The Senate will reconvene at 3:00 P.M. and will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R.3076, a bill to provide stability to and enhance the services of the United States Postal Service. Key parts of the bill include requiring Postal Service employees to enroll in Medicare, which would cut down on premiums amounting to $22.6 billion over 10 years. Currently, about a quarter of retired postal workers do not enroll in Medicare, even when eligible. Additionally, USPS would no longer be required to pre-fund health benefits for its current and retiring employees, which saves about $27 billion over 10 years, which is where the greatest cost savings for the Postal Service would come. The bill also implements a service-performance transparency tool, which would require USPS to create an online dashboard with data on national- and local-level service to track delivery times. It also mandates at least six days of service per week. The House passed the postal reform bill last week, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) quickly moving to tee up the bill in the Senate. The House subsequently unanimously passed a fix for a clerical error to the bill on Friday, before leaving town for two weeks, but that now needs to be adopted by the Senate and could face snags. Senate Democrats are hoping to make the clerical fix on Monday, but Senator Rick Scott (R-Florida) could block that from happening, because Leader Schumer will try to adopt the fix by unanimous consent, any one senator could object and block him, and Scott is threatening to hold up the bill over an objection to the process.
The House is now in recess until Monday, February 28th, except for committee work days this Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
