Senate on Tuesday voted on a House-passed a bill intended to reform the United States Postal Service, including adjusting retirement health benefits and adding Medicare requirements to help the agency save roughly $50 billion over the next decade.

The bill passed in an overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion, 79-19, 

What You Need To Know

  • The Senate on Tuesday voted in widely bipartisan fashion on a House-passed bill intended to reform the United States Postal Service

  • Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle came together in order to create the legislation to fix the essential service, which provides millions of Americans with access to prescription drugs as well as allowed voters to cast ballots safely during the COVID-19 pandemic

  • The bill would adjust retirement health benefits and add Medicare requirements to help the agency save roughly $50 billion over the next decade; It would also require the postal service to maintain six-day a week mail deliveries and create an online dashboard which would provide weekly performance data by zip code in an attempt to increase transparency

  • The bill now heads to President Joe Biden's desk for his signature

"SIGNED. SEALED. DELIVERED," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote on Twitter after the vote. "The Senate passed the Postal Service Reform Act!"

The House passed the bill last month in a 342-92 vote, with 120 Republicans joining all Democrats in supporting the measure. Of the 92 no votes, all were Republicans.

The bill now heads to President Joe Biden's desk for his signature.

"After more than a decade of hard work and negotiation, the Postal Service Reform Act is finally on its way to the president's desk," Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. "This will #SaveThePostOffice from financial ruin, and ensure your mail is delivered for decades to come."

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle came together in order to create the legislation to fix the essential service, which provides millions of Americans with access to prescription drugs as well as allowed voters to cast ballots safely during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The Postal Service reform has been years in the making, and I'm very proud to say that it is strongly bipartisan,” New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the chair of the House Oversight Committee, said last month.

A major piece of the bill gets rid of a requirement that the postal service pre-fund its retiree health benefits and would require future retirees to enroll in Medicare. Currently, lawmakers said, about a quarter of retired postal workers don’t enroll in Medicare despite being eligible. 

The bill would also require the postal service to maintain six-day a week mail deliveries and create an online dashboard which would provide weekly performance data by zip code in an attempt to increase transparency.

“Our legislation does not include draconian cuts to service delivery,” Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, a Republican, said. “The bill codifies the 6 day delivery of mail and packages, which provides assurance to business and rural communities alike.”

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called it “a very important bill” last month, despite the relative lack of attention being paid to the matter.

“This is a piece of legislation on one of the most important agencies of government, the most important services to the American people – keeping them in touch, getting them goods and services, and prescription drugs that they need, being able to pay their bills,” Hoyer said in a floor speech before the vote. 

“America will be better,” Hoyer said of the bill last month. “The Postal Service will be better, Postal workers will be better, and the American community that utilizes and relies on the Postal Service will have greater security and greater service.”

Supporters of the legislation say that they hope these changes will make the beleaguered postal service profitable once again. The agency reported a net loss of $4.9 billion for the 2021, though that’s a drop from a net loss of $9.2 billion for 2020. 

That said, officials said that the agency lost $1.3 billion in the first quarter of the fiscal year, more than 3 times the loss during the same period a year earlier. Opponents of the bill say that these losses demonstrate the fact that the postal service needs to undergo a more dramatic overhaul.

“The fact is, they haven’t made a profit since 2006 as they are mandated,” California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa said.