicare and eliminating the pre- funding requirements. a been up to the senate side and on the house i speaking with different members and is very important part is about's $50 million was over the next ten years we help the congress sees this through. it is very important to our future. >> thank you. >> mr. louis dejoy. [inaudible]. >> do you have any other questions. okay. >> thank you.

i just want to make sure that i'm clear on the last part because i l do think we have ths unusual requirement that you have u to have enough pre- fundg health benefits. seventy-five years into the future. i've been a businessperson from a 30 years. ovlongtime businessperson. another federal agency that requires 75 years pre- funding of health benefits and that creates an artificial problem for your agency read sorry you committed to getting a pre- funding of congress will work with you. dejoy: is very important and the steps are important as well. thank you for the opportunity. the most important thing is to requiring immigration of medicare. that is going to be somewhere in ba 30 billion-dollar and that s the first step. in the second step is eliminating the pre- funding requirement which is about $13 billion of the next ten years. anything that you can do y to hp

us with that. the whole organization would really appreciate this and it's a big part of our plan and were working at hard. >> i get here inha a answer, let you know that predict. dejoy: i will take it. >> were very happy that the contract for the vehicles is going to oshkosh wisconsin. they're an excellent provider and were very strongly supportive of that predict soi thank you yield back. >> i yielded back mr. chair printed. >> i'm sorry you broke up for a second. >> yes. [inaudible].

mr. louis dejoy, you said you wanted to work with the postal service to the legislation have an impact on your financial obligation when it comes to funding and pre- funding medicare especially for your employees. that is the point that if you all of a sudden you said pretty combative when you come to these hearings. the one things. that i want to stress you is that you do need to work with congress. the postal service is an agency that are very much aware of. so when you make independent decisions and every member that you talk to has had the succession and cause for office. and he tell us how are not satisfied with the service. we and i have been working very hard to review the financial burdens of the postal service

can be - so your position is that we have no value, you insult the fact were not sitting in the postal service and you've only been there for a few months predict he retired near industry printed from 2018 or whatever you left. to signal you're not qualified with all the experience you had. you are offended it. so me how qualified you think you are saying this each year end. i'm telling of this has to be partnership. and again i will stress, coming for congress in oversight committee into this body to outlier planet. if your plan is one that will work, because what we were told that you going to reduce the delivery standards and raised

the cost of postage and that's unacceptable. but if there is a plan that supports modernization of the postal service, if it's a plan that will help us to keep the workforce, then we can work together. i want to be in this position w can work going to be attacked and see you seem annoyed and a little bit of air arrogant about answering the question predict the postal service is bigger than you and i and a short period of time that you'll be serving in the 30 years that i put into it and i pledge to you today, that my objective start is that when we have a postal service that works for the american citizens and one that we both cane be product. and it will yield back. dejoy: i appreciate those

comments congresswoman and i will work to have further discussion with congress as we move forward with the plan. i am happy to meet with you. and yes, there are times when warily the sessions and a little embarrassed about my behavior. but i would also offer, i have been accused of any things. everything i come in front of the f congress. i am a human being and am trying to do the right thing and i apologize to you if i have offended you in some way. i didn't really mean to. i meant to get my point across because they're very important. to the organization so i look forward to speaking with you again in the future on it detail of our plan and thank you for

your comments. >> i appreciate both of your comments and are very helpful. torres: thank you i want to yield my time to our guest to, we didn't have a alone time for you to address my concerns. i understand and we may not be able to get to them but want to come to you y in case you want o add anything and certainly. [inaudible]. for my home city and the threats to close another spot in ontario that houses the community it makes me very nervous. [inaudible]. dejoy: yes ma'am and i will go back and look at the details of the district. but i will say on all of those cash collection is talking about actually morale which leads to

employee behavior and behaviors and la represents ourselves in our physical assets for communities. this is where the organization is at right now. it's been a long time coming. and i think when we get, our plan is about approving every aspect of that. so there's a tremendous - $40 billion to reinvest in our organization. a great deal of that is in our retail centers. in trying to get a pre- career turnover rate down to under 40 something percent which is where perhaps the situations that you are talking about, where they really begin in happen the most. it might not be in our long-term career employees but we are

basically a two-tier system. and while it should be an apprenticeship that we have long-term success, and we need the structure to the viability printed we can manage debt whole lot better and a i'm going to as we move forward. long term, we are looking at in our interaction with the market people, we are trusting but, i want to be used. what good plans about being used more. and about being modern and reliable, like 95 percent in everything that we say that we do. so i sense your and appreciate your concern in a sense your interest and empathy for that environment. in a promise you and this is

something on the top of her list and plan i look forward to working with you is more insight and specifically on this of what you're talking about. >> thank you. mr. moment, do have any concluding remarks. >> i am finished for the week. >> i completely understand. mr. postmaster general, we want to thank you for being here today. i think you can understand theu passion and interest that this issue has created departed and we do have our moments. but i doo believe there was some connection today and some communication and that's extraordinarily important so we want to thank you for being here and will now conclude today's aryan ask members of the committee to submit remaining question to the record. and respond to these questions in a timely fashion. and with

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