Dear  Representative (or Senator) _____________

I am writing to you as a post office lessor, who owns a building in______________________ and leases it to the United States Postal Service (the “USPS”).  I am asking for your help in ensuring that the USPS has the resources it needs to carry out its Constitutionally mandated mission to provide universal mail service to every American household.

I am also a member of the Association of United States Postal Lessors, whose members lease more than 10,000 buildings used by the USPS.  Most of these post offices are in small and rural communities, whose residents rely on the USPS now more than ever for their mail and packages.  With statewide and local “stay-at-home” orders and travel restrictions, the USPS provides the only available service that allows families and businesses to send and receive important documents and medical supplies.  The USPS is also the only sure way that Federal, state, and local governments can continue to connect with households to provide government checks, Census forms, ballots for voting, and other materials.  Even commercial delivery companies rely on the Postal Service to provide “last mile” service to their customers in rural areas.  At no time is that service more important than it is now, when retail facilities are shuttered.

In addition, post offices provide small and rural communities a vital link to the rest of their states and the nation as whole.  They are also available to provide vital services for Federal, state, and local government agencies whose offices are often far away and are now closed to the public.  Post offices serve as critical components of the infrastructure of this great nation.

Historically, emergency planners have also recognized the vital role postal facilities play during times of emergencies in the United States, including during the Cold War, after 9/11, and most recently in 2010 through the Presidential Executive Order that helped establish the National Postal Model for the Delivery of Medical Countermeasures.  The latter effort was joint tasking of the Departments of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Defense, and Justice, as well as the USPS.

The USPS has helped to unite our nation since its earliest days, and despite changing technology, the USPS still unites the nation in times of prosperity and in times of crisis.  By giving the USPS additional borrowing authority, you and your colleagues in Congress recognized in the CARES Act the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic creates for the USPS.  Even so, the magnitude of the crisis to the USPS’s operations was not fully understood at the end of last month.  The USPS now estimates that mail volume will decline by more than 50 percent over the last six months of this fiscal year.  Such a decline in volume and the loss of revenue resulting from the decline could severely impact the USPS’s 620,000 employees.  Because the USPS is our nation’s largest employer of men and women who served in uniform, many veterans could bear the brunt of the USPS’s financial challenges.

We support recent proposals for the provision of $25 billion in emergency funding to permit the USPS to bridge its budget gaps and maintain the vital postal network connecting communities across the nation—large and small, urban and rural.  The USPS’s deteriorating financial condition is also a stark reminder that Congress must come together sooner rather than later to once and for all pass comprehensive postal reform legislation that will provide long-term stability for a service that—throughout the history of the United States—has been critical to its growth and prosperity.

Thank you for your continuing leadership through this dark chapter in our nation’s history.  We appreciate your focus on enactment of comprehensive legislation that addresses the needs of all sectors of our economy.  To protect the universal delivery of mail to all corners of the United States and support USPS employees who are at personal risk as they carry out their duties delivering the mail (including medical supplies and ballots for the 2020 election), it is imperative that the USPS is included in the next emergency stimulus bill Congress passes to address the disruption of the U.S. economy caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sincerely,

AUSPL Member