Delivering for America Act

Delivering for America Act

This bill prohibits the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) from making changes to operations or levels of service from those that were in effect on January 1, 2020, establishes requirements for the processing of election mail, and provides additional funding for the Postal Service Fund.

(Sec. 2) Specifically, the USPS may not, during the period beginning on enactment of this bill and ending on the last day of the COVID-19 (i.e., coronavirus disease 2019) public health emergency or January 31, 2021, whichever is later, implement or approve any change to the operations or the level of service that would reduce service performance or impede prompt, reliable, and efficient services. Such changes include the following:

• changes in the nature of services that will generally affect service on a nationwide basis;
• revisions of service standards;
• closures or consolidations of post offices or facilities or reduction of hours;
• prohibitions or restrictions on the use of overtime or payment of overtime pay to USPS officers or employees;
• changes that would prevent the USPS from meeting its service standards or that would reduce measurements of performance concerning those standards;
• changes that would have the effect of delaying, deferring, or curtailing mail, allowing non-delivery to a delivery route, or increasing the volume of undelivered mail;
• treating election mail as any class of mail other than first-class mail, regardless of whether this requires overtime pay;
• any removal or stoppage of mail sorting machines, other than for routine maintenance;
• removing or eliminating any mail collection box available to the public;
• enacting any rule, policy, or standard the purpose or effect of which would delay delivery of mail to or from a government entity; and
• instituting any hiring freeze.

The USPS shall reverse any initiative or action that is causing delay in processing or delivery or non-delivery of mail.

With regard to election mail specifically, the bill (1) establishes USPS policy to postmark, with imprinted indicia of the date of receipt, all processed election mail; and (2) directs the USPS to ensure that election mail is processed and cleared from any postal facility on the same day it is received. The term election mail means voter registration materials, absentee and other mail-in applications and ballots, and other materials mailed by state or local election officials to individuals registered to vote in the election.

(Sec. 3) The bill appropriates $25 billion as an additional payment to the Postal Service Fund, of which $15 million shall be transferred to the USPS Office of Inspector General.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 8015 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 8015

  To maintain prompt and reliable postal services during the COVID-19 
               health emergency, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            August 11, 2020

  Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney of New York introduced the following bill; 
      which was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Reform

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To maintain prompt and reliable postal services during the COVID-19 
               health emergency, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Delivering for America Act''.

SEC. 2. PROMPT AND RELIABLE POSTAL SERVICES DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC.

    (a) In General.--During the period beginning on the date of 
enactment of this Act and ending on the last day of the COVID-19 public 
health emergency or January 1, 2021, whichever is later, the United 
States Postal Service may not implement or approve any change to the 
operations or the level of service provided by the Postal Service from 
those in effect on January 1, 2020, that would impede prompt, reliable, 
and efficient services, including any of the following actions:
            (1) Any change in the nature of postal services which will 
        generally affect service on a nationwide or substantially 
        nationwide basis.
            (2) Any revision of service standards.
            (3) Any closure or consolidation of any post office or 
        reduction of facility hours.
            (4) Any prohibition on payment of overtime pay to Postal 
        Service officers or employees.
            (5) Any change that would prevent the Postal Service from 
        meeting its service standards or cause a decline in 
        measurements of performance relative to those service 
        standards.
            (6) Any change that would have the effect of delaying mail, 
        allowing for the non-delivery of mail to a delivery route, or 
        increasing the volume of undelivered mail.
    (b) Definition of COVID-19 Public Health Emergency.--In this Act, 
the term ``COVID-19 public health emergency'' means the public health 
emergency declared by the Secretary of Health and Human Services on 
January 27, 2020, with respect to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus.
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